Analysis Breaking

Breaking: Labour right mounts NEC power-grab – no representatives of members now officers or chair ANY NEC subcommittees

NEC chair and Disputes subcommittee chair are MPs as right moves to weaken member representation still further

The Labour right has mounted a take-over during today’s meeting of the party’s National Executive Committee – removing elected representatives of Labour’s membership from key subcommittees to further wall off members from party decisions.

While the right appears to have swerved away from a plan to elect Gurinder Singh Josan after the SKWAWKBOX broke news of it this morning and the unanswered questions about Josan’s conduct, the right has removed every member representative as chair of any subcommittee, including Yasmin Dar as chair of ‘Disputes’, which runs a vital stage of Labour’s disciplinary process.

The new Disputes chair is right-wing MP Shabana Mahmood – now the only BAME person on the ‘officers’ group of subcommittee chairs. This leaves MPs chairing both the NEC as a whole and the disciplinary subcommittee, raising fears of the very political interference in disciplinary processes that the recent EHRC report supposedly bans.

The power grab is a further show of contempt by the Labour right toward party members, weakening the influence on the NEC of representatives elected by members. The assault on democracy and freedom of speech continues.

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40 comments

  1. I’m just waiting for certain people to pipe up and what they pipe up about…

    1. Don’t you have an opinion of your own and just waiting to Troll. With the appointment an Israeli Spy for social media it’s quite clear what the right wing are doing and why.

      1. Yes, Ive got my own opinions, alright.

        Some on here merely parrot stammer’s. I’m waiting for them to so much as mutter something resembling a complaint before I remind everyone once again just who it is backing the oleaginous shithouse to the hilt both pre and post-Corbyn.

        If yo’re so sensitive that you consider demonstrating someone’s hypocrisy to be ‘trolling’, you really shouldn’t do political websites.

      2. rotzeichen its a jungle out there and youve just stumbled into a minefield..Toffee is not a person without “opinions” ,in fact his poetry of words is quite somthing to behold and savour.ask the right wing troll steve h,davidh,Steve H or whatever name he gets paid to use.

      1. Plenty of buzzards swooping now that the tapeworms are dates. Falcons are beautiful and only kill to survive.

  2. Was the issue of Assaf Kaplan’s appointment raised under AOB of emergency business?

    1. This is still the same pill popping NEC kangaroo court that we had under Corbyn in the socialist revival …ask Chris Williamson about loyalty?

  3. Lots of people gave up membership of the Party on principle; now they’d be wise to get out on grounds of security, before Kaplan and his hackers get to work on their phones and lap-tops.

  4. Lots of people gave up membership of the Party on principle

    Not according to some….There’s record numbers joining, apparently.

    now they’d be wise to get out on grounds of security, before Kaplan and his hackers get to work on their phones and lap-tops.

    Given a judge ruled they could do what they liked with Mike Sivier’s personal data – under the guise of not being able to tell exactly who was personally responsible for leaking/divulging/abusing his personal information – people should’ve done the Frank Bough then.

  5. On what authority were the incumbents dismissed – were there elections the Skwawkbox didn’t mention?
    I didn’t think the leader or general secretary had that much power.

    1. David – As far as I’m aware NEC members serve for a fixed term on the various committees and leadership groups so everyone who took an interest in these things should have known this was coming. In fact there was an interesting and informative article about the potential power shift published on LabourList at the beginning of December.
      https://labourlist.org/2020/12/james-asser-elected-as-chair-of-labours-nec-equalities-committee/
      Give it a read.

      1. I just don’t care enough – and didn’t stop to think before commenting.

  6. Furthermore, if I hadn’t retired at 50 and was still working, I wouldn’t be joining a union and thereby donating my hard-earned to an arm of the UK Establishment that seeks to destroy working class people.

  7. “The power grab is a further show of contempt by the Labour right toward party members, weakening the influence on the NEC of representatives elected by members. The assault on democracy and freedom of speech continues.”

    Two things occur to me on this.

    1 – This is not just contempt that the neoliberal right are displaying here. It is also an AGGRESSIVE (affresively anti-democratic) action, albeit one which one expects from centrists, who, we should remind ourselves, are not natural Labour members, but entryists undertaking an important mission for their overlords, the third-way, trilateral commission billionaires, i.e. to remove the threat of democratic socialism so frighteningly restored by the short leadership of a moderate democratic socialist leader, Sir Trilat’s wonderful predecessor.

