This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Torrain]

It's clear that the party leadership is very engaged in selections this cycle. Favouritism has (as pointed out by others) been a big deal for a long time, and is just more apparent in Labour because there's a more resilient, transparent system of intra-party democracy.

I wonder though, whether the current selection approach is also a reaction to the past couple of election cycles. The snap elections led to expediated selections in a lot of seats, and threw a number of (very) poorly vetted MPs into Westminster, on both sides of the aisle - leading to a lot of unnecessary controversy. Running an early, controlled selection process, where candidates with glaring controversies like Emma Dent Coad are eliminated feels like Labour at least trying to learn from that experience.

[CumbrianLefty]

Since there doesn't seem to be a "dedicated" LibDem thread on here, maybe might be worth noting at this point that they recently deselected one of their candidates in a key target seat.

[YL]

Since there doesn't seem to be a "dedicated" LibDem thread on here, maybe might be worth noting at this point that they recently deselected one of their candidates in a key target seat.

Crick also followed up the tweet above with one on the Lib Dems:
https://twitter.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1594296778723041286

The one you mention was a curious choice in the first place: the deselected candidate was a one time Lib Dem activist who moved to the Christian People's Alliance, having some senior positions within that party, and had more recently returned to the Lib Dems.  Now, you can guess what sort of views the CPA might have on certain issues, and how some of those views might go down in the Lib Dems.  There were also some mutterings about his campaigning skills, but I don't know what the real reason was.

[Torrain]

Ian Byrne appears to have been reselected, beating out a challenge from his competitor - Anthony Lavelle.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Would probably be hilariously terrible in practice, but sometimes i wonder the viability of implementing the equivalent of closed primaries.

[Coldstream]

Ian Byrne appears to have been reselected, beating out a challenge from his competitor - Anthony Lavelle.

Probably for the best, Ian’s one of the better ones in the SCG & he’s worked hard nationally on right to food.

[Torrain]

Ian Byrne appears to have been reselected, beating out a challenge from his competitor - Anthony Lavelle.

Probably for the best, Ian’s one of the better ones in the SCG & he’s worked hard nationally on right to food.

Have to admit - I still haven't quite got my head around why he was targeted in the first place, unless there's some behind-the-scenes drama. Sounds like his CLP might just be a little trigger-happy, given their history of deselections.

[Coldstream]

Ian Byrne appears to have been reselected, beating out a challenge from his competitor - Anthony Lavelle.

Probably for the best, Ian’s one of the better ones in the SCG & he’s worked hard nationally on right to food.

Have to admit - I still haven't quite got my head around why he was targeted in the first place, unless there's some behind-the-scenes drama. Sounds like his CLP might just be a little trigger-happy, given their history of deselections.

I think it’s a mixture of the CLP’s restlessness/generally being pretty moderate by Liverpool standards, the fact that Byrne was not their original preferred candidate in 2019 & that he’s seen as inactive locally and disinterested in the role of being a representative.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's one of the two Liverpool constituencies that has a small membership (though it's the least small of the two: there are completely hopeless rural constituencies with bigger CLPs than Walton) and there is a tendency towards rampant egomania in Liverpool Labour across all factions and divides, but that, and the general state of chaos and disorder in the region due to certain... er... events, is about all that comes to mind. Most deselection attempts are purely local even if people from outside might get involved as things develop.

[CumbrianLefty]

Byrne actually won the original 2019 selection by even less (3 votes as opposed to 12 yesterday) and that maybe at least explains why some of his opponents were so confident.

[Blair]

It's clear that the party leadership is very engaged in selections this cycle. Favouritism has (as pointed out by others) been a big deal for a long time, and is just more apparent in Labour because there's a more resilient, transparent system of intra-party democracy.

I wonder though, whether the current selection approach is also a reaction to the past couple of election cycles. The snap elections led to expediated selections in a lot of seats, and threw a number of (very) poorly vetted MPs into Westminster, on both sides of the aisle - leading to a lot of unnecessary controversy. Running an early, controlled selection process, where candidates with glaring controversies like Emma Dent Coad are eliminated feels like Labour at least trying to learn from that experience.

Late to this but the other side of the coin is that the party used the snaps in both to put favourite sons and daughters of various elements of THIGMOO into safe seat- it really was the ultimate stitch up and some of the stories of how and why various seats got decided are quite mucky.

