Complicated STV results format does not show 1st-round votes received for most candidates, but total votes cast in contest can be worked out from quotas
As expected, the Labour Party’s decision to switch to the complicated Single Transferable Vote (STV), without approval by the party’s annual conference, for its National Executive Committee (NEC) elections has ensured that the Labour right gained more places that it would have been able to achieve under the usual system – in spite of a stronger than anticipated performance by the left slate.
However, the total votes cast in the election were fewer than 130,000 With Labour’s latest claimed membership of 570,000, according to Labour insiders this means that these elections saw the lowest percentage turnout in an NEC election in the party’s history.
Even if the 6,000 votes cast by members who resigned after voting because of the party’s probably-unlawful suspension of former leader Jeremy Corbyn (which were therefore by the party even though the rules do not say members must be in the party on results day) were added back in, it would still be the lowest.
As a comparison, the NEC by-election earlier this year – by-elections generally see lower turnout – saw a total of 293,093 votes cast, more than double the total now.
Even the Tory leadership election, with the tiny Conservative membership, had more votes – around 138,000.
The low turnout suggests any (and potentially all) of the following three factors contributed:
- low member engagement
- lots of members have left – enough to reduce the membership far below the 570,000 the party’s hierarchy has claimed
- lots of members have been purged
The current Labour Party is seriously sick.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
The current LP is most definitely ‘seriously sick’ This is what happens when you have a racist such as Starmer in charge who only wants sheep as members, to cower at his commands.
It’s not just the Labour Party that’s sick.
The whole of British politics is moribund and has been since Camstupid decided a referendum would be just the ticket.
Some say he lost a bet with Reet-Smugg.
The left apparently resigned in a fit of pique prior to the NEC elections. If there was a low turnout then the left have betrayed their lack of strategic thinking again. They missed a golden opportunity.
Conclusive proof right there ^ of the fact that there is no god.
If there were a god, lightning would have struck SteveH dead for writing the word “betrayed” in anything but a confession.
More proof that there is no god otherwise he would have struck David McNiven dead for saying that there is no god 🙂
the reason the previous by-election reported 293,093 votes cast is that everyone who voted had two votes. This only represents 147K different voters. Compare to the 2018 NEC elections – an average of 80K for the left canidates, 50K for the right candidates, and 10K for independents. There has been a drop in the numbers voting and most of those have come from the left.
People are just plain fed up with being dictated to by the hierarchy of the party with whom they have nothing in common. Those who make a living out of the party get massive salaries and expenses and are completely out of touch with ordinary people who have to get the bus to work and who earn normal wages. They ridicule those of us who are socialists , call us names like anti-Semite, Trot, Dog, scum, ban us and prevent us from expressing opinions that are not “approved”. We hope that they if we work to get a Labour government made up of people like these they will promote working class interests and uphold working class values. Pigs might fly. The Labour party is today a place for the middle class who use it shamelessly to further their own careers and don’t care about the poverty and deprivation that exists the length and breadth of the country. It is the realisation of the truth of this that has caused people to leave the party and/or not vote in NEC or other elections. Labour as a genuine working class party ceased to exist a long time ago.
Smartboy
Apply the Pantomime Dame principle
On any other Planet she would have been sacked on the spot, no organisation can be held to ransom and sabotaged by such people
Blair and Starmer have no such problem
Nothing wrong with Labour party, everything wrong with allowing Red Tories to exist within it
JC was a breath of fresh air but
Corbyn was the last breath of fresh air…All thats left wing in the PLP are windbags..!
Totally agree Doug and Joseph. My post does not reflect this but its badly worded that’s all – sorry
Jeremy is a socialist and a man of principle who genuinely cares about ordinary people. His attitude was not acceptable to the PLP so they joined with Labour HQs, the Tory party, the MSM and the establishment to ruin him even trying to destroy him as a person. They didn’t succeed and he’s still worth any 10 of them.
Seems to me that STV makes people lazy. Small wonder it was overwhelmingly dismissed when clegg got his way for a referendum on it. A centrist enabling trick that’d give the balance of power to the minority parties and factions.
That, and they’re just not arsed anymore because they understand that STV will just give the centrists more chances to shoehorn themselves in.
ONE member, ONE vote for ONE candidate.
Toffee597 about STV in wrong election “A centrist enabling trick that’d give the balance of power to the minority parties and factions…”
Dead Right Toffers. And FPTP in local and central government elections is exactly the same – not devised by reprobate neoliberal capitalists tho’, but developed (and imposed on colonies) by the ruling class establishment to create a 2-party system in which the left and radical can be weakened and managed.
Democrats and socialists should campaign hard to replace FPTP, which favours conservatism and the right.
Starmer taking advantage of Covid 19 pandemic to close down the Labour Party & re-write the the rules without question. I’m still thinking of the WORD & the WORD is F……………
THE WORD is an excellent Socialist news paper which few here will know about.
http://thewordmedia.org/latest-word-50/