Anger over delays and refusals of entry followed by NEC representative chairing meeting being heckled over exclusion of local favourite Louise Regan excluded from shortlist even after nominations success
Police have been called to the meeting to select Labour’s candidate to replace defector Chris Leslie in Nottingham East, after delays and refusals of entry, together with member frustration over the exclusion from the candidate shortlist of a local left favourite boiled over.
Queues formed outside the meeting and some members were denied entry. National Executive Committee (NEC) member Yasmine Dar, chairing the meeting, has been heckled over the decision to exclude CLP chair Louise Regan from the shortlist – a decision believed to be in part to have been triggered by a smear campaign by local Alliance for Workers’ Liberty members.
Regan, a national officer of the National Education Union, would have been a strong favourite to win selection had she not been barred from the shortlist. As in too many other cases, local members have been denied the strong left candidate they would have chosen.
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So what’s the solution, never stopped Blair parachuting in his preferred candidates,
Can someone explain to a simple son of the Jordi tribe why this is not our preferred solution
The battle for control of the LP has been controlled and supported by RW enemies of Corbyn including the JLM. These forces have been too strong for Corbyn and the left to counter.
J
What a mess – At least things have gone better in Liverpool Wavertree where Paula Barker has been selected by a massive majority to replace Luciana Berger ( who was parachuted into the constituency by those who thought they knew better than the members)
Paula Barker – 191
Kat Summer – 24
Liz Grey – 7
I hesitate to make judgements about selections where I have no clear knowledge. However, after a succession of incidents, it strikes me is that the NEC involvement in shortlisting is a ‘black box’ affair, with little transparency and accountability.
Obviously – as in any ‘appointment’ situation, long/shortlisting is standard procedure – and necessary. But the ‘who’ (persons to operate the process) and the ‘how’ (criteria used) need to be as clear and open and as observably unbiased as possible.
Do Labour Party processes fulfil these obvious requirements?
RH, if the NEC does what I assume is part of its process and vets candidates’ social media, financial, employment & other history to at least the equivalent of CRB/DBS checks – given the importance of the positions applied for – would we really expect the results to be made public?
Seems to me anything other than complete confidentiality – “a ‘black box’ affair” – could fall foul of the Data Protection Act and leave the party open to lawsuits and shit.
I take your point, David. But there are perhaps a range of possibilities that might at least go some way to obviating the lack of transparency.
(Anti-) Social media utterances, for instance, are in the public domain – although we might find there a range of totally innocuous instances of individuals defending Palestine!
The problem is the history of manipulation and the consequent lack of trust in the administrative organisation.
Worth noting – Skwarkie too – it was decided (by the NEC?) this was to be a BAME women shortlist (which obvs doesn’t include Louise Regan). Having BAME shortlists is surely a necessity if BAME representation is to be increased. As an aside, also worth noting that there are stories locally of BAME exclusion on Nottingham City Council, that there have been all-white selection panels this year with as you might expect outcomes.
If this is true, Idpol might be the death of the Labour Party. Many of the current trouble-makers in the PLP were parachuted in by the Blairite machine under cover of all-women shortlists. All-socialist shortlists would be a good starting point from which to progress to BAME women shortlists etc. – otherwise it’s a meaningless gesture. More generally, where there is a good socialist candidate with local backing, it’s bonkers to impose a candidate centrally, however well-intentioned the motivation. My litmus test for “socialist” by the way is fairly simple: Do you support the reintroduction of Clause 4? Do you support the renewal of Trident? Do you think Blair should be tried for war crimes?
Can I answer the Trident question
Trident is neither a deterrent nor independent
Michael Portillo cheap and nasty Tory party Defence Minister
Trident is just another example of the race to the bottom between red and blue Tories chasing cheap votes
No matter it’s cost which is obscene
I’d ask
1: Clause IV reintroduction
2: If they have ever been members of the so-called ‘co-operative’.
3: Do they agree with fatberg slime & starmer’s actions in bringing about the 2nd ref with remain option?
Even David Cameron has admitted that nuclear deterrence is only a theory.
In October 1946, a secret cabal of the Attlee administration gave the go-ahead to the nuclear weapons programme. The decision would almost certainly have gone the other way if Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had not just had a row with US Secretary of State James Byrnes. That is why we now have nuclear weapons.
Attlee did not dare put the matter to the full cabinet due to the strong opposition of Chancellor Hugh Dalton and Stafford Cripps.
Labour must take action to correct this dangerous mistake.
See me see my colour! All forms of discrimination are negative & the imposition of quota systems by an elite indicates contempt for the concept that every individual is equal in Law & Opportunity. The means do not justify the ends, they are one & the same. If you want quotas start sacking the elite bourgeoisie in positions of power; including the NEC.
