This morning I had the privilege to be at the special conference for the announcement of the result of the leadership contest between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith.
As you will know by now, the result was emphatic, with Corbyn gaining a decisive 61.8% share (313,209/506,438/654,006) of the votes in spite of the efforts to weed out around 250,000 mostly Corbyn supporters by suspensions, expulsions and simply not sending them a ballot.
But there was a significant little passage of events that you will have missed. I was seated directly behind deputy leader Tom Watson and party General Secretary Iain McNicol, within easy touching distance (if I had wished:
As he prepared to read the results, NEC Chair Paddy Lillis said he would read out the overall result but would also show the results by voting constituency (full members, supporters and affiliates).
After reading out the overall result, there was a look – missed by the cameras as they cut to Corbyn and the crowd – between McNicol and Lillis, the latter then referring to the split of votes among constituencies being on the screen but not reading them out as was done at last year’s announcement. Those results were therefore on a screen for those present to see, but not shown to those watching via the cameras of BBC News etc.
When you see what those figures showed, it’s not hard to understand why McNicol and co wouldn’t want them broadcast to millions of people. Here are the broken-down results:
There are two major reasons why the party machinery doesn’t want those figures on show.
Firstly, they show that Corbyn won a clear majority in every category, whereas last year the only one in which he (just) failed to win was that of full members, where he polled 49.5%.
Today’s result shows that – in spite of constant character assassination by both ‘coup’ MPs and the media and the disenfranchisement of massive numbers of members, Corbyn’s support among full members has increased by no fewer than 8.5 points.
Which leads us onto the second reason – the numbers show the truly staggering extent of the systematic efforts to deny votes to those who were considered likely to support Corbyn. But that is something that definitely needs the light of scrutiny, so here’s another graphic to make it crystal clear:
This shows that my ‘conservative calculation’ earlier this week of 121,000 denied a ballot was indeed overly conservative.
Even excluding from the member count the 128,000 denied a vote because of the arbitrary imposition by the NEC of a 12/1/16 cut-off, the members who could have voted and didn’t are almost 138,000.
The registered supporters count is also higher than the 57,000 I estimated.
Given that registered supporters had to pay £25 to register, we can safely assume that all of those would have voted given the chance. Not absolutely every member would necessarily have voted if they could, but in such a contentious contest, the percentage would have been very high.
But let’s be cautious and say only 80% would have and couldn’t, because of suspensions or because they simply didn’t receive their ballot (a situation we already knew was high).
That means over 172,000 would-be voters were unable to participate in the election – of which the vast majority would incontestably have voted for Corbyn – almost as many as Smith was able to win in total and far more than his share if the 128,000 12/1/16 voters had not been excluded.
The scale of the gerrymandering by Labour party officials to try to undermine their own leader is simply huge. But not as huge as the fact that in spite of it, Corbyn was still able to increase his majority and achieve a clear win in all sections of the vote – and he deserves massive kudos and congratulations for that.
Yet I bet you won’t see this in the mainstream.
I read these figures on the BBC website. I also had my vote in the leadership election blocked, and would have voted Smith. Careful about assumptions.
We need a purge at the top now. Bastards.
I couldn’t agree more.
I know of many members who chose not to vote as they felt that neither candidate was suitable to be leader. I’ve no idea what the percentage is, neither have you.
And the 60k people who PAID specifically for a vote? Get real.
In the Green Party we have reopen nominations meaning none of the above. It would have been interesting to have seen what would have been the result then.
Reblogged this on The Greater Fool.
I do think that some of the figures will be a bit distorted by the way we tried to gain a vote; I’m a full member (joined in June), a Unite Community member (still too late to be allowed a vote) and eventually paid my £25 to get a vote. So I’ll be showing under 3 categories I guess? I know I’m not the only one that jumped through all 3 hoops before finally getting to vote!
No, because only qualifying members/affiliates/supporters counted toward the totals shown. Lots jumped through all those hoops and still didn’t receive their vote.
I had no doubt. Pull your socks up, everyone else, we want his politics, not your wishy washy approach.
You are wrong because these figures were given by labour on Twitter within mins of the result and were given out in many of the nationals but lets all think of conspiracies shall we. Also your figures fail to take into account the unreturned votes in this little table.
It also doesnt take into account the members who couldnt have their vote because they were voting under their union cards and also the opposite where i know of a number of people who voted twice.
The figures I want to see are the breakdown of those who were refused the vote and what their alleigiances were. This is something we will really never know seeing as these ballots are secret.
