Mass abstentions in protest at rigging of selections leaves Labour’s Anfield campaign in chaos and at risk
The ‘safest Labour ward in the country’ is under threat this morning after members’ outrage triggered a mass boycott of a by-election selection meeting and a mass abstention among those who did attend – and an absolute shambles of a process that left Labour’s regional official with egg on his face.
Anger at Labour’s imposition of only outside, right-wing candidates and allies of the city mayor on Anfield ward in the Liverpool Walton constituency caused the vast majority of the ward’s Labour members to boycott the meeting entirely, with only some ten attending, mostly on behalf of the absent members to report what happened.
The official opened the meeting by telling the handful of voting members that they should consider themselves lucky to be able to select from such a
high calibre of candidate.
Those words didn’t age well for even half an hour.
“They’re in ****ing Everton”
Of the candidates on offer, two allies of the mayor talked about projects and organisations in the ward – that were not in the ward, sparking mutterings of ‘They’re in ****ing Everton’ and a general level of disbelief among members.
In the end, all but two of the ten voting members formally abstained. The regional official denied members a breakdown of the vote when it was requested, saying:
We don’t want it to be seen that the branch doesn’t endorse the candidate.
In the end, thanks apparently to a couple of ‘sleeping’ members turning up who are not normally seen at meetings, a former councillor from the south end of the city – Anfield is in the north – ‘won’ the selection.
‘The safest ward in the safest constituency’
A disbelieving member told Skwawkbox after the meeting closed:
I’ve never seen this level of anger before. Members for fifty years and more boycotting the process and won’t be campaigning. The safest ward in the country in the safest constituency in the country is going to be under threat.
The mayor’s allies who were hoping to be selected were embarrassing and the one who won is from bloody Cressington!
Unlike Labour’s offering, Liberal candidate Steve Radford is Anfield-based and is said to be widely known among residents. In the circumstances and with Labour set to have next to no ground campaign, Radford must consider he has a strong chance.
Labour’s assault on democracy and Keir Starmer’s contempt for the city of Liverpool and the Labour members who live in it may be about to come home to roost. And ironically, given Starmer’s addiction to non-opposition, a meeting in which a majority abstained looks set to be the warning signal.
Update: some sources have said that twelve attended and three voted, with nine abstentions.
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Sending akehurst wasn’t some miscalculation, it was absolute provacation.
SO the question shouldn;t be why is happenning, but rather why does starmer want this to happen.
Because he clearly does.
To prompt more members to resign, stand down the officers, and take over the CLP. We had to destroy the CLP to save it.
Treat people like pigs who have to be killed to be cured. Such contempt!
Increasingly convinced Starmer hates the Labour party.
What say the unions? Do they endorse this anti-democratic behaviour?
Andy
While Unions continue to make massive contributions to the party they are in effect endorsing this type of thing. They need to withdraw or greatly reduce financial support.
Regarding Anfield, our members and supporters in Liverpool need no advice from me. They will probably boycott the campaign and the election, not voting for anyone if no independent Left candidate stands.
Starmer needs to be taught a lesson and our comrades in Liverpool are just the ones to do it.
But why wouldn’t an Independent Left candidate stand? If that was true it’s Goodnight to the LP.
Andy, Starmer doesn’t hate the Labour Party per se, he hates any Party which has respect for human rights and therefore supports the Palestinians and other persecuted groups.
How else could the approval of such a nasty, hateful thug as Ella Rose to be a possible Labour candidate be explained?
It is unfortunate for those good Socialists who remain members of Starmer’s despicable version of the Labour Party but we have to ensure that Labour is hammered into the ground at the next GE to be able to grow it again as a Party we can all be proud of.
I think it was John Harvey-Jones who said “Sometimes you have to kill your favourite son”
If the election of Starmer has done any good at all, it has forced the woodworm out of the wood for all to see.
” While unions continue to make massive contributions to the Labour party” are you kidding? What the hell do you think you are doing proping up this life of Brian “fiasco .Kettle callinng pan black even if you are essentially correct on contributions that continue to nullify the subs and direct debit action that long term Labour party members have made by stop feeding the parasites infesting the Labour party.ITs the hight of hypocrisy to criticise what you are doing yourselves comrades.
