CLGA members fear Lansman’s organisation set on going it alone
The SKWAWKBOX reported on Wednesday that the stalemate between left grassroots group CLGA and Momentum over National Executive Committee candidate endorsements was continuing – and that in the absence of an agreed left ‘slate’, one of the main CLGA member groups had taken the interim step of putting out the name of a single candidate for left-wing Labour members to support.
But Labour insiders report that at Tuesday’s meeting scheduled in the hope of finalising the slate, the matter was barely discussed, let alone agreed – and Momentum’s representatives did not even turn up to the meeting.
The SKWAWKBOX understands that one Momentum representative dialled in briefly and then a text was sent with the name of a north-west councillor that caused dismay among many delegates.
Meanwhile, insiders say that behind the scenes an increasingly disengaged Momentum is looking to switch to ‘centre’-left candidates.
Members are looking urgently for guidance on the candidates to back in the vital by-elections that will have a huge impact on the future running of the Labour Party.
But CLGA as currently constituted appears for the moment to be stalled. As a result, individual organisations are set to make their own nominations which may or may not offer the prospect of some overlap.
Meanwhile, the appalling right-wing slate is exploiting the vacuum to rack up constituency party nominations.
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Hopefully instead of the usual short anodyne paragraph we are usually treated to from the candidates they will provide us with enough information so that we will all be in a position to make an informed choice.
Relying on being told what to do isn’t democracy.
It is better than guessing,just!
I’ve just lost my EU Citizenship
Sod off SteveH
😘
No, it is guessing……….I voted for Watson.
“Relying on being told what to do isn’t democracy.”
A problem. And labels are just labels unless backed up – remember Lansman has always been sold as of the ‘left’, but was happy to stab Pete Willsman in the back (amongst others).
At least with MPs, you have a voting record and other verifiable information. With NEC candidates – ???
Does anyone care?
I’m sure Momentum still has thousands of members. But it’s hard to believe that many actually believe in it anymore. Why would they?
Join Labour Left Alliance en masse. Get all your momentum friends to attend the local meetings. And vote for their left wing candidates inthe NEC elecction. https://labourleft.org/uncategorized/clp-nominations-and-support-for-jo-bird-and-mehmood-mirza/?fbclid=IwAR1f-aCu96MJDyWINH0kHbJAg49q0uz23_PrV2y_VswMH8NVN4wiSd3NZ0Y
Merseyside LLA meeting, Quaker Meeting House, School Lane L1. Monday 3rd Feb. 7pm.
Julian Assange has finally been moved out of solitary confinement.
“Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan commented on this new positive development:
“A truly inspiring story. Julian is finally released from solitary in Belmarsh because the other prisoners in the prison were appalled by his treatment and took up action on his behalf. A small victory for basic humanity – and it took criminals to teach it to the British state.”
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/31/justice-assange-belmarsh-prisoners-remind-us-our-duty-civil-disobedience
If Assange is extradited the evidence that has been submitted to the US prosecution at his last hearing indicate that the US government will not apply the First Amendment protection to a foreign journalist like Assange and Assange would be placed under Special Administrative Measures if he is extradited, which would strip him off his right to speak to the public, the press, and his legal team.
‘Labour Business’ has just nominated Starmer and Rayner for Leader and Deputy Leader.
So it’s back to tory_lite then….. Not a good idea.
Isn’t it time Labour had a woman leader? After all it is the C21. I would have thought that the ‘Progressive Left’ would have insisted…………..unless, of course, they want Starmer.
Steve Richards 01/02/2020 at 10:39 am
“Isn’t it time Labour had a woman leader?”
Only if she is the best person for the job, identity politics is so last century.
Steve Richards, who in 2015 would you have picked instead of JC between Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper, why are they not nominated now and would you shortlist them today?
It’s not sexist to want the best pool of candidates, even if at the time they all happen to be men, or all happen to be women.
All-women shortlists as a tool to increase the number of women in Parliament I found acceptable as the least of all evils given the shortage of decent candidates of any gender.
People often do grow into jobs that are beyond their initial abilities – Corbyn wasn’t great at PMQ’s but his intellect and left wing credentials were never in doubt – but I couldn’t vote for any leadership candidate who didn’t reject out of hand the idea of being selected or elected on the basis of something as irrelevant as gender.
“Isn’t it time Labour had a woman leader?”
Perhaps. But not as a knee-jerk operation – gender is only one of many issues; only one aspect of inequality (and not the foremost).
I’ve always opposed single gender shortlists on two grounds : (a) because excluding 50% of the relevant population from a democratic exercise flies in the face of any democratic process and (b) it does nothing practical to address the underlying reasons for unbalanced representation – assuming, without evidence, that it’s a result of prejudice and bias.
At a practical level, we also know now – by experience – that any such manipulation of the electorate announces an open season for gerrymandering a result.
Interestingly, some of the fiercest opponents of the practise have been fiercely independent female politicians refusing to be partonised and being entirely sceptical of those creeping under (or over) the wire in this way.
Cancelled my DD to momentum last week.