I’ve for long felt that the dangers of having single issue shortlists far outweigh the arguments for doing so. Certainly, they help manipulation by ruling out at least half the possible candidates. And – above all – it patently ain’t democratic. Nor does it do much for the selected candidates, who will always be tainted with being favoured in this way.
But above all, it doesn’t do anything to correct imbalances, the underlying reasons for such, and the assumption of ‘prejudice’ in explaining the imbalances is lazy and patronizing.
Opposing the idea has become a bit like supporting the Palestinian cause.
I can’t remember a case of any male candidate in a safe seat giving up that position to a woman as a mark of the sincerity of their posture in advocating single gender shortlists. I might give the idea further thought if I had 🙂
John you raise a very good point BAME shortlist,very important and especially if thats the reason for exclusion of Regan.The NEC decision may have been a rule they enforced for good reason. Now that would be a change!
That’s not a good reason – see my post above. If they must impose shortlists centrally, they could at least do it in seats where there is no locally-backed socialist alternative.
Nadia Whittome a 23yr old Labour activist who strongly supports Remain has been selected as the PPC for Nottingham East
<b<She has pledged to undergo open selections ahead of every election, and to “take a worker’s wage” of £35,000, donating the rest of her MP salary.
Disaster: that’s me finished with the Labour Party for the time being – along with a vast number of former Labour voters I suspect. Truly tragic.
labrebisgalloise 27/10/2019 at 7:54
Why do you consider her selection to be a disaster?
…..and how does her selection directly effect you?
https://labourlist.org/2019/10/nadia-whittome-why-i-want-to-be-labours-nottingham-east-candidate/
labrebisgalloise at 7:54 pm
Was I wrong to presume that you would be able to give a cogent explanation for your rather illogical but forthright outburst about disaster and tragedy.
” a worker’s wage” of £35,000″
I’m not knocking her gesture. But that’s about the median wage/salary for all earners.
Steve if thats the average workers wage,their probably wouldn’t be a Labour party …£35000 cannot be the wage for the people Nadia represents so it shows how out of touch she is before even getting elected.Wonder what she would think of my £674 my wife and I are supposed to live off…on a state pension?…it wouldn’t cover the average Mps bar 🍸 bill…for the month.Luckily neither myself or my wife have an extravagant lifstyle..The hypocrisy and wilful blindness to the ordinary people of this country by our mps lords etc makes my blood boil and like many I am tired of waiting for a socialist Labour government!Election Now
Joseph – Perhaps instead of criticising her (for all the wrong reasons) about her salary gesture you should instead concentrate on her admirable commitment to put herself up for re-selection before every GE.
I don’t know the ins and outs of this case or why Louise was excluded but I do know this – Yasmin Dar who chaired the meeting (and who I voted for ) clearly couldn’t organise a booze up in a brewery.She seems to have lost control of the meeting and the police had to be called – absolutely disgraceful and totally shaming – the papers will have a field day. We can do without this sort of thing in the run up to an election and all concerned need to seriously reflect on this.
If the nec, whatever that means . local controls local affairs then you can forget a free vote. Remember 1933 in Germany.
“As in too many other cases, local members have been denied the strong left candidate they would have chosen”
Yasmine Dar was elected to the NEC on the Left slate supported by SKWAWKBOX and voted for by me on the strength of that.
If the NEC finds gender and ethnicity inequality in X constituency and decides to impose an all-BAME all-women shortlist – AND it explains its reasons – shouldn’t we as socialists support it?
I don’t know whether Nottingham fits that description or whether the NEC acted on that basis or whether it explained its reasons adequately or at all.
For all I know the NEC picked Nottingham out of a hat and Yasmine Dar was there by coincidence – but if John (at 4PM) is correct in his description of events in Nottingham City Council is it possible Ms. Regan may have had an ‘extra’, unacknowledged advantage with certain people unrelated to her politics, and that the NEC believed the advantage was unfair?
If we’re not the cure for inequality – what’s the point of us?
Louise Regan is an organiser in the local Palestine Solidarity Campaign group and I suspect that it was this that put the kibosh on any chance of her becoming the candidate.
Over the weekend right wing website Harry’s Place launched an Islamophobic slur against one of the other shortlisted candidates, Shaista Aziz, including the usual claims of anti-Semitism. This was picked up and ran with by Joan Ryan and the Gnasher Jew crowd but it backfired somewhat because she got lots of support from both left and centrist wings of the Labour Party, including Luke Akehurst of all people.
“Louise Regan is an organiser in the local Palestine Solidarity Campaign”
That’s certainly a possibility for an explanation. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have shortlists limited to supporters of the PSC if we want less discrimination 🙂