Cowardly tactic continues – ever more shamelessly
The Starmer regime grows ever more shameless in its use of anti-democratic tactics to prevent left candidates standing for election. Nobbling candidates by suspending or expelling them before a selection contest has become commonplace – assuming a left candidate even gets as far as the long- or shortlist, which has become almost unheard-of.
But now, in the rare event that a left-winger manages to get as far as a vote by local members, the party is increasingly removing those whom members want to have represent them at the ballot box – even when that selection is overwhelming.
Below is a report from a Sheffield member on the Labour regime’s tactics to remove an overwhelmingly-selected left-winger and impose a right-wing candidate who couldn’t even get 15% of the vote in the original contest – and despite local members saying they would refuse to campaign for an imposed drone:
Ecclesall Branch selection shambles
A left candidate won our selection process by a large margin in the first round of voting with 43 members in attendance.
Subsequently, he was informed he was facing expulsion.
At the next ward meeting it was agreed that the chair would convey the feelings of the branch that the expulsion of our candidate was unacceptable.
A few days later he was told he had been expelled from the Party for allegedly being a supporter of Labour Against the Witchhunt years before it was proscribed.
At Hallam CLP, an emergency motion that endorsed his selection, called on the constituency to protest his expulsion and refuse to campaign for an imposed candidate, was ruled out of order. The chair (a self-proclaimed ‘libertarian socialist’!) refused to take a challenge to his ruling. A vote of no confidence was narrowly lost 29 to 35. As a result 25 comrades then left the meeting in protest at not hearing the motion or challenge.
Ecclesall Branch then announced a selection meeting with a short list of one – the hard right candidate who had indicated that they would not be seeking the candidacy having failed to get more than 15% of the vote when Lee was selected.
The chair was challenged over his failure to act on his commitments from the previous meeting but this was ruled out of order. A vote of no confidence in the chair was also ruled out of order.
It was announced that the motion to proceed selection was not necessary – the logic being that if the candidate was not selected they would be imposed anyway. The stooge candidate was then selected.
Keir Starmer and his cronies are cowards – and so vacuous that they cannot make an argument, let alone win it – but they have no hesitation in resorting to trampling on or simply ignoring democracy to get their way, confident that their mates in the media will ignore it or actively cover for them.
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Meanwhile at every opportunity Stamer and other right wingers in the party pontificate to the media about other countries and how they ignore democracy.
All those suspended or expelled members councillors etc etc need to be guided into a party that wants them a party like The Workers Party of Britain. SkwawkBox could be the catalyst in the creation of a new and vibrant movement that will send shudders down this filthy right win labour party and the establishment. Please start this Skwawky…
Sadly the WP GB is run by Galloway, who in my opinion is a grifter, so it’s a no thanks from me.
Those idiots who think Galloway is a grifter are typical deadheaded assholes who can normally be found on their knees for the American and Tory press. people like you are not wanted.
Andrew – It will be interesting o see how well the WP-GB and the TUSC do in May. Have you any idea how many candidates they will be putting forward.
Andrew, I have supported Galloway for years, both monetarily and otherwise, but then realized what he was. And your moronic reply is another reason why I won’t be touching WP GB with a barge pole if that’s the quality of discourse and discussion on offer. Good luck, I wish you well in your new battleship
“but then realized what he was”
Which is…??? Apart from an ego, of course! Do tell…
I’m of the same mind. Galloway is far too polarising a figure.
There is a way, and that is to force a hung parliament through strategic voting, with the promise of electoral reform as the price of any coalition.
Only then will any new socialist party have a chance and only when both main parties are held to account will they be amenable – however grudging – to reform.
Mike – You might find this an interesting read
https://labourlist.org/2022/03/poll-shows-labour-voters-back-the-idea-of-standing-aside-in-unwinnable-seats/
Did the candidate who has been expelled respond to his letter from the NEC and make it clear that he had cut any association that he may once have had with the proscribed organisation or did he refuse to engage with the process and just ignore it
Don’t be ridiculous, this is happening all over the country. Twitter is a very political forum and these reports are happening daily. Our own experience that made us realise how massively the right wing are gaining a hold on the party gave us an insight in our own constituency. We as members only found out a day before that there was a meeting to choose the leader of Labour. When we arrived there were 4 or 5 times the people who usually came to meetings, many we had never seen before. We knew our MP hated anything left wing and Corbyn,the people we did know well were all supporters of Rebecca Long Bailey. They had already placed a person on each table to collect the votes and oversee the counting, we didn’t know this had happened until after the result and that they weren’t with anyone else at these 8 seater tables.Lisa Nandy won? A huge cheer went up from the strangers and we realised then what had happened. We reported it and heard nothing and it was when we all left the party! We know now that our MP is another one taking money from Trevor Chinn, the Israeli activist who backs Starmer! We know it’s happened all over the country from Lab groups we are in all over the country.
I responded, and at all times within the time-scales set.