Reply to Joseph O Keefe
Unlike yourself Joseph I don’t have an answer for everything but I do respect the democratic right of people to be a member of whichever political party they like or none at all (as in your case).
Insulting and belittling those who are members of the Labour party including Socialists who, rightly or wrongly, have decided to stay and fight does you no credit at all.
“…but I do respect the democratic right of people to be a member of whichever political party they like. .”. Does that include Tories joining the Labour Party? Does that include RACISTS? Does that include antisemitists? Does that include Starmerists? Does that include Corbynists?
You mean Don’t Complain and let the careerists walk all over you? No thanks! Or is it easier just to ban people who don’t agree with you? Is that what they call running a tight ship? It’s nonsense isn’t it?
Reply To Mr Andrew Jenkinson
I am not a guardian of the public morals and if people want to join a political party or any other group and can do so legally I respect their democratic right to join.
Reply to Paul
No I don’t mean let the careerists walk all over us. I mean that as a Socialist I believe in a free society run on democratic principles.
Yesterday the blog’s resident gaslighter asked me if I thought Putin’s Russia was a democracy. Thinking about it, more so than Starmer’s Labour.
Lundiel….its a kingdom with lots of knights in a fairy tale,That could also apply to the Labour party.
you’re right MaB they aint this ‘stupid,arrogant and out of touch’ theyre well on the way to being that stupid & arrogant but this is a provacation. the only logical explanations I can come are they are trying to drive the left out of Labour, or Left wing cities such as Liverpool are not the branding they want to attract voters in middle England
Diogenes, yup! Yet there are none so blind etc. Great post.
Will refusing to support an official Labour candidate constitute a disciplinary offence? Just thinking!
Half the PLP would have been disciplined after the last election
No why should they? They cannot FORCE members to deliver leaflets,
doors knock etc to help a candidate. In fact I believe that BAME members
have boycotted campaigning until Forde is published ..
AS for voting – that is secret ..
Yes indeed – it is all voluntary!!! It continues to astonish me that the Labour Party is now more like corporate management against their member lackeys! Some of the expulsion and threat of expulsion letters I have seen beggar belief in their use of ‘HR’ (anyone remember when we were ‘personnel’ and not just a ‘resource’…) language. I try to avoid swearing online, but just who the **** do Starmer and his crew think they are.
I did not vote for Starmer, thought the writing was on the wall on the very day of his election and allowed my membership to lapse on the day of the payoff to the so called ‘whistleblowers’. I did feel pangs of guilt that leaving was not the way to reclaim the Labour Party I joined all those years ago. However, nothing that has happened since has made me change my mind and Starmer and crew are not getting another penny of my hard earned pension.
Was secret…..you don’t seem to understand whats happening to the Labour party.A bunch of parasites and psychopaths are not interested in your rules.Thats old fashioned don’t you know?.Nothings secret and nothings sacrosanct everything has a price tag.
Only opposing or standing against. But I am sure that rule can be modified or re-interpreted if it serves their purpose
Is Steve Radford a Socialist? If he is, I hope that the residents vote for him. If he isn’t I hope that one of the socialist officers suspended over the fiasco at Wavertree CLP, stands up as an independent Labour candidate and mopes the floor with the official one.
I fully agree with you Maria.
There’s no way region would allow a socialist on the shortlist.
thats how the Labour right rigs the game control of regional, if I was in the NIP stratedgy offices Id seriously look at trying to supplant Labour in Liverpool
This is what happens when the leadership has an aversion to democracy. Imposed candidates from outside the ward. Imposed by the awful Akehurst who’s not too keen on democracy either.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again Akehurst can’t even get himself re-elected, never mind being in total control of the selection of a ward he virtually knows nothing about. Except it’s a strong socialist city which he he hates.
The party’s learnt nothing from Mandelson and others who thing the electorate will just vote Labour. The fiasco of the Hartlepool and the near fiasco of Batley by-elections. .
This is not going to end well.
