Right-wing Labour First’s recommendations are always a useful guide to candidates members should go nowhere near
Following the election of two Labour left members of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) as MPs at last month’s general election – Claudia Webbe and Nav Mishra – two by-elections will take place to replace them on this vital committee.
Left-wing organisations have not yet finalised their list of recommended candidates for these positions and the BAME NEC representative that will be elected at the same time. However, the right-wing Labour First group has helpfully emailed its supporters with two recommendations – providing a reliable guide of candidates that the membership’s left majority should not touch with a barge pole:
And as Labour First openly states, it thinks it has a chance of re-seizing control of the NEC – in spite of the left’s vast majority among Labour members.
In 2017 both Baxter and Josan ran for the NEC as part of an ‘independent’ slate – whose Facebook ads were revealed to have been funded by… Labour First. Labour First had also arranged the ‘independent’ website.
In 2018, the pair were again part of a Labour First slate designed to deprive many Labour members of their democratic say.
And in 2020, they turn up again like the proverbial bad penny.
Johanna Baxter is the former NEC member that many Labour supporters consider closely associated with the infamous ‘purge’ of pro-Corbyn Labour members during Jeremy Corbyn’s second leadership campaign:
Gurinder Singh Josan is a Labour First stalwart close to its founder John Spellar MP, its secretary Luke Akehurst and the abysmal former Unite general secretary challenger Gerard Coyne.
In 2018, he was the subject of a bullying complaint when a blind local member complained that Josan had verbally attacked him for asking for evidence that delegates at a meeting were entitled to be there. When Spellar was recorded shouting at the same blind member during a different meeting, Josan could also be heard siding with Spellar.
The left candidates for the two replacement NEC members and the BAME representative are expected to be announced shortly. In the meantime, Labour members should note which two candidates to avoid.
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I’ll never forget Baxter turning on the tears for TV interviews not once but several times in a day. It was so unbelievable that someone would cry like that for each interview. She should never to be trusted.
Yes, I remember that as well. The best one was on channel 4 News, when she was standing next to a bemused Angela Rayner. I thought Johanna’s performance was worthy of an award for Ham Actor of the Year. It reminded me of that award ceremony parody in Monty Python, when Eric Idle, playing the host, was so overwhelmed that David Niven had sent his fridge to receive his award!
Yes but it was far worse than either you Ludus57 or the other poster say.
The reason she was in tears was because, she alleged, she had been THREATENED at the NEC meeting. It transpired that she and the rest of the NEC had been told that legal advice obtained had clearly stated Jeremy Corbyn ie the incumbent leader had a right to be on the ballot paper if challenged for the leadership. LEGAL ACTION was threatened if the NEC voted to exclude him.
To translate this as “threat” against her is absurd and in my opinion malicious and of course it fell in with the narrative that normal decent moderates were being threatened and bullied by by thugs, dogs, scum like me who supported Jeremy Corbyn (and always will).
Around this time Jess Phillips was getting extra security at her home amid a media scrum, Seema Malhotra was alleging that her office had been ” broken into ” and Conor McGinn was saying Jeremy was threatening to complain to his dad about him.
Well Joanne I am one of the despised members who won’t be voting for you – not in a million years. I urge every other member who wants honest representation from the NEC reps to do likewise.
That’s right and nobody in the media questioned it. At around the same time, we had the claim that a Corbyn supporter had thrown a brick through the window of Angela Eagle’s office. This was endlessly repeated in the media despite the fact that it was totally untrue.
The window was on the other side of a fairly large building and it was the stairwell window anyway.
Yes we need to somehow put up 2 real socialists plus one for the BAME place.
Momentum have invited interested people but then some top down secret committee decides.
Statements from interested people should be put to a vote of members but the political morons take the power for themselves!
The problem with Labour as a democratic socialist party is it creates an elite – Labour MPs, and gives them too much power.
So here’s my policies:
. All Labour MPs to accept the average workers wage so we get socialist altruists not careerist opportunists.
. Labour MPs to have 2 places on the NEC with NO voting rights.
. The NEC representing members to redraw the PLP rules.
. Labour Councillors 2 places on NEC with NO voting rights (to be reviewed if socialists become the majority).