Starmer’s policy is a Scorched Earth Policy. He has never really denied it.
It is not against ‘the left’ per se. It is tactic of destroying anything of potential use to, or value to ‘the left’, I.e. the party itself.
The target is the Labour party. Pasokification is his method.
The question is, how will he react when his pasokification has its intended result next month at the local authority elections? I do hope the trilateral commission, his multi-millionaire backers and Klaus Schwab are rewarding Sir Keir appropriately for his sterling efforts to destroy and denature the Labour party and Movement.
All I hear are people like you blaming Starmer for the shitshow and party of betrayal Labour has become. We all know it’s the Labour party that is the problem, labour is infested from it roots to it’s top office with filthy right wingers and not the so called soft left these are pure Tories.
When will people like you start calling for a total boycott of shitshow Liebour and make a start on something better???
Quertboi, yes, that’s always been what it’s always been about. That and Europe.
‘Something better’ is needed desperately, yes. But it can only happen if hundreds of thousands of people act like a ‘movement’ (not just a political ‘party’, narrowly focussing on winning seats), and, like you, I am impatient for this to happen. I am certain it can and will happen – but not today. I believe organised labour – the trade unions – HAVE to play a role in creating this ‘something better’. As wretched as things are today, the new ‘movement’ is, like an embryo, still in its formation phase.
The priority we should be working on is making that development happen. Empowering it.
Quite bluntly, until that formative development happens, any ‘new party’ will be destined to MSM- and FPTP-caused insignificance. Lots of deposits would be lost and ‘the left’ would be marginal instead of pivotal.
Lovely words will change nothing.
Lovely words will change nothing.
True, but effective tactics and strategy and timing will.
(SWP types never seem to pull that bit off)
Qwertboi as someone that left the Labour Party after 30 years membership, I have a lot of sympathy towards Andrew´s position. Nothing is going to happen if people like you keep saying Labour is better than Tory, we have to stop the Tories, therefore we need to carry on voting Labour.
The Labour Party was never a social democratic Party but was still democratic. Right now the Labour Party is a fascist Party so what you and other socialist that are still in the Party need to have very present is that yes we all need to protect the positions of the social democratic wing still with a presence in the PLP and canvass for them and do the almost to have them reelected.
Since the defeat on the GE 2019 I have been putting money aside to donate to the campaigns of Zara Sultana Beth Winters and Nadia Whittome. Since I left the Party last September after Conference I have added the amount of my levies to the LP.
However, you and others like you that still members of the LP need to withdraw your help from candidates that are not members of the SCG and stop voting for Labour candidates just because otherwise the Tories will get in. Remember it is better a right winger than a fascist.
Only when the right wingers within Labour start losing their seats while the members of the SCG are able to retain theirs we will be in a position to challenge the right of the Labour Party. I will still have a vote in any leadership as a member of an affiliate.
Reply to Maria V
I cannot agree that Labour under Kinnock Blair or Brown was a democratic party.
What finished it for me was Iraq and the disgusting behaviour of “security ” guards who manhandled Walter Wolfgang an elderly Jewish peace activist out of Conference for shouting ” rubbish” during Jack Straws pro war speech. You can’t get much more Fascist than that in my opinion.
I’m not a member Maria. My payments stopped last Autumn, shortly after you.
Smartboy I remember my CLP passing a motion against the UK intervention in Iraq and against the treatment of Walter Wolgang at Conference an other controversial motions.
You can argue that passing motions didn´t change anything. But, we were still able to table motions and debating them.
Right now you cannot even table motions and put them to debate if motions slightly criticise the leadership.
I am not saying that under Blair and Brown (joined under John Smith) the Labour Party was a paragon of democracy, but at the very least a semblance of democracy was maintained.
Reply to Maria V
My leaving the party due to the war mongering Tony Blair and the disgusting Nazi like tactics used against a Holocaust survivor means I can’t really comment on what members could do in CLPs then or later. I do know that whatever the CLPs said it did not make a blind bit of difference – no genuine democracy -so things seem to be to be very similar to the way they were during the majority of your 30 year membership of the party.
I totally agree Qwertboi- without the Unions and their financial backing a new party would not have a snowballs chance in hell of succeeding.
There are high hopes in Starmers Labour that we will launch a new party too soon so that it will go the way of the other breakaway parties – UKIP, Change UK, Socialist Party SDP etc – i.e. sink without a trace.
Also they are expelling us hand over fist. Others of us are being “encouraged” to resign on a daily basis (as one outrage follows another) to ensure the Right keep control of the party.
We have to keep our heads and not allow ourselves to be forced to make our move before we are ready. Starmer is still the golden boy of the BBC, the MSM, the Establishment and the Zionist lobby, he still has TU backing and he controls the party apparatus I agree 100% that now is not the right time.
Smartboy – ….and when do you think you will finally get around deciding that the time is right, or are you hedging your bets until after the next GE.