There are only two games in town
40 PLP members say enough
Or
If the Labour party does not have a pot to piss in
Then mass cancelling of direct debits and withdrawal of funding from Unions, should do it
invoice in the post
Starving the party of volunteers and money are our only weapons as the right has total control of all internal leavers. Our efforts must now be directed to persuading the unions to turn off the money taps and looking elsewhere.
Well done Rita…We must first show the unions how to do it by withdrawing our hard earned money and they will then have to fall in line.Whilst members continue to support the parasites then all the sacrifices for the brave individuals who have challenged the knights Labour party will be for nought…..regards!
I’m becoming increasingly mystified as to why there is so little said about a new party. It doesn’t need a big wig ‘leader’; on the contrary, 20 or so left MP’s could start it off. There is no point in carrying on with the ‘Labour’ Party, it’s finished.
I heard yesterday (Friday) that the so-called leadership could consider expelling/deselecting the 20-odd leftwing MPs before the next GE.
It’s certainly food for thought.
A staggered series of resignations resulting in by elections would be interesting. There is little support for the Labour right wing but plenty for the left IMO. OK it might well result in another Tory victory but that is even more certain if things rumble on as they are. It’s time to test the water, remembering that Johnson is likely to go early.
This would not surprise me. That’s why Starmer hasn’t tried to remove the Whip from them.
I could well believe it. They’ve gone this far, why not the whole hog?
Ha,ha,ha. How unexpected.
IMO, much as I’d like to see it, It is a huge leap that’s guaranteed to fail, or take a very long time to get established. By which time it would be unrecognisable to those who started it. I also think many ex/current members are loath to let hand over the name and union affiliations to a load of management careerists. If the unions transferred their affiliation en masse, it would be a different prospect and would see the end of Labour.
Our working conditions protectors would see the resheathing of the sword if they were to take that position. Live on their pensions only, unlikely.
Paul, I recently cancelled my DD after more than 30 years membership. The problem as I see is funding, a socialist Party doesn’t attract funding from millionaires.
Thus, without financial support for the big Trade Unions a socialist party doesn’t stand a chance at been successful.in a General Election but it could start small and try to win a string of seats in local elections in strong socialist cities like Liverpool..
Nevertheless, a small socialist party without Trade Union backing, stands an excellent change at preventing Starmer’s Labour Party from winning in marginal seats both at local elections and at General Elections.Once careerist MPs and Cllrs realise that their seats are at stake, they will change their tunes and will start to make U turns.
UKIP never won a single seat, but by winning seats at local elections forced a Tory Party that was mainly pro EU into a pro Brexit Party.
Blair foresaw this and his solution was public funds, state financing of all political parties. That would curb the unions and big business at a stroke, and give party leaders free reign. He’d already proved he could twist the party’s weak democratic control to his will. Angered by the unions Miliband opened the gates to the public thinking the unions and factional influence would be diluted or swept away by the ordinary ‘sensible’ public. That experiment will never be repeated.
I heartily endorse the view offered by BackofBeyond, and add that in my opinion, this is the natural consequence of the Labour right’s decision to give strategy and it’s execution to the likes of such characters as Inspector Clouseau and Laurel and Hardy.
It’s hard to believe that members’ subs are being spent paying such bureaucratically constipated regional officials as the clown overseeing this selection process. For them to willingly follow such a ludicrously gerrymandered process calls into question the criteria by which people are appointed to staff positions in the “New Model Labour Party”.
Perhaps the lyrics need to be changed: “Clowns to the right of me, jokers further to the right; here I am, stuck in the middlewith a bunch of useless centrists!
Well fo!ks…..you no what to do and its working bleed the Labour party and withdraw your funding.
I hear that Starmer organised a photo op to “highlight” the shortage of HGV drivers, during which he took an HGV test. It was reported that he reversed into a lump of concrete. For one brief exhilarating moment, I thought they meant Mandelson, but it really was a lump of concrete. What a metaphor for the LP.
>>For one brief exhilarating moment, I thought they meant Mandelson, but it really was a lump of concrete.
More like lump of excrement if were talking about Mandelson!