Byrne actually won the original 2019 selection by even less (3 votes as opposed to 12 yesterday) and that maybe at least explains why some of his opponents were so confident.

Iirc there were grumbling back then that more popular local candidates were blocked who might have won- although he hardly faced a titan this time- he faced a relatively young Cllr who use to be Westminster bag carrier.

[Blair]

There was a great piece on how Starmer won his selection to a very safe London seat in 2015- it was a golden ticket as seats go and he basically spent a very long time having coffees with various members, attending local campaign events in the year before, holding events and had a slew of endorsements from both THIGMOO figures (Neil Kinnock iirc) and others.

He ended up beating both the local council leader and the CLP chair.

It was widely know that Ed M had wanted him to run and a slight fudge was made to allow him to stand as he had only been a member for a short while as he was not allowed to be a member while DPP.

[CumbrianLefty]

That particular rule has been "fudged" a few times before Starmer - basically if anybody was unable to join the party due to their profession, they will usually be treated sympathetically.

[Blair]

Labours head of policy and manifesto writer Claire Ainsley is leaving to join a US think tank.

She was one of the few OG Starmer hires and was seen as a big influence; her book ‘the new working class’ was seen as a guide to her politics and how she steered Labour to focus very much on appealing to well white working class (or people who once belonged to that group) voters who turned against Labour over the past decade.

An interesting development esp as the party currently lacks a chief of staff.

[CumbrianLefty]

I think that her influence waned a bit after the Hartlepool fiasco tbh - the party tried running the sort of campaign she suggested to win such places over, and of course it blew up in their faces.

[JimJamUK]

Another Michael Crick piece on Labour candidate selection. Probably a bit charitable to the Labour Left (some of the blocked candidates were not exactly spotless) but the quoted Labour Right figures don’t come across as very sympathetic either.

https://unherd.com/2022/12/starmers-ruthless-attack-on-the-left/

[Blair]

He seems to be rather enjoying lifting the lid…

[CumbrianLefty]

What is really telling - and depressing - is certain other "journalists" having a go at him for doing so.

Again, whatever happened to "speaking truth to power"?

[Blair]

Reports of some sort of tension over Browns constitutional reform package.

Hilarious that there has been THIGMO briefing against and for Gordon Brown longer than I have been alive and I’m not exactly youthful!

[Blair]

I regret to inform you Neal Lawson from Compass has thoughts on the Labour Party selections.

[morgieb]

I regret to inform you Neal Lawson from Compass has thoughts on the Labour Party selections.

Is he attacking Starmer from the left or the right? Because Compass's politics from what I can tell seem all over the shop.

[CumbrianLefty]

Years ago I described Neal Lawson as the soft left answer to Dan Hodges.

Things haven't altered much since.

[Blair]

I regret to inform you Neal Lawson from Compass has thoughts on the Labour Party selections.

Is he attacking Starmer from the left or the right? Because Compass's politics from what I can tell seem all over the shop.

His usual puff about the progressive alliance; he hilariously claims that lesson for Labour to learn from 1997 and 1945 was that they won because they worked with the Liberals.

I mean it helped the size of the majority in '97 but it was hardly the biggest factor.

[CumbrianLefty]

Having said that, the critics (Michael Crick being another recent one, as noted upthread) of Labour's selection methods this time round aren't *totally* wrong.

In particular, some may think borderline cases - even when it comes to something as sensitive as AS - should be given the benefit of the doubt, plenty on both sides of the forever war will have said stuff they didn't really mean during the Corbyn years. Using sometimes relatively minor indiscretions as a crude factional battering ram is unlikely to end well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

My main issue with what Crick has been coming out with is his claim that there's anything new about a Labour leadership stacking selections in favour of elements in the party supportive of the leadership.¹ He's old enough to know that that's not true. The only leaders who presided over a full selection round that this didn't occur under were those too internally weak (usually not their own fault!) to enforce their will at all.² Now, I think there is a strong small 'l' liberal case for a more relaxed and open selection process - after all most of the blocked candidates wouldn't have won anyway! - but I don't think that Crick really helps that cause (which I suspect he genuinely believes in) with some of his antics, even if they will keep the clicks coming. But that's always been one of the problems with him as a journalist. Odd man.

<sub>1. Which, at present, is very broad, really only excluding those aligned to the SCG.
2. Slightly complicated by the fact that, back in the old days, certain unions could as good as decide who would be nominated from certain constituencies.</sub>