Labour’s full guidelines for constituency leadership nomination meetings

Party has published guidelines for conduct of all-member meetings to nominate leader and deputy leader candidates – and CLP reps for the NEC election

The Labour Party has published guidelines for how the all-member constituency meetings to decide which leadership/deputy leadership candidates a local party (CLP) will nominate must be conducted.

The meetings, which must take place – and report their results – between 15 January and 15 February – are vital to the elections, as candidates who fail to obtain nomination from 5% of CLPs or 5% of affiliate groups (including two unions) will not be eligible for the full ballot.

The guidelines are as follows:

Guidelines for CLP Nomination Meetings

This is a procedural document for CLPs to make nominations for Leader and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. CLPs have also been asked to nominate for the NEC BAME representative and the two vacant NEC CLP representatives. This has been based on a timetable and procedures that have been agreed to by the NEC. CLPs can only nominate candidates who have received nominations from at least 10% of MPs and MEPs (22 nominations in total) and have consented to nomination, a list of such candidates will be provided to CLPs and published on the Labour Party website after the close of PLP/EPLP nominations

CLP nominations will open on Wednesday 15 January 2020, and close on Friday 15 February 2020, 23.59. Any nominations submitted to the national party outside of this time will not be accepted.

CLP NOMINATION MEETINGS

The NEC has agreed that normal CLP meetings and branch meetings can continue. Your nomination meeting will need to be separate from your normal meeting so that only those eligible to attend and vote can do so.
In line with Labour Party rules, your CLP nomination meeting must be an all members meeting.

Members should receive seven days written notice of the meeting, unless the Regional Director (this includes Scottish and Welsh General Secretaries for the purpose of this paper) determines otherwise due to exceptional circumstances.

ELIGIBLE MEMBERS

As per Chapter 2; Clause II; 4 of the Labour Party Rule Book only those members who have passed their 8 week provisional period of membership at the relevant date shall have the right to attend and vote at CLP meetings. For these purposes, the relevant date agreed by the NEC is date on which the meeting is due to take place. Members who joined between 6 September and 12 December 2019 – and who are therefore subject to the NEC decision to extend the provisional membership period during the General Election – will be entitled to attend and vote, providing they have eight weeks continuous membership at the time of the meeting.

Those members who are showing as being in arrears from after the relevant date, will be able to participate in the meeting provided they pay the arrears at the commencement of the meeting, or provide proof that they have since paid the arrears to the national party.
Any dispute with regard to the eligibility of any member shall where practicable be referred by the CLP Secretary to the Regional Director, who will rule on the member’s eligibility. Where the issue is not clear cut, the Regional Director will consult with the Governance & Legal Unit before giving a ruling.

MEMBERSHIP CHECK AT CLP MEETINGS

Proper arrangements will need to be in place at the CLP meeting to check the eligibility of members attending. CLPs holding nomination meetings should check the names of attendees against a membership list on arrival. If you need any further help with Member Centre, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our Membership Team on 0345 092 2299 or by email labourmembership@labour.org.uk

No registered or affiliated supporters or non-eligible members should be invited to attend or allowed entry to the meeting, unless they are also an eligible party member.

STRUCTURE OF CLP NOMINATION MEETINGS

Leader & Deputy Leader

The statements of the candidates can be found along with this documentation. These statements should be emailed to eligible members in advance of the meeting with paper copies given out to those attending upon arrival.

NEC CLP Reps

Nominations for the CLP rep can be taken from the floor. To be eligible to stand for this position a candidate must:

 have 12 months continuous membership from the date of the relevant date set by the NEC meeting. Therefore only members who have been a member on or before 20th January 2020 will be eligible to stand for this position.

NEC BAME Representative

Nominations for the BAME NEC representative can be taken from the floor. To be eligible to stand for this position a candidate must:

 have 12 months continuous membership from the date of the relevant date set by the NEC meeting. Therefore only members who have been a member on or before 20th January 2020 will be eligible to stand for this position.
 have formally notified the party that they self-define as BAME.

Up to ten minutes may be required to allow members to read any nominees statements that have been provided by the candidates to the CLP. At the end of this period the door keeper will be asked to confirm the number of eligible members in the meeting. No members arriving after this point will be eligible to participate in the meeting or the ballot.

Prior to the ballot, a discussion will take place on the qualities of the nominees for each position in turn starting with the Leader. This should last for a maximum of 2 hours, with no member speaking more than once, and for not more than three minutes each. The Chair should ensure that the discussion is moved on if necessary, to ensure adequate time for discussion of nominations for all of the positions available.

BALLOT & COUNT

Following the discussion of candidates’ qualities the meeting will move to the ballot. To begin the meeting must decide on tellers, who should be elected by a simple show of hands.

Leader & Deputy Leader

For the Leader and Deputy Leader ballot will be a preferential ballot. Each member must number the candidate they wish to nominate in order of preference. If no candidate has reached the 50% threshold after the first round then the candidate with the lowest number of 1st preference votes will be eliminated and their 2nd preferences will be distributed amongst the candidates. This process will continue until one candidate has over 50% of the votes cast.

NEC CLP Representatives

For the NEC CLP representative each person can vote to nominate a maximum of TWO people. Each member must write the name of each person they wish to nominate for the two positions clearly on the ballot paper.

The two candidates with the most votes will be declared the winner and nominated by the CLP.

NEC BAME Representative

There is also one NEC BAME representative position to be nominated. Each member must write the name of the person they wish to nominate on their ballot paper.

The candidate with the most votes will be declared the winner and nominated by the CLP.

All the ballots can be collected and counted at the same time if this is perceived to be more efficient.

The candidates with the most votes will receive the nominations.

NOMINATION NOTIFICATION TO NATIONAL PARTY

CLPs Secretaries must submit the nomination using the democracy portal found by following the link https://partynominations.labour.org.uk/home.php

Nominations must be received by the nomination closing date of Friday 14th February, 23.59

ACCESSIBILITY

The Procedures Committee wish to remind CLP Officers of their obligation in ensuring that all meetings and venues are inclusive and accessible to all members. They should consider accessibility for all forms of visible and invisible disabilities that may exclude the individual from participating, as well as being accessible to members with young children and those with caring responsibilities.

Version 1 – agreed by Procedures Committee 090120
Version 1.1 – typos corrected 130120

The original document can be found here. Take these guidelines with you to the meeting to ensure that it is conducted accordingly – and ensure that your CLP secretary submits the results before the deadline.

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