Birmingham Yardley MP Jess Phillips has comfortably survived tonight’s four ‘trigger’ votes by local branches. One branch had to be re-balloted because of a discrepancy in the number of votes cast, but none of the votes was close.
Another failure of the local left to organise.
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Typical Birmingham Momentum
Piss up
Brewery
Pfft!
I know some of the people in Birmingham Momentum and they are solid socialists. Birmingham Momentum isn’t as large a grouping as others in the country. We on the left try to do as much as we can but if people don’t turn up at CLP or branch meetings there’s not a lot you can do. There’s about 400 people in our branch and you’re lucky to get 30 turn up at meetings. There’s around 900 members in our CLP we had a meeting 18 months ago about Brexit and it was attended by 47 people so just over the 5% needed for an all members meeting. No doubt Jess will be full of herself now but she still has an election to fight.
Thanks for that cold dose of reality in the figures that you quote, Christopher.
(And no – I don’t have any simple solutions – but the hard fact is that not many members are that fussed about The Mouth).
In my opinion this is NOT a failure of the left to organise, but a failure of the Unions to support open selection at last year’s conference. Open selection was overwhelmingly supported by Party members, and I hope the lack of success of the trigger ballots in getting rid of the worst and most damaging Blairites means we will now have open selections, because I believe the Party members will not tolerate anything less.
Spot on and well said. Blaming the left is nonsense, blame the Unions instead. We asked for more democracy at local level and this is what we get. The Party is not fit to govern, a complete shambles.
Any decision last year doesn’t remove the fact that the left knew what it had to do and what the rules were – and didn’t do it. Complaining it wasn’t made easier doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, however much a switch to OS might have been preferable
Nicola K you make a good point but the left had a chance to trigger Phillips and blew it. There is a lot about the Labour Party which is undemocratic but it has suited the right wing and whilst they have a hold on the bureaucracy in Southside it won’t change.
‘Blame … blame … blame …’
The endless yowling for a scapegoat goes on … And a simple solution.
Here’s the news : there isn’t one – beyond the sort of work on the ground that requires a lot of effort – and the realisation that the membership of the Labour Party is a complex entity that doesn’t fit tidily into a box, and that individuals’ motivations and enthusiasm varies. It won’t simply conform to easy preconceptions of righteousness. Let alone the Labour vote.
There are structural issues. Perhaps. But the idea that automatic reselection solves the problem is denied by the figures that Christopher quotes. It isn’t that easy.
It is not always easy to go out to a meeting after work or if you are elderly. Voting could be done online as a matter of routine before every election, there would be a massive increase in involvement as well as democracy.
Ho ho!
How fucking depressing this vile fake labour MP survives and all because of the lies from the MSM Makes me want to move to her CLP just so I can vote against the Labour party!
It is so easy for CLP’s to ignore new members since 2015 especially if they have a tight little cabal. They ignore central training initiatives, alienate any members who try and change things and keep a delegate system. Time to limit branch and CLP posts to 3 years and make all CLP’s one member one vote.
I’m finding this hard to believe, what with Watson surviving, what about Hodge? Surely their CLP’s know they are causing untold trouble.
“Surely their CLP’s know they are causing untold trouble.”
I think you’d be surprised, Teresa.
How would anyone who isn’t a regular reader of new left media even know Phillips had a problem with loyalty?
Unfortunately there are probably more S*n & Mail readers in Labour than Skwawkbox readers.
No offence, Steve.
I would have thought the vast majority of them that read a tabloid newspaper read the Daily Mirror. Anyway, I just came across the following article from July (after the Panorama program!*) regarding a survey of members about anti-semitism, but bear in mind it’s a yougov poll!:
Poll: Corbyn loses ground as Labour members see anti-Semitism as ‘genuine’ issue
https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-corbyn-loses-ground-as-labour-members-see-anti-semitism-as-genuine-issue/
* No doubt to ascertain what impact the program had on LP members, by comparing it with the previous poll of members on the subject which, if I remember correctly, found that 70% of members believed it was manufactured to a large extent.
F.F.S. Really.
Sickens me that she’s a go-to interviewee for the BBC etc.
She is NOT Labour.
……but she is a woman.
“Rightly or wrongly I’ve always suspected the nesting instinct leans people toward conservatism, and that that instinct is stronger in women” he wrote, donning his fireproof suit.
Just came across this in my inbox from the Electronic Intifada posted by Asa Winstanley:
How Jon Lansman joined Labour’s witch hunt
https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-jon-lansman-joined-labours-witch-hunt/28601
An illuminating reference, Allan. There is something rotten when a good investigative journalist like Asa Winstanley is pushed out of the party for writing the truth whilst the entirely conflicted John Lansman remains within it.