Just had enough of their antics. A pity as I joined the day they opened for membership.
Lansman is completely out of touch.
On the contrary,Lansman is well in touch,with the Zionist lobby inside and outside the LP.
Richard Kilbride Well done ,I expect more of the dedicated and active momentum members to return fully to boost activism and socialism in the Labour party.. We desperately need activists not lansman fiefdoms.Broad church= no church for the Labour party.
Steve H you are quite right (did I say that?)……..my comment was a little ironic in as much as MSM has become so PC & identity politics so mainstream. The best person for the job eh? You mean every individual being judged on who they are rather than what?
I remember in 1979 so many Labour supporters voted for Thatcher because she was a woman………. MSM agenda was just that until Jess Phillips eliminated.
Is it possible that Landsman has always been a Mossad agent and hasbara operative? Or was he turned a year or so ago when he began reversing his judgments, for example on Chris Williamson?
Might his Lobby strategy have included getting Corbyn elected leader of the party in order to set him up for destruction, and thereby remove the threat to the Israeli Government’s program for Palestinians?
Perhaps he’s doing the same with Long-Bailly.
I think I might have first heard it from a radio call-in chat show host in the NW whose name I’ve forgotten. Sorry whoever you were 🙁
He used to argue for a “NONE OF THE ABOVE” box on ballot papers so that people could register their dissatisfaction with all the candidates.
Can’t remember what course of action he proposed if NOTA ever won.
Spoiled ballot papers do register discontent, but are a bit non-specific.
I’d prefer an “ALTERNATIVE RECOMMENDATION” box and I’d insert Corbyn’s name, or maybe one of the fine writers from across the alternative media, the sincerity of whose left wing credentials is hopefully beyond dispute.
On the other hand we used to believe Lansman was genuinely left wing so that fucks that idea…
David I managed to argue the spoilt votes pile against winging tory libdem candidates and even managed to get a card marked F off under tory and lib dems and a tick on my name.I won and didnt need the f off voters but I think that the voter made it clear
ALL the sitting “Left” NEC members strike me as being “centre-left” even without Momentum’s efforts to move things rightwards!
Hence the lack of pressure to
(a) introduce open selections,
(b) abolish the Potemkin Village NPF in favour of policymaking by Conference, and
(c) dump the Blair-era “Stakeholders’ NEC” in favour of one elected entirely by the rank and file.
Opportunities of the Corbyn era largely wasted! Sad.
All good – a, b and c tick – just as long as by “the rank and file” you don’t mean “the Labour Heartlands.”
The term ‘rank and file’ often hides a multitude of misconceptions about what actually comprises it – including (just for instance) – those who reselected Hodge.
RH, notwithstanding my little gripe I understood Danny to mean the kind of rank and file that overwhelmingly elected Corbyn leader.
I don’t know if I’d necessarily call constituency members of a long-standing MP “rank & file,” such an MP having had a long time to ingratiate itself with the membership.
Some people’s undying loyalty to their MP can be won with as little as a word of appreciation, a nod or a smile of recognition.
I’ve known enough people who’ve boasted of the slightest acquaintanceship with the most minor celebrity for the phenomenon to be beyond doubt.
I’ve known union reps corrupted by employers’ shared ‘confidences’ and seen very one-sided ‘friendships’ develop.
Flattery is cheap and effective.
An MP often in the news is more secure too – the same kind of people as above feel reflected glory in having a ‘name’ for an MP, even one they’ve never met.
You’re right, David – but my point is that the ‘rank and file’ are just the signed-up members – who include those who worship the simple fact of their MP as well as those who are sceptics.
If they’re paying and they’re voting – they are part of the ‘rank and file’. I think that you’ll find, even amongst that majority who voted for Corbyn, quite a spread of attitudes.
My experience is that the less conspicuous, but more numerous, ‘rank and file’ who pay their subs but don’t appear at meetings, and aren’t particularly engaged, are far from a hidden revolution in waiting
Double blow to Ian Murray in the deputy leadership election:
He has been endorsed by both Gordon Brown and Tony Blair!
Now, if they could just be prevailed upon to endorse Starmer…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51293239
Those two are getting moist thinking they’ve crushed the left for good.
I hope they live to see the huge resentment towards them and their wishy washy ‘centrist’ policies when the AI/robotics job losses hit.
In the news yesterday – Asian garment workers are now expected to have almost all gone in five years, replaced by new tech – rather a short time to train them all to be internet entrepreneurs and software engineers.
Blair and Brown are two of the dumbest c***s on the planet but they have lots of company. I hope I live to see them all brought low.
Thinking more about the Asian garment workers – I wonder what the Mahatma would think, 75 years on, of the British empire being replaced by the empire of the super-rich.
I wonder if Asian people will have the balls we so far lack and say “ENOUGH!”
People.
Need.
Work.
This shows what the Israeli lobby did to Corbyn and are attempting to do to Saunders. It was ALWAYS a SCAM.
Uncle Festa
Cut out the MSM and toilet papers by going straight to facebook, he has religiously avoided scrutiny and gone direct to the great unwashed
Way to go methinks