Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) has agreed the following timetable for the party’s leadership elections:
Tuesday 7 January: nominations open from MPs and MEPs
Monday 13 January: nominations from MPs and MEPs close at 2.30pm
Tuesday 14 January: registered supporters applications open at 5pm.
Thursday 16 January: registered supporters applications close at 5pm.
Wednesday 15 January: second stage of nominations from Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) and affiliates opens
Monday 20 January: freeze date for eligibility for new members and affiliated supporters, closes at 5pm
Friday 14 February: close of CLP and affiliate nominations.
Friday 21 February: ballot opens.
Thursday 2 April: ballot closes at 12pm.
Saturday 4 April: special conference to announce results.
Nomination of candidates is a two-stage process. Candidates who receive nominations from at least 10% (22) of Labour MPs and MEPs will go through to the second stage of nominations from Constituency Labour Parties and affiliated organisations. They then must receive nominations from at least 5% of all CLPs or at least three affiliates – at least two of which must be trade unions – comprising 5% of fully paid up affiliated membership.
The freeze date of 20 January for new members to join and be eligible to vote is a change from 2016, when a retrospective cut-off date was set. This is to ensure the elections are as open and democratic as possible.
As in 2016, the fee to join as a registered supporter is £25. Registered supporters must be on the electoral register and meet the qualification criteria for membership of the Labour Party.
The NEC voted to restrict candidates’ access to member data until the later stages of the election, leading to complaints from right-wing candidates and their supporters that access to Momentum data may give left-wing hopefuls an edge. However, right-wingers have been shown in the past to make illegitimate use of data from the Owen Smith leadership campaign, so security measures are not unreasonable.
A party spokesperson said:
We are by far the largest political party in the UK with well over half a million members. We want as many of our members and supporters to take part, so it has been designed to be open, fair and democratic.
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‘Thornbury attacks Venezeula, aiding the US Neo Con Right!
And what’s on display so far.
Is mediocre and very light.
Lewis is a good socialist.
But on the EC politically thick.
Remainers Starner & Phillips the architects of Labour’s defeat.
So deserve a great big kick!
Ms Nandy is a political lightweight.
With not very much to say.
So Lavery, Burgon or RBL.
And left wing democratic socialism will win the day!’
Oh and have 3 strikes and you are out- any Labour MP, Labour Lord or Ex Leader who slags off Leader in public, 2 warnings then kick em out!
Good, in-depth analysis 😉
Though I fear you were overgenerous to Nandy
[Who she? – ed]
Don’t forget to stockpile your popcorn before 31 January!
Yes and all stabbed the poor in the back by abstaining on welfare cuts. As political morons and cowards they didn’t have the left wing democratic socialist analysis and POLITICAL COURAGE to stand up and counter the right wing dominant narrative on welfare whilst trying to empower the left behind, and going on the political attack against the luxurious upper class welfare state.
But no doubt they will go to the poor and claim to be their friends, as bourgeois opportunists.
Wonder if Labour should introduce a socialist test for members, would get rid of 100 Labour MPs, probably the vast majority of Labour Lords, most MEPs and probably every ex-Leader.
Now there’s a thought.
I’m voting Left!
The very idea that LP should be led by a knight of the realm is totally bizarre… particularly one awarded under a Tory administration. We’d be a laughing stock, quite apart from the inevitable move to the R with Yvette Cooper, Rachel Reeves and Jess Phillips in shadow cabinet.
Heaven forbid! Many members would find it difficult to remain in the Party – and this CANNOT happen.
We are MANY and the wretched right wing are FEW. We will not hand-over our freehold property to an ilicit rogue, low-life bootlegger.
Lavery Luv-In – a bit pathetic
Not to say a little emetic.
Briefly a miner
Now a minor
(Dedicated to Bazza)
And our resident troll has his usual sneer, but – as ever – doesn’t even bother to say who he favours.
(Might deny him a sneer later?)
you do your self no service RH with this low level of commentary
From the data compiled here its apparent that the Party is not serious about extending its reach to those its supposed to desire to wish to help, namely the poor or those on social welfare – we already have an expensive full membership fee structure, so why the hell its continued with the £25.00 Supporters fee I’ll never know, but the fact is, if the Party was intent on increasing participation in this Leadership Race then at least lower the ‘supporters’ fee to a figure many can afford, which would be no more than £12.00 for many who can’t afford the basics in life, never mind nice trips to Italy – at the present Supporters Fee price my own parents are unable to participate, so it appears to me working class folk are being penalised for being poor and effectively disenfranchised, this from a Party that needs to re-connect to its working class base across the Nation – some lessons are never learn’t I’m afraid.
The £25 supporters’ fee is plainly another measure to consolidate the overwhelmingly middle class nature of the Labour Party.
