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Here’s how you need to vote in Labour NEC elections depending where you live – and why it matters

SKWAWKBOX (SW)By
43 Comments on Here’s how you need to vote in Labour NEC elections depending where you live – and why it matters

STV voting system means left members must coordinate their voting – and show tight discipline

The ‘Grassroots Voice’ left slate has issued a voting order for left-wing Labour members to use when casting their ballots in the critical elections to the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), which open soon.

The order varies by region and many members might not understand why it matters – but its importance is linked to the ‘Single Transferable Vote’ (STV) system imposed anti-democratically by the Labour right.

STV means that each candidate essentially has to cross a threshold of, in the case of the 9-place NEC elections, of around 11% of the total vote – and the details of the system chosen mean that the order in which votes are cast affects the result.

‘Street by street’

When STV was imposed – a system never previously used for the NEC elections – the SKWAWKBOX spoke at length to Sinn Fein’s campaigns director about how it manages its elections under the same system in Northern Ireland.

The campaigns director underlined that, without strict discipline in voting orders, it’s very easy to do well in the overall vote but win few seats – and that SF organises the voting order of its candidates literally on a street by street level to ensure it wins the most candidates its voting share can generate.

That level of granular detail is impossible for the Labour left, which doesn’t have access to the level of voter detail required – but by asking members to vote in a strict order according to where they live, the ‘Grassroots Voice’ left slate organisers are aiming for the next best thing to give the left the strongest representation it can achieve on the NEC.

Please vote specifically as listed below, according to your region:

Preference Orders

Northern and South West

  1. Laura Pidcock
  2. Ann Henderson
  3. Mish Rahman
  4. Gemma Bolton
  5. Nadia Jama
  6. Yasmine Dar

Scotland, Wales, and East

  1. Ann Henderson
  2. Nadia Jama
  3. Yasmine Dar
  4. Laura Pidcock
  5. Gemma Bolton
  6. Mish Rahman

Yorkshire & the Humber, East Midlands, West London

  1. Nadia Jama
  2. Laura Pidcock
  3. Ann Henderson
  4. Mish Rahman
  5. Yasmine Dar
  6. Gemma Bolton

North West, N Ireland, and International

  1. Yasmine Dar
  2. Gemma Bolton
  3. Laura Pidcock
  4. Nadia Jama
  5. Ann Henderson
  6. Mish Rahman

West Midlands, North & East London

  1. Mish Rahman
  2. Yasmine Dar
  3. Gemma Bolton
  4. Ann Henderson
  5. Laura Pidcock
  6. Nadia Jama

South East, South London

  1. Gemma Bolton
  2. Mish Rahman
  3. Nadia Jama
  4. Ann Henderson
  5. Yasmine Dar
  6. Laura Pidcock

For your remaining three votes, choose any of the independent left candidates you prefer. In reality, under the rigged system imposed on members, it will take iron discipline to achieve six.

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43 comments

    1. When there are only two sides – ie there’s only left and right – and they’re fighting for the same positions I see STV as a complete nonsense.

      Reply

      1. Or you could do something really radical and look closely at all the candidates and just vote for the candidates that you feel best represent your views.

      2. Problem with that is, there are only left wingers – and right wingers posing as “centrists” – who coincidentally just happen to be unwilling to vote against the Tories, even on issues crucial to the future of humanity.

      3. David – Well I guess if you really don’t trust your own judgement then you might feel that you have no option but to follow the orders of those who profess to know better.

      4. Wrong – I only trust my own judgement and that tells me socialism within Labour is finished for the foreseeable future.
        Labour was dead to me from the moment I saw the contenders for the leadership and found all three totally lacking in credibility.
        There is no heir to Corbyn coming up through the ranks and I’m resigned to never seeing another leader or party I can support wholeheartedly.
        His short reign held the promise of change – exciting while it lasted but it’s over now and I no longer believe that politics is worth the candle.
        I see only the obvious alternative to politics offering a viable future for the many now, though it will in the beginning be thought even worse than neverending subservience to the 1%.

      5. David – “I see only the obvious alternative to politics offering a viable future for the many now, though it will in the beginning be thought even worse than neverending subservience to the 1%.”

        Obvious to you maybe, what is the alternative that you envision?

      6. Says the beaut who ‘only voted for stammer because he was best of a bad bunch’ but NEVER STOPS extolling the twunt, no matter what he recanted on this time, the backsliding blert.

      7. Toffee – Considering your active opposition to being involved in the Labour Party I’m puzzled by your continuing obsession with how I voted,
        You can continue to bleat ineffectually from the sidelines or get involved yourself and join the party (dependant on your circumstances it can cost as little as 50p pw).

      8. Only informers, collaborators and Quislings would ask such questions.
        You know it’s traditional to give collaborators a free haircut with a rusty knife, right?
        Only the women though.