As others have stated the so called socialists are idiots they will slowly be deselected and squeezed out and staying silent and scared isn’t helping Labour, the socialist members and vast support socialism really has we need a socialist only Labour movement done right this time NO right wing EVER, enshrined for all time openness and respect for the rules and congress.
The damn PLP told they work for US we don’t blinking well serve them! Grass routes CLP that send good ideas constantly into the head office that collates and the best 10-20 are selected each year and this is done by a independent panel open and transparent no hiding away executive meetings etc we have a golden opportunity to break forever with these right wing scum leave them to there prise the rotting remains of the once great Labour party. We should be moving forwards not fighting the same battles where they control the party it’s pointless!
I am so glad my socialist parents both passed now never saw what a mess the party they supported for 80 years has become. I walked away for my own sanity seeing how little backbone the so called socialist MP’s have there is no fire or fight in them. Silence is cowards at heart especially seeing what happened to JC and the members and we get….
Silence maybe a little gob off on twitter then silence acceptance as long as the wages and kudos of being a MP continues is all they seam to care about.
Welcome to the zombie party dead and sinking up the place but still fooling people because the colour of rosette is the same…
DG, I think it’s more than evident to most people that you are a paid shill, and I suspect very strongly that you are the same shill that used to post on here as windchimes, because you do EXACTLY as he does – ie repeat the same things every single time you post AND are ALWAYS discrediting the left, in ‘your’ case specifically the SCG of MPs..
I mean I have no doubt whatsoever that you’re a paid shill whose ‘job’ it is to endlessly discredit socialist MPs, and the big joke of it is – ie the ‘joke’ you play on the readership of this site – is that on the one hand – as you have on hundreds of occasions – you fraudulently slag them off for saying too little too late whenever skwawkbox posts an article about one or more or all of them criticising Starmer, and on the other hand – as you have in hundreds of OTHER posts – when one or more of them post something criticising Starmer – you say that they are just wasting their time doing so as Starmer will just completely ignore it.
Needless to say, if you believe the latter is the case and that they are just wasting their time, then why would you keep slagging them off for criticising Starmer and saying it’s too little too late. Doesn’t add up of course……. unless you’re a shill that is who finds it SO amusing to post totally contradictory things and dupe readers.
I don’t accept this analysis at all. DG seems to be exactly as he says, a disabled grandad who is fed up with the way things are going.
I agree with Paul’s assessment of Disabled Grandad’s comment.
I would also add that allan howard is talking a load of bollocks and only ever insults other people that post comments.
Allen stop it please….DG is just a old Labour party member that feels betrayed and doesn’t wish to fund the Labour party parasites as he realises that its absolutely futile….whats wrong with that it is the only democratic choice left in the Labour party.Regards..!former Labour councillor deputy chair and political education officer in the Labour party now bailed out for the good.
Good post DG. However, what on earth would it take to stink the place up any further? It’s already a sty.
Oh how amusing…. fucking shills defending another shill! Or MORE likely, shills defending one of their own personas! It’s hilariously amusing that when a shill posted a falsehood on here so that he could then go on to discredit Jeremy Corbyn by comparison, that Jokeefe and many of the other regular all-day every-day posters – when I asked them what they thought about it – either attacked me and tried to discredit me, or just waffled some totally meaningless response.
The usual MO – when I call out a shill for lying or fraudulently discrediting JC or left-wing MPs – is that one shill/persona responds to what I said defending the liar AND then ANOTHER posts shortly afterwards doing the same, and in this particular instance Jokeefe – the night watchman – then added a THIRD such ‘response’ much later, whereas normally, it would be Jokeefe jumping in first when I post late at night or the early hours of the morning.
As I keep saying and warning readers, this site is totally infested with shills/black propagandists and their secondary personas, and there is rarely a thread in which they don’t repeat their lies and falsehoods about JC and left-wing MPs, all of which are concocted and designed to discredit them. And the reason they endlessly repeat their lies and falsehoods is because repetition is a subtle form of brain-washing, and it ‘cements’ the falsehood so deeply in the targets mind that it’s often the case that you can’t get through to them with the truth – ie when you disprove what they said and expose it for the falsehood it is.