I have to confess that I’m no great fan of the ‘supporter’ system at all. I don’t like all the loopholes to influence that Labour has: the affiliated neo-cons, the supporters fee – all open to abuse, and all abused.
The Party needs a simple, honest membership system – with concessions for unwaged and certain other groups. And voting should have a consistent quaifying period – say three months.
You can’t stop infiltrators and bots, but you can limit them. A qualifying period does that, and sadly, a hefty fee is the least worst option to stop a hundred thousand tories becoming ‘supporters’.
Not ideal. But understandable.
christopher rogers
During election I watched a volunteer at a food bank go into great detail how bad it was and then say
‘So I really dont know who to vote for anymore’
Another example was ‘No way am I voting for JC, voted Labour all my life’
I asked who they had voted for in 2017
Answer was ‘Labour’
Tories rarely have any policies, never any costings and always do shit in the campaign, to the point of hiding in fridges to avoid scrutiny
So how do they get so many working class votes
Nothing to do with propaganda pumped out 24/7 by MSM and toilet papers
Stop playing by the rules
Doug,
Maybe if we had more working class folks involved with the Party TPTB and MSM propaganda would not be so effective, that much of the anti-JC propaganda originated within the ranks of Labour in the Lord’s and HoC sums it up well, but something needs to be done, even if its a reduced supporters fee for those who are actually poor – as it stands, the Party is now predominately middle class and will probably elect someone from its own ranks, meaning, like it or not, more working class voters will move to the Tories as Labour doubles down on identity politics and its love affair with Brussels.
I give this free.
You may be paid?
But unlike too nice JC we w class don’t take any shit.
So fuck off you moron!
I scroll down you and your other 2 or so names ( Richard Hayward, Steve Richards? etc).
I post for socialists.
Don’t engage with this vile turd you only encourage him and possibly earn his wages and I never will again!
RH flushed down the bog!
Lavery, Burgon, RBL.
IL,RB,RBL.
Can’t we just ‘Keep Corbyn’?
Makes perfect sense with IL as his hatchet man,
When blood letting is complete hand over to next generation
JC is perfect as Magic Grandad,
IL straight talking fully paid up member of Jordi tribe of northumbria, would be no more than average friday nights work in the Bigg Market
Point is until its done we dont have a snowball’s chance
I expect many in the party would love to Keep Corbyn, as would I.
With the next election a long way off though (assuming the least degree of Tory competence) it wouldn’t be reasonable to ask him to put himself through all that again.
I’d like to hear his opinion on who should succeed him but I assume he’ll stay silent.
The fact that we’re looking for the ‘least worst’ and not choosing the best of a stellar bunch is utterly depressing – if Corbyn chose to launch a genuinely left wing party I’d join.
Labour’s split appears permanent.
David
It’s our party, let the red Tories and blue Tories create this mythical centrist party and eat themselves alive
Rerun of Peoples Vote/Change/LibDems
Do the maths if we sue for divorce who gets to keep what,
Agree on JC but he would be a caretaker manager until dust settles and we bring through next generation
We have 4 years to realign British politics, how many of us joined after 2015 GE before JC even put himself forward
The country was screaming for clear red water, still is
The sad thing is how little progress has been made towards the democracy the Labour Party has always needed and desperately needs now.
On past performance members of the PLP should pretty well be barred from seeking any leadership positions-they are wholly responsible for everything that has gone wrong and bear much of the responsibility, personally, for the long persecution and humiliation of poor and vulnerable people during the past decade. Most of them were put into their current positions of power by Mandelson, Blair and their coterie. From the first their primary function has been to prevent socialists from being nominated and to ensure that socialist policies are never implemented. A secondary purpose was to discourage people from joining the Party in order to ensure that all campaigns were carefully controlled by professionals-hired with millionaire and other contributors’ ill gotten gains- trained to sell soap and opiates.
Now that the Party, temporarily, has half a million members what should be done before calling any leadership election is to clean up the half democratic system which is designed to produce Blairites committed to neo-liberalism and imperialism. As the recent debacle the worst thing about the system is that produces, on the left, rat like cowardice and a crouching attitude of permanent willingness to surrender at a glance from the ruling class master.
The red banner might be flying over Karbala but its been buried in a cupboard behind a bar somewhere in London. The truth is that the first thing that the Party needs to do is to apologise to the socialists expelled, over decades, by friends of Washington and allies of The City, and facilitate their immediate re-entry, from George Galloway and Ken Livingstone down, to take their places at the head of the movement. While policy formation and debate should be returned where it belongs in the CLP and Union branch meetings, regional and sectional conferences and Annual Conference.
My guess is that the present process is designed to allow the mass signing up of all manner of church and similar religious and ethnic groups which will be voted-as is the tradition in Democratic Party Machines- to elect another Blairite to lead the anglophone PASOK into oblivion.