      9. David – Is that your way of saying that you haven’t a bloody clue.

    2. Nevermind a transferable vote, you welcome stammer’s transferable politics.

      Reply

      1. Toffee – FFS grow up and don’t be so politically naive, JC certainly wasn’t above making the compromises that his post as leader necessitated.

      1. Or perhaps my post(s) haven’t…ffs.

        Too early for all this lark. 🌜😴

      3. Only about the positioning of the posts.

        Make NO mistake, I – like just about everyone else frequenting this site – have got you well & truly boxed off.

  2. “That level of granular detail is impossible for the Labour left, which doesn’t have access to the level of voter detail required”

    I take it the Labour right has all the access it could ever wish for, and the means to organise its voting strategy along the same lines?

    Good luck with that. Seriously, good luck. Seems like a lost cause to me but I still can’t help hoping to be proved wrong.

    Reply

    1. hirsutemal : Who is the Left Alliance candidate? The slate is short by 3 candidates. Suggest names please…. as per Skwawkbox’s VERY clear & helpful post above. Strategy. Discipline. As one🌹🌹🌹

      ps There is no perfect system anywhere. The right wing Tory B side scum never give up and never ran away … except Ummuna, Ellman, Berger etc and look how successful they are despite TONS of money?!?!?!

      We should stop being dim defeatist. Thather’s creatures NEVER flee and never compromise nor even try to appease. We must learn to organise and fight for what’s ours. What sort of person believes that great things come easily??? Difficult yes. Give up NEVER 🌹🌹🌹

      Reply

      1. The Labour Left Alliance supports the following comrades in the current NEC elections:

        -> Roger Silverman, Ekua Bayunu, Chaudhry Qamer Iqbal, Alec Price, Carol Taylor Spedding and Steve Maggs.
        Once voting starts on October 19 2020, we recommend that voters rank the LLA candidates at the top of their list of preferences, but also rank as many left-wing candidates as they can, including Cameron Mitchell and the CLGA 6 (Laura Pidcock, Yasmine Dar, Mish Rahman, Gemma Bolton, Ann Henderson, Nadia Jama).

      2. THANK YOU V much hirsutemal. Any breakdown by region?

        Also as I urged, too late alas, for the leadership election that allowed Keith & the dep… name slips me, to slip through, ONLY vote for OUR options. Do NOT give any preferences to undesirables. Eg at leadership meeting our least worst option was RLB who won 1st round but Keith slipped through on 2nd prefs when in reality we had no wish for the pest Keith.

        Same with this upcoming NEC election ie ANYONE supported by those who “worked night and day” to put Johnson in office, will NEVER be of service to the many. Their masters are elsewhere. So on no account give them even your lowest rank. Also ignore SH its suggestion will split our votes. SH and his band will not be voting as they each wish. They have a slate ie Baxter Joshan etc. THEY are well organised and disciplined and DETERMINED.

        Hurstemal your extra names are a great help as we need be prepared for shenanigans from the Right who will do anything to have our slate deselected for any trumped up reason. So good to be prepared with decent alternative options. Judging from my CLP delegate nomination meeting, the Right as ever was well prepared. We were still successful to some extent despite some “Left” delegates felt other things more pressing than attending the NEC nomination vote…. i expect the were reading more books to each other.

        Organise. Be determined. Give no ground to the Right. NEVER give ground to the Right. No good has ever come of it. No good will EVER come of it… eg Max Headroom the wet flannel Johnson enabler. Lets stop bad bad bad news Keith Starmer🌹🌹🌹

  4. A MASSIVE thank you Skwawkbox and Grassroots Voice for helping us use our votes to good effect in our important NEC election.

    The despicable centrists are indeed not only trying to irritate and force democratic socialist members OUT of Labour, now that the trilateral billionaires and centristRight PLP have got their wolf in sheep’s clothing into the party leadership role, they have, as you say, configured an inappropriate STV voting system to ensure that the democratic socialists members choices can easily be confounded by an over-intricate voting system which has a single objective – to ensure the membership does not elect the left wing slate it wants.

    Even after four long years of Never-ending disloyalty, knavish tricks and coordinated smearing of Starmer’s predecessor by them, this action by the ‘new management centristRight fills me with disgust.

    Reply

    1. “A MASSIVE thank you Skwawkbox and Grassroots Voice for helping us use our votes to good effect in our important NEC election”.
      We on the left really aren’t that smart enough to decide who to vote for by ourselves. So thanks again for showing us the way. Maybe next time we could all just give you our voting card and you could vote for us. That way there will be no mistakes.

      Reply

      1. When the vile centrists go out of their way to devise an over-intricate configuration of STV TO CONFOUND democratic socialist members’ choices, WE NEED ALL THE HELP WE CAN GET

  5. Does anybody know?

    How much are the NEC members who are voted into office paid or recompensed for carrying out their duties?