Allan Howard…..Thanks again on a very revealing article and especially the picture of lansman with all the usual suspects including Ella rose and the mysterious power broker JLM chair ivor caplin We are still non the wiser has to why lansman changed horses mid stream and now runs with the usual suspects.The sooner Lansman gets out of momentum the better.We have lost so many good and decent comrades too the AS scam.
Pointless exercise If only the In Crowd get to vote,
As a matter of urgency NEC need to over rule this and get rid, nothing Blair didn’t do
J
Which is the lowest form of life, an anti semite or someone who makes vexatious claims of AS to damage their political opponents
I would argue they are both hate crimes and should be prosecuted accordingly
In first instance they bring party into disrepute and should constitute grounds for automatic expulsion
You imply that you’re referring to LP politicians only Doug, but just as anti-semitism is a criminal offence, vexatious claims of anti-semitism (or whatever) should be regarded as a criminal offence also, whether made by an individual or an organisation, and also include journalists and editors who disseminate the vexatious claims as if they are legitimate.
I mean not one single Jew was harmed in any way whatsoever by Ken alluding to an historical fact, but the smearers have done untold damage to Ken with their false and phony vilification of him. And ditto for Jackie Walker, and more than a few others.
And as I’ve said on a number of occasions – and as Steve Walker was saying several years ago, as in the article I linked to yesterday – anyone making a claim about alleged anti-semitism to the LP/NEC should be told that they have to report the matter to the police AND depending on their findings, the LP will take action against them if they are found to be guilty, and that only in cases of blatant anti-semitism will they be expelled from the LP, for example, saying that Hitler was right etc.
As far as I am aware, only FOUR LP members have ever been prosecuted for anti-semitism, and THEY were from the so-called ‘secret dossier’ – ie the cache of documents – that the former LP staff stole just prior to leaving their jobs and then handed on to the Met Commissioner very publicly about a year later. And why would you wait a year or so to do so unless you had an agenda! And the catch-all determination that someone brought the party in to disrepute should be challenged in a court of law every single time when it’s blatantly obvious that they DIDN’T do anything of the sort.
And on the point that only four LP members have ever been prosecuted for making antisemitic remarks, we should ALL of us en masse be writing/emailing the EHRC regarding their investigation asking them how many LP members have ever been prosecuted and found guilty of anti-semitism! AND the JLM and the CAA and the LFI and the CST and LAA!!!
Regards LAA, get a load of this vile and abhorrent black propaganda litany of falsehoods and deception:
https://www.facebook.com/labouragainstAS/
And just to be clear, what I meant at the end of the third paragraph in my post above is that only members who made obviously blatant anti-semitic remarks or whatever should be expelled from the LP immediately (and the NEC not wait until they’ve been charged and prosecuted before doing so).
Let this be a lesson to those on the left who will be or are having ballots. You have to work to get the result otherwise nothing changes.
No. You who believe yourselves “centrists” are just poor, innocent tory dupes. It’s not your fault you’re too dumb to see the media bullshit for the establishment propaganda it is.
You’ll be forgiven when you come out of the gulag, eyes all bright and shining with re-education.
Once we’ve fixed you we’ll never mention your idiocy again.
We promise.
It appears SB has deleted the comment I replied to. Might as well delete my comments too.
Another giant leap for PR and pool representatives which would also allow party to sack MP’s who take the piss mid term
T
I don’t think you can blame the left, they’re not as active as many like to think.
Many joined as I did to see a Corbyn led government, not to get involved in internal politics.
Unfortunately, I am one of the ones who got involved in internal politics.
The left will vote Labour and keep Corbyn in charge but I think for many, that is as far as they want to be involved. That’s why the lefts challenges have been battles. At the ballot box we will overwhelm but at local level we are far more evenly balanced which makes trigger balloting precarious at best.
I agree with others on this thread that the way to get the left more effective is to push for mandatory reselection.
I know parliamentary candidates who themselves would support MR.
When the Trigger Ballots go tits up the folk that championed them blame the left for not getting their act together in time. In my experience 90% of the people who belong to the Labour Party are just ordinary hard working politically ‘soft left’ individuals who have no inclination to attend a CLP meeting or get involved in campaigning etc, indeed some of them don’t have the time. What they do want is to subscribe to a Political Party that has the possibility to change things, so they join up and pay their subs.
I’ve personally persuaded over 20 individuals, mainly friends and family, to join the Party in the last two years. I have one brother who point blank refuses, because he see’s these RedTory MP’s dissing the leader, and creating division and seeing the position where we can’t get rid of them for acting the way they do. His very words are “If you lot cannot run a Party how can you be trusted to run the Country?”. I have to say when he says this I’m stumped for words.