Put it this way (in respect of DG), how the fuck do Paul and Richard and Jokeefe know that DG, so-called, ISN’T a shill!!
A naval analogy.
The operations room of a warship takes a direct hit from an Exocet.
The manufacturer’s name on the side of the missile…
•••••S T A R M E R•••••
Carry on, keef.
https://images.app.goo.gl/jCsSKumTpj1NkBJ66
The Labour Party is facing Starmergeddon!
Worth recalling what happened a Blaenau Gwent some years ago.
Thanks for this reminder Tony – I’d forgotten about it. The way things are going under Starmer there will soon be no such thing as a safe Labour Ward or Seat .
I think I know what you mean, but remind us all?
A new Party? Well I am staying on .. and not allowing
OUR Labour Party to be stolen.
Surely even the stupidest right wing MP will fear for his or her
prospects if Starmer stays on?
The real question is – who takes over ..?
It’s already been nicked, lock, stock and barrel. The Rightists are guaranteed seats in the current situation. A new Leader is the last thing we need; it just creates a sitting target. We need a new movement. It’s Jump or Suffocate.
All constituency Parties should elect the candidate THEY prefer as an INDEPENDENT candidate in all future elections. They then support their chosen candidate and get him / her elected, campaigning AGAINST the official candidate. Once we have left wing candidates they can join Labour as MPs or councillors. There will be so little remaining of Right Wing Labour that they can rejoin the Labour Party with little opposition and create a real socialist Party.
Lisa Nandy or Jess Phillips. The Nightmare Ticket………!!
What did it feel like, signing away your Article 10 freedom of speech rights? Good? Bad? Ain’t bovvered? A new party that couldn’t routinely gag members, and represented Labour values and workers’ interests may get popular very quickly and win an election.
I think it will be popular. There’s a need and a thirst for it. The old model is fossilised and going nowhere, that’s for certain.
In Ward selection meetings after the candidates have been interviewed there is a motion to proceed to the ballot. Why didn’t the 10 members in the meeting vote against this? By allowing this motion to pass they effectively allowed the ward to select a candidate.
John, I wasn’t there but, it could be that even if members there have refused to proceed to ballot it wouldn’t have made a difference to the end result. only a momentary delay.
Yes, but then the candidate would have been imposed & not selected by the ward. The party will make a big play of the fact that the candidate was selected by ward members (even if was only 2 votes for & 1 for someone else).
Love this tweet but not that it reflects today’s reality.
https://twitter.com/papasombra/status/1448922295825846283?t=SwDvyktoetECFzCH3mhwFQ&s=19
Thanks Skwawky, that was hilarious but never trust a Lib Dem.
Just need a Liverpool Independent Socialist to stand.
I think he is Liberal Party not LD.
The same political lightweight Neo-Liberal capitalist 2nd X1.
From my experience both bombarded communities with leaflets claiming credit for everything under the sun.
But it was all a CON, tragically I believe they took advantage of the fact that a significant number of voters don’t really know how councils work and because people got regular leaflets they thought they work really hard for us?
Why I have little respect for them is they essentially de-politicised people whilst top down paternalist Labour councillors liked to take the power for themselves when left wing democratic socialists want to politicise citizens and rule WITH.
Same non-political lightweights.
From my experience the Lib Dem/Liberal Neo-Liberal capitalist 2nd X1 bombard people with leaflets claiming credit for everything and in effect try to de-politicise people CONNING them as sadly a significant number of people don’t really know how councils work.
But perhaps Right Wing Labour don’t want people to know too because they are paternalists whilst left wing democratic socialists would want to serve diverse working people not FOR them but WITH them.
And people think Lib Dem’s/Liberals work hard for them but it is just a bourgeois political strategy, a CON which is why I have no respect for them.
And you beat them with genuine class community politics.
They the lib dems are basically the first political parasites but are now just part of the whole rotten establishment system like the Labour party.SOME OF THE COMMENTS ON HERE make the life of Brian look like a realistic documentary about procedure rules and motions of a delusional Labour party membership.Mandy was correct “youve nowhere else to go” unless you stop feeding the parasites infesting the Labour party.