    2 – Every democratic socialist member must be questioning whether Labour them to stay and fight for their party.

    Tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands of former membersd have already left the party. Surely, the rest of the Labour Movement – not just former and current party members – should be playing their part in deciding whether their Labour Party is neoliberal-capitalist or democratic socialist?

    1. opps..
      “2 – Every democratic socialist member must be questioning whether Labour DESERVES them to stay and fight for their party.”

    2. Has a ex Labour party councillor and former long term member of the Labour party I firmly believe that the Labour party,not just the knights Labour party are a obstacle to the working-class movement and socialism.They are a powerful distraction and if they had never existed the conservative and unionist party would have had to invent them to keep the working-class on permanent Lockdown and stop the advancement of socialism.We have been took for a ride by the establishment system.

  8. More stupid games being played out by the cult of new Labour 2.0 and this right-wing obsession with limiting any power and control to the faithful.

    All while ignoring the members, Well I can see no purpose to being a member with this bs happening every day!

    All the stay and fight brigade amuses me as they never explain how you’re going to successfully get rid of 92% of the party machinery and MP’s…

  9. Howard Becket just lost my vote, turns out he would have cancelled Cheltenham
    For why

    1. Doug…I went to Cheltenham once…not very nice,but I don’t think cancelling them for being a ugly town is a good bet.?I didn’t realise that millionaire Lawyer from N Ireland didnt like the town either?..funny old game politics “innit” ?

    2. Yeah, the totally impartial Racing Post says nobody can actually PROVE that 250,000 people from all over the country gathering in a big crowd to watch horse racing could have spread the virus, just like they can’t actually PROVE fans travelling to watch football spread it internationally.

      “It wasn’t me killed all those people Copper, and you can’t prove it was, ha ha.”

      1. David I always wondered about the Racing Post when they described me has “The most narrow minded councillor in Surrey” and self appointed gaurdian of the countys morals after I rejected a planning application in Horley surrey high street by Corals betting shops.This was in the 90 and the expansion of “family friendly betting shops in empty A1shops..I always appreciated headlines,but never the front page that even distributed to Ireland and my relatives who were shocked to see me named and shamed has a “bigot” ….Money talks but they were still rejected on appeal fighting my refusal under “change of use” .The High street was fighting to survive at that time under gorden browns invasion of the High street by Banks and betting shops.

  10. It is not true that, as you put it – “the right has removed every member representative as chair of any subcommittee” The full list from yesterday is below. Ann Black was voted as chair of the NPF which is a NEC appointment. She was elected to the NEC as a members representative of course..

    Deputy leader – Angela Rayner
    NEC chair – Margaret Beckett
    NEC vice-chair – Alice Perry
    Treasurer – Diana Holland
    Joint policy committee co-convenor – Tom Warnett
    National policy forum chair (when also an NEC member) – Ann Black
    Organisation committee (‘Org Sub’) chair – Wendy Nichols
    Disputes panel chair – Shabana Mahmood
    Equalities committee chair – James Asser

  11. It may of course exist but I have, so far, not encountered any evidence the penny has dropped yet that members are now surplus to requirements in the Labour Party.

    In terms of foot slogging at the coalface it has for some time been the case that it is those members of the Party who are dismissed as ‘the left’/’Trots’ etc (defined as anyone who wants the democracy and input it says on the tin) who have consistently carried out the majority if not all of the campaigning donkey work. Even when incompetent and corrupt right and left wing careerists are parachuted in. A rational observation of that reality suggests the question of why expel and alienate that volunteer workforce?

    A continuing rational observation would take the next step by considering the obvious answer which is to utilise the process common elsewhere of technological substitution.

    A perusal of the job description filled by a former spy for another State strongly suggests not only that those who have not yet walked of their own volition or fallen foul of the corrupt and Kafkaesque discipline process are about to be purged by that incumbent but also that any role previously performed by volunteer members is to be transferred to a AI algorithm.

    Effectively, and for all practical and meaningful purposes, making Party Members surplus to requirements other than as mere window dressing. This fits the known and recorded view and approach of at least the Acting (in every sense of the word) General Secretary in terms of removing those troublesome nineteenth and twentieth century notions of democracy – both representative and participative – from the system in favour of the hierarchical bureaucrats second* wettest dream of complete control over the systems structures and processes.

