This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[YL]

I would leave things until the last minute myself if I was a Labour strategist tbh - just make Corbyn consider if this is *really* what he wants to do (and he will be 75 if this parliament runs its full term)

Corbyn strikes me as very stubborn (and otherwise he wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place) and I also wonder how much the leadership actually wants to do a deal with him.  It’s not as if losing Islington North (and would they?) will keep the Tories in power.

[YL]

Yeah the wisest action would be to get someone like Sam Tarry to stand.

My impression is that one of the leadership's primary aims here is to distance themselves from Corbyn as much as possible, and if that's right I assume they are not particularly interested in doing that sort of deal and would actually rather risk losing the seat, especially as it is far from certain that Corbyn would actually win; see Al's post.

I suppose, though, that if Tarry chooses to go for the nomination it might be quite hard to justify stopping him.

[YL]

An interesting thing about the Labour Party (and one that tends to be missed by a lot of people) is that unless a substantial change in views either around the time of the defection or later has taken place, most MPs who leave the Party either return to it or obviously wish that doing so were possible. The proportion of SDP defectors who returned is higher than widely realized (and would likely have been higher still had more survived into the 1990s), for instance, and then we have cases like Bob Mellish, who (if Tam Dalyell's obituary of him is accurate on this point, and there's no reason to believe otherwise) was incredibly miserable in old age as he wasn't able to face the act of rejoining as he was in the Lords and would have done so otherwise. And we're already seeing that in this case: those that have more-or-less the views they always did and don't face any extra obstacles (and it probably remains the case that being in the Lords is one, as rejoining would entail another physical floor-crossing, but back to a group where not everyone will necessarily be pleased to see you) have either rejoined or are gearing themselves up to doing so, but those for whom defection either crystalized (or was the culmination of a longer period of) a substantial shift in attitudes, obviously, won't.

In some ways I think this is not that surprising: in both the SDP and the Change UK cases many of the people involved had been in Labour for a long time and had presumably been fairly comfortably there for much of their time in the party, so once the reasons which had caused them to leave had gone it's natural that many of them would drift back.

One other point I would make is that I think that the similarity between the Labour Right and the Lib Dems (and before them the Liberals) is not as great as some people in the media seem to think it is.  Of course there's an overlap, and some high profile figures show it, but I think a lot of defectors from Labour in both those waves really didn't fit well in the Lib Dems (and not because they were too left wing).

[YL]

Mass deselections and resignations in Leicester, with one of the deselectees announcing a run as an Independent for the elected Mayor position.

[YL]

They could actually lose control at this rate, having won all but a single seat in 2019.

It turns out that 11 out of 16 sitting Labour councillors within the Leicester East constituency have been deselected.

I suspect this is one of those things where you have to know the areas and the people involved to know exactly what's going on and what the agenda is, though it looks like one of the factors is disloyalty to the elected Mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, or at least supporting the abolition of his position.

[YL]

I know Leicester East ended up being pretty marginal (compared to baseline expectations) last time round, and that was partially/largely attributed to Claudia Webbe being parachuted in from London, and then being... well, Claudia Webbe.

Given the rightward shift amongst Hindu voters, is there a risk that the seat could be in play at the next election, especially if the polls tighten, or a localist candidate runs (a bit like Ashfield in 2019)? Or is this one of those ripples that has major implications for local government, but stays Labour *for now* (like Tower Hamlets).

I suspect it is sufficiently decoupled from national politics to be a relatively plausible (perhaps the most plausible) Tory gain against the trend, but my guess would be that Labour should be OK if they make a competent selection of candidate.  Note that for the most high profile by-election loss (North Evington, where the Greens beat them into third) they did not do this.

[YL]

Two of the Leicester deselectees have joined the Conservative Party.

(Which makes me think that the decision to deselect those two at least was the right one.)

[YL]

Former MP for Kensington Emma Dent Coad has left the Labour Party.  (Although of course she said that she hadn't left the party, the party had left her.)