    Reply

    1. Steve H, as far as I know NEC members are volunteers and don’t get paid at all. I imagine they get paid travel expenses when they need to come to HQ for meetings in person.

      Reply

    1. I don’t know for sure but looking at them, the first preference appears to be tied to the home region of each candidate. They are 11 Regions, so six of them would be taken as a home region.
      After that I guess the other 5 regions have been allocated to each candidate depending on how many votes the home region offers, with London the bigger region in terms of votes divided in three, West, South, and North and East, to allocate to each candidate a similar proportion of vote.
      For example Yasmin Dar comes from the North West and this is a big region in terms of left vote, so it make sense for her to have Northern Ireland and International with smaller numbers of voters. While Ann Henderson with a smaller home region (Scotland) in terms of left vote has been allocated her Scotland, Wales and East.
      I am not sure if I am right but it makes sense to me, if they they had. The most important message is to keep discipline, so Steve H vote for the slate and learn from your mistake of voting for Starmer. I hope that you realised, he isn’t all that he promised to be.

      Reply

      1. Maria – ” I hope that you realised, he isn’t all that he promised to be.”
        I’ve yet to come across a politician that does

      2. Maria – ” I hope that you realised, he isn’t all that he promised to be.”

        SteveH – “I’ve yet to come across a politician that does”

        The single politician who IS all he claimes/promises to be is JEREMY BERNARD CORBYN!

        But then again, he isn’t a “politician”, he’s a socialist. A mighty fine socialist at that.

      3. qwertboi – I hadn’t appreciated how politically naïve you really are.

      4. Steve H, t heir is a difference between a politician that comes short of expectations and one that doesn’t come even nearer.
        You and many voted for Starmer as leader because on his strong stand on membership of the EU. Now that he is leader he isn’t even bothering on taking Johnson’s government to the Supreme Court to force him to have the details of the Trade Deal with the US scrutinised by parliament.
        He simply orders Labour MPs to abstain on anything, even when Bills would make crimes committed while working undercover unable to be prosecuted, the same with torture abroad committed by British troops, or for the same troops to claim compensation for injuries sustained after 5 years.
        Hence, we need left leaning representatives on the NEC and the only way to maximise their presence is to keep the line and voting in a discipline way. The only “independent” that stand a chance is Ann Black. However, we know for experience that although she is better than Joanna Baxter, we cannot count on her.
        Thus, if you wish to vote for independents vote for them on 7th, 8th and 9th positions, but for the first 6 position keep to the list.

      5. Maria – “You and many voted for Starmer as leader because on his strong stand on membership of the EU.”
        I find it remarkable how many people on here arrogantly presume to know what’s in other peoples minds. If I’d voted on the basis that you claim then I’d have been an idiot because although it may have escaped your notice we had already left the EU at the time of the leadership election. Some of us appreciate that it is time to move on when a war has been lost. There are other battles to be won, the principle one being a Labour government at the next GE and so far I believe that Keir has made better progress on this goal than either of the other 2 leadership candidates would have.

  7. So little information on any candidate, so take instruction from Sinn Fein.

    Reply

    1. Steve Richards, i will try to send u info, though it may be easier for Skwawkbox to post it. A few days before the nomination meeting and on the day itself we got statements via a link. Will see if i can fish it out but it was a VERY long list. So seemed best to stick to our slate which was as in Skwawk post except for the lady who has now stood down due to sudden charge against her. She won our CLP nomination… but Heigh Ho, we fight on 🌹🌹🌹

      Reply

      1. Thanks signpost not windchimes, but my CLP has already told me who to vote for & why they think I should. I’m afraid I did what I was told, but I wanted to know more about who; what & why I should vote for them, but this is democracy & the ability to vote for someone else’s choice. Ignorance can never be bliss!

      2. OMG Steve Richards… Gosh. Your CLP is not allowed to do that!!! Report them ASAP if their list included Right wing nasties. Anyway as promised, here is the link to all the candidates who wished to be nominated. You can then read up on the Names posted by Skwawkbox. ps my CLP GC delegates incl me, have already voted at our nomination meeting. We could give short speeches of support for our preferences, BUT the CLP as a whole is not allowed to instruct anyone how to vote. So, I am puzzled by what you say. Anyway here’s the link –

        https://labour.org.uk/activist-hub/governance-and-legal-hub/ballots-and-nominations/candidate-statements-2020/

        🌹🌹🌹

    2. We’ll happily learn from any subjugated victim of anti-democratic struggle.

      Even when the vicious imperialism that oppressed them was ours.

      Reply

  8. Thank you for this Swawkbox. Our aim is to maximise Left representation and if voting preferences based on regions increase our chances of this then I will vote accordingly.

    Reply

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