    *The first being able to extend that to the voting public.

    1. The May election will be interesting. So long as a Tory doesn’t benefit I’ll be looking for an alternative. Green I think.

  12. Just received the following report in an email Word attachment. The contents strongly suggest that a lot of Constituencies should expect TIG (or should that be TINGE) rejects to be parachuted in as PPC’s.

    “By Mish Rahman, NEC CLP delegate. Via Twitter

    Yesterday the NEC Organisation Committee approved a paper supposedly to ensure that only ‘High Quality Candidates’ are selected for local government and Parliamentary selections.
    The paper made it clear that candidates and elected representatives are held to a higher standard than party members and the NEC expects the highest standards of probity.

    That’s fine in principle – but there were a number of elements of the paper which are deeply unsettling
    The system laid out in the paper ultimately rests on highly subjective and value judgements, in my opinion it will increase incentives for false/malicious accusations which are already a key contributor to toxifying party culture.

    I asked for greater clarification on how a potential candidate can be deemed to “embarrass” the party and put down a basic amendment to change wording from “that can be seen as embarrassing” to “that would be seen by many people as”, but this was defeated.

    Another simple amendment was made to stop the General Secretary unilaterally ruling out a candidate, adding stipulation for it to be brought to the NEC.
    This was also defeated.
    The fact that elected bodies can potentially be cut out of crucial decisions to rule candidates out troubles me immensely.

    I believe the paper hands too much power to unelected officials and has a negative and discouraging tone towards disabled, working class or BAME people
    This could potentially intensify domination of professionalised, career-oriented people standing for elected office.

    We don’t want bland robotic suits with little lived experience – we want people who represent our communities
    People make mistakes. They learn. Sometimes they are victimised by unfair accusations.

    If we are to be relevant to ordinary people, we need to accept that not everyone standing for elected office will be perfect.”

    What is obvious is that no democracy will be tolerated, and if that means no members and no union contributions in favour of the Party being in total hock to and under the control of wealthy Corporate donors and/or the Government’s or Government agencies of other easily identifiable States, then it’s obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse that the hierarchy and bureaucracy are more than prepared to sell the movement and it’s values to the highest bidders and dump the members and unions.

  13. OH Rose thou art sick The invisible worm That flies in the night In the howling storm Has found out thy bed of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. Except of course it is out the open and the recruiting of Assaf Kaplan, formerly? of Israeli Military Intelligence should make it clear to even the slowest Soft left LP member what is going on in the LP. One thing is for sure, the dark secret love that Starmer, Evans, Asslan and the rest of the scurvy right wing crew have, is not love of democracy, socialism, or the LP.

    1. Damn,I laid out Blake’s dark, but brilliant little poem properly but it has come out the way it has. It fits beautifully with the dire state of the LP and the howling storm of Covid 19, Brexit, and the fast developing economic crisis.

  14. Jonathan Cook in an excellent blog on the subject rightly asks all the right questions about the appointment of Kaplan. Did the job exist previously, and if so who held that position. Who appointed Kaplan and were there any other candidates interviewed etc. Plus who was it thought it was appropriate to employ a foreign national who was the former? employee of the intelligence services of their country.

    1. I think we missed one there john by sheer luck we are out of the firing line.Very worrying for a ordinary Labour party member who is just looking for a decent life and a decent wage will now be scrutinised by a Israeli black ops man.I dont know if hes proficient in waterboarding or phycological torture but who knows in the Labour party of today?

      1. Yes, too right Joseph, we are well out of it, winter New Labour mk 2 and all the rest.

  15. Only temporarily. These approaches and the attitudes which drive them have a life of their own. The trusty steed of mission creep will no doubt get round to you both when this is extended beyond Party members to a purge of all voters engaging in wrongthink.

    The Labour Party’s version of the Kaplan of Kopenick will be knocking on the door at some point.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Captain_of_K%C3%B6penick_(play)

    1. We both live far away in SE Asia Dave. But the point you make is true for most folk.

    2. Too right Dave Hansell..I am enjoying your posts,but like john says we are in S.East Asia.I didn’t get back to europe when my return flight was cancelled due to the pandemic,but have gone native with my wife in the Mekong delta of Cambodia.So I think even Israeli military intelligence that popular in the Labour party I hear would not fancy a trip into the jungle middle of nowhere land were I built my house.Keep posting as I am always willing to listen and learn.

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