This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[CumbrianLefty]

Coyne came third in a supposed two horse race, that cannot fail to amuse.

[Blair]

Some of the usual chatter about low turnout has been overtaken by the fact that the result was actually newsworthy- it was bad but the rather depressing thing is that it’s almost an assumption within trade unions now.

[Conservatopia]

Apparently there are more Tories in Unite than the voter turnout.

Not that that's particularly surprising when you think about it.

[CumbrianLefty]

Apparently there are more Tories in Unite than the voter turnout.

Not that that's particularly surprising when you think about it.

Coyne tried to get some of them to vote for him, clearly not terribly successfully.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Apparently there are more Tories in Unite than the voter turnout.

Not that that's particularly surprising when you think about it.

After all, the Tory candidate in the 1981 Warrington by-election was a member of the TGWU...whose reputation was not exactly sparkling outside hard-left circles.

[Blair]

Even 10 years ago it wouldn’t shock me- to give one example the old bank managers union is now part of UNITE.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The important thing to remember is that nearly everyone who joins a union does so because it is in their self-interest as a worker to do so and because that union is the union recognised at their workplace.

[Blair]

Reports in the Mirror that the trigger ballot rules for Labour MPs are set to be made harder to well trigger.

Proposals to make a leadership challenge against Starmer more difficult - the bar was lowered to 22% of MPs under Corbyn - and diluting the trigger ballot process for MPs' reselections, may be on the agenda, but are not yet ironed out.

Ironically both these changes would hurt the Progress part of the Labour Right.

They will one day want to trigger a leadership challenge but only have at best 30 MPs*. Equally the best chances to deselect MPs will be the 2019 intake who weren't selected by the membership & in some cases are not exactly suited for their seats.

I think making the bar 50% of branches is sensible- but honestly why not just make it members at large rather than branches?

I know it's heresy to say but I'm surprised there isn't more of a stink about affiliates having any power in trigger ballots- in some cases the affiliates are literal sock puppets of either the sitting MP, or the parent organisation.

Much like the hilarious leadership nomination rules the current system is a confusing compromise that will one day cause a lot of tears.

[Conservatopia]

Reports in the Mirror that the trigger ballot rules for Labour MPs are set to be made harder to well trigger.

Proposals to make a leadership challenge against Starmer more difficult - the bar was lowered to 22% of MPs under Corbyn - and diluting the trigger ballot process for MPs' reselections, may be on the agenda, but are not yet ironed out.

Ironically both these changes would hurt the Progress part of the Labour Right.

They will one day want to trigger a leadership challenge but only have at best 30 MPs. Equally the best chances to deselect MPs will be the 2019 intake who weren't selected by the membership & in some cases are not exactly suited for their seats.

I think making the bar 50% of branches is sensible- but honestly why not just make it members at large rather than branches?

I know it's heresy to say but I'm surprised there isn't more of a stink about affiliates having any power in trigger ballots- in some cases the affiliates are literal sock puppets of either the sitting MP, or the parent organisation.

Much like the hilarious leadership nomination rules the current system is a confusing compromise that will one day cause a lot of tears.

Just count your blessings that your membership has some measure of power.

[EastAnglianLefty]

The thing about deselections is that nobody falls victim to them without bearing at least some of the blame. Even horrendously polarising figures have successfully fought off challenges when they've actually put the work in. Making it tougher to trigger a reselection mostly just protects the lazy.

[CumbrianLefty]

Trouble is that during the Corbyn years the Labour right lionised some absolutely terrible Labour MPs.

[Blair]

Trouble is that during the Corbyn years the Labour right lionised some absolutely terrible Labour MPs.

Yes and the old system made it impossible to get rid of MPs- they just kept some branches and affiliates under their thumb. Hence how lazy, bigoted and in some cases blatantly dodgy MPs survived the New Labour years.

The MPs who were triggered or came close all had actual reasons beyond ‘they’re not left wing enough’ and by 2019 the rearguard from the Labour right had stopped it actually being a problem.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's something vaguely sweet about the continued obsession all round with DESELECTIONS given how few MPs Labour even has now.

[gerritcole]

labour  needs to go full marxist-socialism to win 2024, voters don't want a labour  pretending to be a tory theyll just vote for the toryy

[Blair]

https://mobile.twitter.com/EnglishRadical/status/1432628764438142977

[Blair]

Imagine the answers today!

[CumbrianLefty]

Seems to be some silliness going on regarding Young Labour and the coming party conference.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Just abolish it.

[EastAnglianLefty]

I'm quite comfortable with the continuing existence of Young Labour, provided anybody on its exec is made forever ineligible to stand for Labour in any internal or external election afterwards.

[Blair]

Is it really labour conference if there’s not a row that everyone has opinions on while not actually knowing anything about said row.

[Blair]

My only feelings on young Labour is that it’s ridiculous that I’m still young enough to be a voting member of it, while equally being older than some Labour MPs.

[Blair]

With these rule changes proposed below its pretty clear that Momentum still lack a plan about how to actually change the Labour Party. 

I like that they have created a ‘stop Keir winning’ rule with a proposal to ban printed campaign leaflets during leadership elections- we’ll end up like the GMB!

They also want impose a funding cap for internal elections (iirc JC was the best funded in 2015) and more bizarrely limit donations to Labour to £5k.

Some of these changes would end up hurting the left- they now want to remove the Shadow Cabinet reps on the NEC but were fine with JC having 3?

https://labourlist.org/2021/09/which-key-rule-changes-are-being-sent-to-labour-conference-2021/?amp&__twitter_impression=true

[CumbrianLefty]

Just abolish it.

YL, or the conference?

[Blair]

I actually agree with this. I thought the article was very disappointing, featured too many of the ‘golden gang’ and really didn’t capture the actual issues facing Labour over the last decade. The quote from Douglas Alexander on Scotland was laughable.

Also seemed devoid of the extra parliamentary left and the other liberation politics- something that’s had a huge impact on Labour since 2010 really.

Would be interested what others thought.

https://mobile.twitter.com/JamesMills1984/status/1433580089258749955

[Pericles]

On the last point, I agree with Starmer that it was impossible for Labour to ever agree to May's deal. Her deal was too hard for Remainers to ever accept, and Labour would have been split the other way and lost a ton of votes to the LibDems and the Greens. May also was not credibly negotiating with Labour-she made no real concessions to them, and even if she agreed on a soft Brexit, the Tory leadership contenders had already said they would tear up any deal she made. Maybe Labour could have gotten away with backing Brexit if she'd tried to meet them in the middle in 2016 or 2017, but it was too late by April 2019. By that point, Labour just had to make the best of its position by taking a strong, credible Remain position (a 'final say' referendum on Boris' deal could have been easier to sell than negotiating their own soft deal that they wouldn't support) and more importantly, having a winning leadership and winning platform outside of Brexit.