Isn’t there a quorum for a meeting like this? Wasn’t it inquorate?
They are fast enough setting impossible quorums for CLP meetings.
Good article in the morning star…re Baby Kinnock in the big tent with a Tory festival and Rachael Reeves playing a “blinder for Sky Bet and her involvment in the other parasite infecting the UK the gambling industry.
Who voted for Sir Keir Starmer to be leader of the Labour Party? All 3 candidates agreed to take instruction from the Board of Jewish Deputies & as Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said in last year’s AIPAC meeting (paraphrase) , ‘Congratuations for stopping Socialists gaining power in GB & USA. Is someone on a mission from God?.
Jesus Christ was a working-class man who worked “on the building” .IF anything he would have been a socialist.He hated money lenders and taxmen and physically beet them out of the Temple for blasphemy.I don’t think Jesus Christ would have approved the crucifixion of Jeremy Corbyn either by the self appointed right wing Board of deputys..They are in for a shock if there is ever a second coming of the messiah they are waiting for.because nobody likes a fanatic especially right wing Zealots that hes encountered before in Jerusalem…?
……..but if there is to be a 2nd coming of the messiah there has to be the land of Israel, although maybe not if there are all these crucifixes around to remind him of what happened last time (Bill Hicks).
in the great cleaning out of the stables someone should tell them that they have mistaken shit for straw… leaving only a very bad smell
Why no new party? Well, what has to come first is a movement. Recall that’s how Labour came into existence: first the unions, then the party. The movement is here. All of us, and millions more. We have to cohere and stay strong. The danger is people melting away and becoming disillusioned. So long as we remain united and fight issue by issue, ward by ward, constituency by constituency, union by union, the moment for a new party will arrive. To go to soon is to bring on disaster. A new party now would fail. But when Starmer falls, that may be the moment. It’s a matter of judgement. The crucial matter is that we don’t become another Labour: a hierarchical, bureaucratic machine for climbers. Power at the grassroots. No national bureaucracy. A federal structure. When the time comes, that’s how we must be. For now, we must keep doing what we’re doing: spreading the word about the destruction of democracy in Labour and rallying people to the cause of change. Starmer is a dud. The right know it. He has the appeal of a wet dish cloth. He will fail. We must not let up the criticism of him and all those who support him in the meantime. Their argument will be: “Oh, it’s all Corbyn’s fault. He did so much damage it will take us a thousand years to recover.” They will blame the left. We must have our arguments ready. This is, of course, a desperate moment. But it is also an opportunity. We can build a truly radical party if we keep our nerve and act at the right moment. We can shove the capitalists aside and let the common folk run their own lives. That’s what they fear. That’s what Starmer fears. But the right has backed the wrong horse. He’s lame and can’t jump fences. We have everything to play for.
There is no point in waiting is there? I don’t understand (or trust!) your reasoning that now will fail but later later will succeed?
Corbyn did nobody any damage. You are a fraud.
Observing he events of the last few days it is evident
that the current Labour Party apparatchiks are not behaving as
recognisably decent human beings – never mind as socialists.
Decent human beings do not treat respected citizens who spend their
own time trying to makes things better for others as the LP
is treating valued comrades. They do not seem to realise that
they NEED discussion and polite disagreement and challenge .
.to obtain good workable ideas for policies. That is apart from
the basic need for leaflet distribution, door knocking etc. I wonder
how many of these apparatchiks have set out on a freezing November night
slipping about on wet leaves to campaign? And this after a days
work.
The appreciation of David Amess from people who disagree
with him on many things has surely shown that? It is amazing
the number of people he has cheered and helped!
Chris Williamson is one of these and he tweeted this:
“I must pay tribute to David Amess following his horrific
murder today. We shared a passion for animal rights, fire safety
and fuel poverty.
When I was suspended from @UKLabour
he sent me a private message of support, as he did when
I lost my seat.
RIP David”
Amess family have asked for kindness and love ….and Starmer
should think on this as he lays flowers ..