This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[CumbrianLefty]

McCluskey leaving front line politics must surely help things a little. A lot of the time, it wasn't even what he said as much as how he said it - its as if he read Teddy R's dictum the wrong way round.

[Blair]

He did a video about his book and how he changed British Politics- he did, but his political project both inside and outside of UNITE has been a failure and a rather huge one at that.

His candidates for both jobs lost and as Sharon Graham pointed out his union failed to get support for the biggest UNITE sector- aviation.

[Blair]

Reshuffle klaxon.

Marsha de Cordova has quit as shadow equalities minster- she is a member of the campaign group and backed Keir for Leader. One of his few left wing supporters but had a mixed tenure* and pissed off a lot of LGBT rights activists.

I don’t think I’ve seen her do a broadcast gig for a while.

I expect the thinking will be that the criteria for her replacement will be A.) someone who can handle a difficult brief B.) A women C.) A BAME MP (I dislike the phrase)


* it’s a weird brief; the post is often held with another by Govt Ministers so it’s seen as a minor department (it gets 30 minutes of Parliamentary questions compared to an hour) and involves both racial equality but also LGBT equality. These issues both have very different focuses within Labour and IMO there is an argument to separate the two roles. Some MPs (in my view) are very good on LGBT rights but lukewarm on issues of racial injustice- IMO the opposite was true in this case.

[Blair]

Why would Starmer turn up and start shouting about the closed shop? It’s a policy that has never been seriously proposed in my lifetime!

https://mobile.twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1437815484162920448

[EastAnglianLefty]

Tom Harris mostly exists at this point to disprove the argument that if you were going to design the stupidest nominally Labour commentator you could, it would be Dan Hodges.

John Rentoul, of course, exists because he can only be killed by a wooden stake through the heart.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Also Starmer hardly ever brings up his upbringing (rather obviously because his father was basically Felix from Our Friends in the North and...) and frankly needs to make much more of it.

[Blair]

Also Starmer hardly ever brings up his upbringing (rather obvious because his father was basically Felix from Our Friends in the North and...) and frankly needs to make much more of it.

I first saw him mention his backstory at the NS fringe in 2019 and it was rightly seen as an effort by his people to force him to do so as the pre-amble to his bid. Needs to take a leaf out of Sadiq’s book!

[cp]

Why would Starmer turn up and start shouting about the closed shop? It’s a policy that has never been seriously proposed in my lifetime!

https://mobile.twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1437815484162920448

Well, it ought to be. It's precisely the kind of labour legislation that needs to get considered if working people are ever going to get a real stake in governing again.

In any case, no matter how much of a vicious toad he may be, Harris kind of has a point. Everything Starmer's done to change his 'image' is just a warmed over version of the Kinnock playbook (no surprise considering who advising him). He's not doing anything to throw the Tories off their game or change the overriding dynamic of political discourse. He's playing it cautious, methodical, sensible, lawyerly and will do no better than Kinnock ever did because of it.

[EastAnglianLefty]

It's a speech to the TUC Conference at a time when there is a need to take the tensions out of relations between Labour and the unions and when the Tories are attacking each other more than usual. Why would now be the time to change the dynamic? That's what Labour Conference is for.

[CumbrianLefty]

Starmer actually realising - and agreeing - we need more powerful unions is a big thing if confirmed.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Starmer actually realising - and agreeing - we need more powerful unions is a big thing if confirmed.

Starmer is a master of equivocation. Him not speaking out against a policy does not mean he supports it.

[CumbrianLefty]

Hence the closing words of that post.

[Blair]

Didn’t this happen in reverse with Brexit at every conference?

There were people in Corbyns Labour who wanted a more Democratic Party but they weren’t running the show!

https://mobile.twitter.com/AaronBastani/status/1438529086712918019

[EastAnglianLefty]

Is this even in reverse? I thought the Left won the ballot for the CAC again this year?

Also notable that other motions on a similar topic which stray into fewer other policy areas have made it through. I wouldn't rule out that factional sh**thousery has played a role, because this is the Labour Party, but I also wouldn't rule out a situation where a motion was badly drafted and people are trying to hide this behind factional posturing, because again, this is the Labour Party.

[CumbrianLefty]

Almost certainly right on both counts there.

Though some seem more concerned with the proposed "provisional period for new members" rule.

[Geoffrey Howe]

For once a serious attempt to think about what the phenomenon of the "Red Wall" really is beyond the squawking cries of "culture war": https://on.ft.com/2XxfIuk
It's not cutting-edge original but a refreshing change to the usual. Decent analysis of Johnson's politics too.

[gerritcole]

For once a serious attempt to think about what the phenomenon of the "Red Wall" really is beyond the squawking cries of "culture war": https://on.ft.com/2XxfIuk
It's not cutting-edge original but a refreshing change to the usual. Decent analysis of Johnson's politics too.