. Labour MPs to have no say in Leader/Deputy Elections re nominations, they like the rest will have a say as Labour members.
. Three strikes and you are out for Labour MPs, Lords, Ex-Leaders, if you criticise the Leader and Deputy in public which only aids out opponents, 2 warnings then you are out!
First warnings to Blair, Mandelson, Hattersley.
. Labour to Campaign to get Blair and Bush to be put on trial in The Hague for the Iraq War, this could be a seismic political moment when we demonstate to diverse citizens around the World that the West put their tyrants on trail too!
I won’t apply to the Bourgeios socialists at the top of Momentum, who fail to understand that diverse working people are sick and tired of being told what to do Top Down!
We need a left wing democratic socialism WITH!
RLB/Burgon!
Same!
Same!
The Left would perhaps have greater appeal had they used their NEC dominance to bring about the promised “revolution in party democracy”. In fact they did remarkably little. Hence we still have the “Stakeholders'” model of NEC dating back from the Tony Blair era.
https://www.thefullbrexit.com/blairite-roots-of-corbynism
Well its news to me that the NEC has any socialists.where they asleep 😴 in the fiascos of the last few years….disgusted with all of them.
Could we not perhaps have two ‘normal’ members of the Party actually representing the membership on the NEC, rather than celebrities and ‘has beens’.
Further, and as night follows day, we keep having these two bad pennies being promoted by the wholly undemocratic right of the Party, its as if no one else exists within a Movement of some 500K members.
Allegedly we are instructed by the Progress/Labour First mob that following the last four electoral defeats they have learned something and yet, those responsible for said defeats keep popping up as their chosen saviours.
So, here’s an idea, perhaps the two new representatives vying for the NEC positions should not come from those with years of Party membership, but from those who flocked to the Party after the 2015 defeat once Corbyn came on to the scene.
Whenever I see the phrase “up for grabs” the warning bells ring.
Read the morning star article and you need to realise that the election of the Tory establishment party has far bigger threats to your membership of the Labour party than just the loss of socialism.Your freedom is now under direct threat from the lists compiled by the security services and handed to the Anti terrorist police.Even CND and Palestinian rights gro are being targeted….We have all been warned.
Just a thought whilst my blood pressure steadys.How much cooperation has their been from our moderate fascists amongst the Labour party governance in compiling lists.And how much would you trust any of the candidates in not joining the witchunt of anyone Off message with our moderate Labour party.Lansman appears to be ahead of the game in his fiefdom.and will definetly help with enquiries.from the security services.
This relates and ties to many of the concerns being expressed on the forum. An essential read – annotation provided by colleague who put it on our list:
“ an interesting analysis from the US; even just the first 3 graphs show that moving the Labour party to the right (or Centrist, as some people call it) will be extremely counterproductive. Labour need to stick with Corbyn’s policies otherwise they will lose future elections.
At the moment the right wingers and Blairites are jumping in with their attacks on Corbyn and those policies, hoping to push the party back to the right”
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/01/13/the-center-blows-itself-up-care-and-spite-in-the-brexit-election/
Ian Lavery (who has not always been in my ‘favourites’ list) has injected a welcome dose of common sense into the ‘working classier than thou’ narrative that gets so much air-time on the guilt-ridden/delusional element of the left :
““What has been pretty infuriating is that candidates have been trying to out-working-class each other,” he said. “It’s like we used to say in the school yard: ‘My dad is bigger than your dad.’ For heaven’s sake! What we need is a leader and deputy leader who’ve got life experience themselves, who understand people from different classes. Because the way we’ll win an election is not just by representing one class of society, but a coalition of classes – with policies that will enhance the lives of everyone.”
Back on the list.
… and I’ve just noticed a pearl from Skwawkbox on Twitter about the move to a referendum costing us ’50+ seats’.
Looks like the atmosphere on Planet Zog is woefully short of oxygen for the brain!
With that sort of innumeracy and lack of grasp of reality – and wishful thinking – the right wing candidates on the NEC are given credibility.
It’s sort of up there with Boris’s ‘Bongs from Big Ben’ amongst nutter ideas about Brexit. 🙂
Could you enlighten me on who the left candidates for the NEC will be?
NEC endorsed adoption of IHRA definition of AS & the expulsion of Chris Williamson.