[YL]

Kim Leadbeater, the MP for Batley & Spen elected in the 2021 by-election (and Jo Cox's sister), has announced that she's intending to stand for the new Spen Valley rather than Dewsbury & Batley.

This is somewhat interesting as Dewsbury & Batley looks much better on paper for Labour; Spen Valley is certainly notionally Conservative.  But she lives in and went to school in Spen Valley, and that is where rather more of her current seat goes; I don't think we yet know how Labour are handling this, but under the 40% rule which they used in the past she wouldn't actually have a claim on Dewsbury & Batley.

Anyway, I think it makes more likely that Labour will win Spen Valley.

[YL]

Shortlist for the Labour candidacy in my seat (Copeland) is out. Though given the substantial changes being made for Cumbria seats in the boundary review, it might have been better to leave them until it formally becomes law in the autumn?

Anyway, six people on it - but not one of the main "local" hopefuls, Joseph Ghayouba.

This is likely to cause a bit of unhappiness.

(I also note that Gillian Troughton is, incredibly, trying yet again)

How are the seats changing?

New Whitehaven & Workington seat formed from most of Copeland plus Workington town.  I assume this is the most attractive seat from a Labour point of view.

South end of Copeland (including where Cumbrian Lefty lives, IIRC) transferred to Barrow.

Westmorland & Lonsdale expands to include the rest of historic Westmorland (i.e. Kirkby Stephen, Appleby area) though not all of new Westmorland, and loses a handful of wards on the southern edge of the county to Morecambe & Lunesdale.

Carlisle takes on the "Border" part of Penrith & the Border.

Everything else becomes a new Penrith & Solway seat, which is in some sense the successor to Workington, though without the town of that name, with Penrith & the Border being abolished.

[YL]

Shortlist for the Labour candidacy in my seat (Copeland) is out. Though given the substantial changes being made for Cumbria seats in the boundary review, it might have been better to leave them until it formally becomes law in the autumn?

Anyway, six people on it - but not one of the main "local" hopefuls, Joseph Ghayouba.

This is likely to cause a bit of unhappiness.

(I also note that Gillian Troughton is, incredibly, trying yet again)

Troughton has pulled out in a bit of a huff (see Michael Crick's Tomorrow's MPs Twitter feed).  This reduces the shortlist to three, Markus Campbell-Savours, son of the former MP and I presume the favourite, Thomas Docherty, former MP for Dunfermline & West Fife, and Josh MacAlister.

[YL]

In some of the least surprising news you'll hear all day, Gerald Jones won the Merthyr Tydfil & Upper Cynon selection.

Though it was quite close, 231 to 215 according to Crick.

[YL]

Is there still a Neath based seat after the changes?

Because the incumbent there is suspended from the PLP.

Yes, Neath & Swansea East.  (The existing Swansea East gives more territory to Swansea Central & North.)  Some of their analysis may not have the best reputation, but Electoral Calculus's summaries of the changes are genuinely useful.

NB I do think it's possible that there will be changes to the proposed Welsh constituencies when the final recommendations are published.

[YL]

How do you view the chances of Labour starting to run candidates in Northern Ireland? It's a bit odd that they're still allied with a nationalist party (SDLP) when Starmer has said he'll actively campaign for maintaining the union if there is a border poll.

There has also been a recent poll showing significant potential support for Labour in both communities if they decided to run.

I tend to think that if the local members want to stand then they should be allowed to.  But I would be wary of that sort of poll of a hypothetical, and the NI Tories' performances aren't exactly a promising precedent.

[YL]

Is there any evidence that Corbyn (Jeremy as opposed to Piers) has any intention of standing in the Mayoral election?

[YL]

Nick Brown, who had been suspended for some time, has today announced that he's retiring at the next election and also resigning his membership of the Labour Party, describing the process against him as a "complete farce".

There are nine MPs elected as Labour currently sitting as Independent (as well as seven elected as Tories, one as Plaid and one as SNP).  Brown isn't the only one where there's a somewhat mysterious and apparently very slow disciplinary process going on.