Paywall

[CumbrianLefty]

Another prominent Labour figure - left wing MP Kate Osborne - got sent a threatening disciplinary letter from party HQ "in error". And examples are now emerging of "ordinary" members being sent similar stuff, often written in slapdash fashion with scant regard for factual accuracy.

What is actually going on?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I would assume that in general the issue is that the party's disciplinary procedures are (as we all know!) completely broken and that the small number of people who work on these cases are not able to cope particularly well with the volume of complaints. Strange errors, misidentifications and so on have been periodically complained about by people on the wrong end of such letters for as long as I can remember.* It's a little stranger when relatively high profile people are affected as well, though in Osborne's case I wonder (this is idle speculation and is probably entirely incorrect) whether it might be a case of someone in her CLP (a notorious nest of vipers that she was o/c foisted on... and where the previous two MPs had both departed under pretty nasty clouds...) making some lurid complaints, an investigation being launched (perhaps incorrectly: as in the wrong button being hit?) and it then emerging that continuing would not be a very good idea.

But, basically, the new disciplinary system needs to be up and running as soon as possible, ideally before.

_{*Of course some people also insist that this has happened to them, when, actually, no, there is no error...}

[Blair]

I still don’t understand why there’s so much activity before the new process has come?

I assume it’s because the backlog was so big and the EHCR could have required immediate action and we had to wait until conference for rules changes.

[Blair]

Strong 2013 vibes, especially on welfare.

Ironic as Johnny Reynolds (himself once of the right) has rightly spent the week hammering the Tories over the UC cut. I’m not even sure how you can be ‘tougher’ on welfare when there’s virtually none of it left- what should we have a 10 week wait for your first payment rather than 5?

Keir Starmer has an opportunity to shape a national programme that speaks to the whole country if he engages with enduring bread-and-butter concerns around the workplace, welfare and crime. Labour must be ruthless in going after soft Tory voters if it wants a swift return to national government. Our research shows that it needs to focus its efforts on trying to win over soft Tory voters in the seats that it needs to win in 2023 or 2024.”

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/18/starmer-win-soft-tory-conservative-voters-labour-election-success?__twitter_impression=true

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Or Bridget Phillipson in the House this week. We've reached the point, I would argue, where 'bread and butter concerns' over benefits are about the skimpy and ineffectual nature of the system post the IDS deforms, not about (say) benefit fraud. Welfare is historically a strong issue for the Labour Party: the weakness of both the Miliband and Corbyn leaderships on the issue should not be allowed to obscure that.

[Blair]

Or Bridget Phillipson in the House this week. We've reached the point, I would argue, where 'bread and butter concerns' over benefits are about the skimpy and ineffectual nature of the system post the IDS deforms, not about (say) benefit fraud. Welfare is historically a strong issue for the Labour Party: the weakness of both the Miliband and Corbyn leaderships on the issue should not be allowed to obscure that.

Yes it’s very lazy and outdated as thousands and thousands of more people in the last 18 months have had to claim Universal credit. In some areas the increase was 100%.

These are in lots of cases people who would never have previously claimed, nor would their partners/family. For many it was a shock as they saw how awful and bizarre the system is (one example is that the savings threshold for example means you get very little support if you have more than £5K) 

It’s a lazy and rough method but the comments on BBC articles about the UC cut has a much more sympathetic response (largely from users!) compared to 4-5 years ago- they seem to be close to turning into how tax credits are viewed politically. (See Gideons efforts to cut them in 2015)

[GoTfan]

I would assume that in general the issue is that the party's disciplinary procedures are (as we all know!) completely broken and that the small number of people who work on these cases are not able to cope particularly well with the volume of complaints. Strange errors, misidentifications and so on have been periodically complained about by people on the wrong end of such letters for as long as I can remember.* It's a little stranger when relatively high profile people are affected as well, though in Osborne's case I wonder (this is idle speculation and is probably entirely incorrect) whether it might be a case of someone in her CLP (a notorious nest of vipers that she was o/c foisted on... and where the previous two MPs had both departed under pretty nasty clouds...) making some lurid complaints, an investigation being launched (perhaps incorrectly: as in the wrong button being hit?) and it then emerging that continuing would not be a very good idea.

But, basically, the new disciplinary system needs to be up and running as soon as possible, ideally before.

_{*Of course some people also insist that this has happened to them, when, actually, no, there is no error...}

They did this to Barnard, who's the head of Young Labour, so this isn't a one-off incident. The charitable point of view is that they are simply overwhelmed and doing this willy-nilly, but a more cynical person (myself) might assume that, like what CumbrianLeftie did on the previous page, that at least part of the party HQ is out of control and the leadership is either unable or unwilling to halt them.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Who says that mine is a charitable view? Nothing remotely charitable about it. But we know that things like this have been happening (or claimed to have) for decades, despite* the constant very high turnover of staff in HQ (which, ftr, is underfunded and understaffed even at the best of times, and these are not those), and we know that basic inability to deal with volume is a problem from a recent detailed report that touched on the administrative shortcomings of the organisation.

_{*Or in part because?}