Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘Democracy Review‘ is a vital, multi-phase consultation aimed at the democratisation of the party and the fitness of its internal and outward-facing processes to represent the movement as a genuine political alternative.
In short, it’s important to the vast majority of Labour members – and is being overseen by party Chair Ian Lavery and Corbyn aide Katy Clark, with the assistance of NEC (National Executive Committee) member Claudia Webbe and Chair Andy Kerr.
So it’s interesting to note that Labour’s Southside HQ – or whoever was commissioned by it to create the Democracy Review web page on the Labour Party website – contains coding that blocks it from being shown in search engines.
The ‘metatag’ information encoded into the page is a ‘noindex’ tag:
Google Support’s page on the noindex tag makes clear what its purpose is:
So the tag on the Democracy Review page is intended to prevent Google showing it if someone searches for it. It doesn’t have another purpose.
The information came to light during a discussion on a Labour-related Facebook page:
Labour HQ was contacted for comment but had not responded by the time of publication. However, a spokesperson later said:
The Labour Party Democracy Review is a wide-ranging engagement with our members. At the launch of the review, members were sent an email and video message from Jeremy Corbyn with a link to the consultation questions on the website. The review has been widely advertised to CLPs and affiliates and the Party has already received thousands of submissions.
The review and the opportunity to submit responses are on Labour’s ‘Membersnet’ members-only website. If the coding was an attempt, say, to limit responses from non-members while relying on messages and links to members by email, Labour’s response begs the question: why put it on the main party site at all?
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.