So…..What has Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, had to cope with, during this obviously gerrymandered election ? A list is definately required. Just to count the hurdles put in his way, so we can all reflect, and start to comprehend the threat to democracy the UK is facing. I’ll start the list with the Mainstream TV and the “News” papers. BBC for instance, just this past week, are under threat of legal action for it’s bias. This research group are one of many complaining. After numerous qualified investigations pointed to BBC bias and the disinformation it presented, as airtime was given much more over to right-wing (even far-right) politicians. The “Chicken Coup” came to light with the help of a small new media co-operative TheCanary, that gave readers the revelations that the coup started basically as soon as Corbyn was first elected. PR consultants Portland were likely to be part of that dirty campaign. The Newspaper press is of course dominated by filth, and forfront are Murdoch’s companies, who are now infamous for phone hacking of politicians, and backroom deals with Prime Ministers and have an anti- “Left” proppagandists template. They have somehow managed to drift the UK to the far-right of politics. They failed miserably this time though,as they tried to sway the Labour leadership contest. They failed when they were called out on social media. Wikileaks amongst others, noting Ruth Smeeth allegations of anti-semitism in Corbyn’s Labour might well be the case of a coordinated smear campaign. This was made more likely, as she was later exposed as a CIA “asset”. An “asset” is I presume someone who is prepared to share information with the CIA, *WITHOUT* approval or any knowledge of her constituency and the members of her party or the voters, who allowed her the privilaged position as a member of Parliament. Even the Tories joined in the onslaught as Alistair Campbell -a week before the leaders contest – partnered with a Tory, and got a front seat on QT, even though Owen Smith “has nothing to do with the Blairite wing of the party. I suspect that seat was reserved some time back. If only we knew how the “independent” panel picks the audience, and who the f**k the “independent” panel ARE !! So…Tory and Blairite against the shadow Chancellor John Mcdonnell on Question Time a day before election. .”For God’s Sake Man Go !!, we had already witnessed by then, and then came “Tony Blairs favorite newsreader” Gloria de Piero running into the arms of Rupert Murdoch, to try to match the Corbyn momentum and get recruits for an anti Corbyn movement. It Failed.. But you know what?, there is more -much more than just this. Tax dodging Google, with it’s links to CIA and the Tories are still in control. Then you have the other 1% mega-rich corporations who do their bit too. Supermarkets act as amplifiers for this proppaganda, selling this crap to the public, everything is coordinated Orwellian style. The PR attack dogs, that were caught trying to launch a smear campaign with the intent to scare off potential demonstration attendees, weren’t at the Corbyn rally in Parliament for the fun of it. No this surely must have been paid for secretively or why else would the records of members interests reveal such large donations transfering from a largely wealthy group of lobbyists – who have self interest as their motivation – into the hands of those leading critics of Corbyn. The years and years of infiltration by the Oxbridge upper- class into secure Labour seats is only now justifiably attracting the dismay anger and the ridicule it deserves (see Daily Mash article on Tristram Hunt). So meanwhile, as the MSM travel further and further away from reality in order to command the narrative, this means there must soon be a tipping point, where truth and the moderate Left that Corbyn is currently leading,will prevail, against this far right threat to democracy.
I am NOT a Labour supporter, but I have been following all this because I know where it leads. The First President of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, was elected with 87% of the vote and then subject to the same attempted destruction by his own side, word for word – “too radical”, “bad people around him”, “dangerous policies”, “we are the true voice of the party, not the one people voted for” etcetera. The result? His elite opponents, having failed to convince the people, found every foreign “friend” they could (who were NOT in the party and not interested in the welfare of Georgia), staged a coup to get rid of him by springing the biggest crime boss in the region from jail with his followers and driving away and (most probably) murdering Gamsakhurdia. The consequence? The concerns of the politicians bear no relation to those of the people, no one knows what they stand for, the country is the regional CIA dirty tricks capital and conduit for arming and recruiting terrorists, each government is a criminal mafia (literally) whose only interest is stealing all the money and facilities (not hyperbole, innumerable examples) – is THAT what anyone really wants ANY political party in the UK to be, or the country as a whole if that party were elected?
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz …….
Hi I’m not surprised that the figures of long life loyal labour voters my husband being one and now band for five years were stopped voting in the labour elections. It’s an absolute travesty that this could happen , these unscrupulous people have no place in labour void of ethics . We wish Jeremy Corbyn all the very best God bless him and his family keep them safe
Hope one day my husband and hundred and thousands of other labour voters will be exhonerated and there voting rights will be returned to the
Reblogged this on sofortbild.
Now it’s time to de-louse the Party and remove the officials who engineered such corrupt practices, and release their details, so they can be SUED by those they disenfranchised!
A very interesting read.
So am I to take it from this that ‘members’ refers only to pre Jan 16 members?