These 90% soft left members should have a democratic right to choose their MP and Trigger Ballots don’t give them that chance. We need a democratic online voting system and Open Selection. I know what it’s like to have a CLP that was run corruptly. No members meetings, no notification of ANY other meetings even though they were held. AGM’s held at such short notice nobody could attend etc etc….
I joined because of the socialist movement, Corbyn was unknown to me, but when I actually listened I realised he was honest. This past three years+ I have come to understand just how corrupt the whole of Westminster is. We don’t have a democracy, it’s a game. When good people are hounded and the ones telling untruths get bolstered by the MSM it makes my blood boil. I’ve become weary with it all. I don’t attend CLP’s regularly, I do when it matters, votes ect, and I will be leafleting in readiness for the GE.I’m 62, still working and looking after husband who has brain damage. I find it hard, I do a lot of tweeting, mostly the positive stuff. I wish we could get Open Selection, most members would take part if we had a choice like this. Wish we could get rid of this undemocratic underbelly, but I suspect it’s always been this way, I’m only realising it now. Hope we can win an election with Corbyn at the helm. We do have some wonderful MP’s. Our PPC is going to make a brilliant MP. Fingers crossed the Right wing element bunker down and think of the bigger prize.
Very dispiriting for activists knowing we go into an election campaign with baggage like that.
This failure is of Lansman and Momentum at a national level, not of the local party membership. Progress is able to put significant resources into those CLPs where they have a rightwing MP to protect, and are very good at abusing the democratic deficiencies of party structure to stop the local membership from organising effectively. Without a national body organising the grassroots effectively those of us fighting Progress in our CLPs are on a hiding to nothing.
Anything happens in Yardley CLP in future that they call for solidarity, and they should be f***ed right off.
Do you you really think ‘trigger ballots’ will change anything? How many Right wing Labour MPs are ther in the Labour Party & how many ‘trigger ballots’ have been or will be called? The problem is the composition of the NEC.
Well said. Blaming the ‘left’ not getting their act together is just lame. Most of the folk joining as Labour members are not active in CLP’s. Many CLP’s are corruptly run. Try and make sense of The Labour Party’s Rule Book and the way it goes about it’s business gives anybody a headache. It needs to be transparent and democratic, and at the moment it’s anything but. In it’s current state the Labour Party is really not fit to govern, and god knows it pains me to say that because I support Corbyn 100% and campaign for Labour whenever I can.
Baz – Yes there is some ‘corruption’ and dodgy dealing – but it’s not the core of the problem. And – let’s face it – machine politics is as old as the Party.
I learned my lesson quite a few years ago – in the early Blair years. At the time I was a branch secretary and a representative on both CLP and DLP.
The issue was government education policy. I forget the exact time line – but it was when the push for Academies was becoming significant.
There was an upcoming vote in parliament, and I drafted a resolution requesting that the local MP oppose any move towards this surreptitious privatisation of our schools. The non-antagonistic resolution was passed nem con by both CLP and DLP (as you’d expect, given the uncontentiousness of the proposition amongst the grass roots).
Did the MP follow the guidance of the local party? I leave you to fill in the blank.
So – when the possibility of triggering a reselection arrived as part of the next election process, the Party obviously remembered this direct slap in the face …..???
You must be joking; you can fill in the blanks.
… and it required absolutely *no* corruption or dodgy dealing for this to happen. The Party hasn’t changed that much in 20 years!
Yes Baz and I do too and it pains me immensely to my core that I am beginning to think perhaps of not voting Labour as it will user in these basterds who will pursue a Tory agenda . WTF to do it’s just terrible right now and I’d hopes that at lest we might have seen some positive moves on the removal of closet Tories from our MPs ranks ,,,, but not so far .
High profile bastards still seem able to corrupt the system to stay in power .
This system needs to go and the re-selection process needs to be taken out of the hands of the local CLPs and imposed by the NEC ,,, yes I know that is absolutely the opposite of what JC is about , but we can see that we can’t be trusted to get on with it fairly and squarely either by corrupt officials at CLP /Regional level or lack of motivation/lackadaisical/intimidation at membership level .
Interesting to hear Jess Phillips say that the ‘Trigger Ballot Process’ is misogynistic because most MPs threatened with deselection are female. “This will set the Women’s Movement back years”.
Equality, O Lord … but not too much too soon!’
Most of the left in my CLP are intimidated by the right – your name is mud if you want to trigger your MP. The negative campaigning and subtle, and not so subtle intimidation will make the trigger ballot totally useless. Open Selection is the only way.