I paid my £25 and was told I was not on the electoral register when I am. It was close to the deadline. I was angry and luckily had half a day in which to try and do something, so contacted my local council and they sent me an email to confirm I was on the register. They were inundated with requests. It seemed the party were using an out of date electoral register! Not on!
I am not a life long Labout supporter but paid £25 to vote for Jeremy Corbyn because I believe that at last there is a politician who believes in his principles and sticks to them. If there was a labour candidate in this constituency who supports the him I will vote for them but not if he is like to many Labour MP’s who are clearly only interested in themselves.
We can only really be sure that 81,000 did not have a vote for the following reasons, due to duplicates, double counting of 50,000 members/supporters and arrears the last of which no one has ever mentioned except me.
1. Of the 127,000 post Jan members excluded by the NEC on 12 July, James Schneider in a TV interview after the result confirmed 50,000 had a vote so only 77,000 were affected.
2. Of the 551,000 members, 36,000 joined after 12 July NEC meeting so would never have qualified for a vote as it would have only applied to the 515,000 at the point of the NEC meeting
3. the missing 50,000 supporters include, duplicates (people who for example got a TU vote, people not on the register ie under 18s who can join for a £1 anyway) and people abroad who can join too).
The membership breaks down as follows
a) 343,000 pre-Jan with a vote
b) 45,000 pre-Jan without a vote – most were arrears if you had ever looked at a membership list
c) 50,000 12 Jan-12 July members with a vote
d) 77,000 12 Jan-12 July members without a vote
f) 36,000, post 12 July members who would never have got a vote
Member turnout was 83% – 285k out of 343k – very similar to the 84% before
Supporters were 129,000 and their turnout was 94% similar to 93% beforeAffiliates were 182,000 as we know it was 168,000 with 20,000 being processed and clearly 14,000 were not duplicates as the total vote was 654,000. We know there are lots of duplicates. For example I am on the Unite list and a Labour member. This means their turnout was 55% which is up from 48% before which makes sense
What the figures also show is if we add back the missing 81,000 voters and assuming a positive JC case that they got the YouGov poll supporters score of 74% on an 83% turnout we can add 50,000 votes to JC and 17,000 votes to OS, we get a ‘real result’ of 63% for JC, which would be in line with the Polls, NEC results, CLP nomination votes and TU nomination ballots.
I am attempting to set up an independent, unbiased media service with monthly publications. I have the support of the nus and a number of momentum and stop war campaigners. Please contact me at ianrichardbuckingham@hotmail.co.uk if you are interested. your assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Kind Regards
Ian
The internet has the potential for great good in spreading the truth, news and real information to the people.
However when it is used for ill informed nonsense peddled by people who obviously have not got a clue about what they are talking about that things start to go bad.
So as not to subject you to an essay, just one great example in this post is the whole conspiracy theory, that this time seems to hinge on the fact that the cameras did not show the graphic of the numbers.
Well sorry to burst your bubble, but broadcasters NEVER show graphics at Labour Party events (in fact I think it is part of the conditions which allow them to broadcast the event), whether that be a graphic such as this, maybe crime number or a videos shown at conference demonstrating good work that may have been done.
Anyone who has attended a big Labour event more than once would know this as you have the monitors around the building some showing what is happening in the event and others showing what is being broadcast by the external providers (t.v. and the like). In fact you do not even have to be at the event to realise this, as if you watch conference (I mean watch conference, not snippets on the news) you will have seen someone orating say here is a video of XXXXXX and the screen will go to a “coverage will resume shortly graphic” until the video is over and then normal coverage continues
I have been a Party member for 39 years and have attended very many of these events, including around 15 national conferences, oh and in passing a Corbyn supporter.
It does wind me up though when people try to make a point that does not exist, in order to further their (or a second organisation some may belong to) own goals at the cost of JC appearing as a normal leader who just wants to get on with the job.
You must remember that many people reading your posts will have real existing knowledge of the way Party events work and will see straight through this as I have and make them even more resolute in their stance as they KNOW you are spreading mis-truths.
If J.C. is ever to get the full backing of the party, truth and comradeship have to be the way to achieve this, not half truths and downright fantasy.
I have found I spend most of my time trying to explain how we can take the Party forward under JC, discussing articles like this, “trying to defend the indefensible”.
I also find it incredible that every single person who has reposted (or posted) this blog has either a donate button or/and click through advertisements on their page. They would not be trying to make money out of you now would they?
You’re arguing with a straw man, I’m afraid. I didn’t say there was a conspiracy. However,the decision not to read out the split by voter type like last year, combined with the absence of the figures (not a video, which is what the BBC normally doesn’t show) ensured that people didn’t see the figures unless they specifically went to find them.