Steve H
I am not hedging my bets – sadly right now the electorate has the choice between the real Tory party and the faux Tory party and no real difference between them.
That saddens me and t should sadden you too
“when do you think you will finally get around deciding that the time is right, or are you hedging your bets until after the next GE”
Speaking for myself (not Smartboy) I’d say the timing isn’t our decision. I’d say that at least two (but ideally, all) of the following has to happen for a ‘new party’ to happen and be able to supersede Labour:
– Starmer (and/or RW successor) has to cause Labour to return to pre-2015 voting numbers (about 5 or 6 million lower than 2017/2019), or lower, and show that Labour is irrelevant to its usual supporters;
– socialist societies and trade unions currently affiliated to Labour have to publicly rescind or modify their affiliation and the financial donations that accompanies it;
– at least one of the three main unions publicly distance itself from RW Labour and criticise it repeatedly as ‘tory-lite’
– large numbers of people have to feel dis-enfranchised by ‘none of the above’-ism and start agitating for a new, corbyn-like approach and organisation to harness their energies.
When at least two of the above becomes pronounced, noticeable and general then the public dynamics will change. The new party will happen. It will hit the ground running, win seats and engender support from day-1. Its arrival and growth will be inevitable, strong and fast.
But before that can happen, the Starmer leadership will have to keep on doing what it’s doing, I.e. showing itself to be DENATURED tory-lite, DYSFUNCTIONAL AND IRRELEVANT to the political needs of Britain in the 21st century
Global warming, Russia-Ukraine, cost of living crisis, covid mismanagement and scam and other as yet unknown “events dear boy, events” will certainly show Labour to be ramshackle, irrelevant, ruinous and disintegrating – then the new party will be possible and quickly become Labour’s successor (without the RW baggage).
qwertboi – Or to put it more succinctly, sometime never.
I can sense potential leaders of a new relevant movement organising quietly in the conservatories. We need to be on our guard if we are ever to be taken seriously. New should mean new as in young, none doctrinaire but armed with a brilliant, democratic program.
wobbly – Good luck with that 😏
Like Peace and Justice?
Re the role of the chair, it’s a sign of the degeneration of democracy in the Labour Party that the manual by Citrine on how to run a meeting, written for the Labour movement, has been so traduced in this case.
Paul Smith, the Chair more than a libertarian socialist acted like a fascist. With a result of 29 to 35 against the motion of no confidence, it is clear that the challenge wasn´t going to go through as it would have need 43 votes in favour to succeed (under Labour Party´s rules you need 2/3 in favour to challenge a Chair´s ruling)
But, it gives credence to the possibility that the Chair was scared to allow a challenge to his ruling in case he lost and the motion passed and in that event it could have resulted in the suspension of the CLP
The LP isn’t a democratic organisation, and hasn’t been for some years. Wavertree CLP was attacked first I think, which should have been the signal that it was all over. There’s no point in appealing via the rulebook, or writing letters. You may as well write a note to Father xmas and shove it up the chimney. Best get organised and active cmds, outside the LP.
There is one thing we can all do; don’t vote Labour in May.
Indeed Paul with one caveat: only vote Labour if the candidate/s are socialist.
Paul – What will that achieve?
It is 2yrs since Corbyn stood down and you still haven’t managed to come up with a credible alternative to Labour.
It is irresponsible to encourage people to vote against Labour when you currently have absolutely nothing positive to offer.
How will more Conservative controlled local authorities help the disadvantaged and vulnerable?
How will another Conservative term in government help anyone particularly the vulnerable and disadvantaged.
Will our NHS survive another Tory term?
Please come back and tell us all about it when you actually have something to offer.
If you have a house full of parasites, perhaps termites, you have to COMPLETELY remove them before the entire house collapses, in Africa and Australia it can be so bad people burn the house down and rebuild, with stone and concrete and very little wood. The Thatcherite Neoliberal Neo-Labour Party TORIES are Parasites for Socialism for as long as they are there in the Dead Dried Out Skin of the Once UK Labour Party there will be no opposition party to this dreadful Government for the sake of an opposition for The PEOPLE destroying the Parasite Neo-Labour Party TORIES burn the Parasites down, vote for the Democratic Socialist candidate, whatever party, if you haven’t got one, vote for the Party nearest to our Values other than Parasite Neo-Labour Party TORIES!
We have to get rid of every single one of them before we will see an Opposition to the Fucking Conservative TORIES! They and their Sabotage and Bandwagons lost us the Opposition we so desperately needed, why ever imagine in a million years that they will now suddenly have our interests at heart!? BlueKeef and the Starmerstruppen OUTTORIES The TORIES and see us The PEOPLE as “the Undeserving Poor Labour should focus on the Upper Middle Class” says Deborah Mathinson! These People are NO soft option vs the Conservative TORIES, they are very much worse than the Conservative TORIES!
The UK Labour Party is dead, there is only the dead skin filled with wriggling Parasites who have no interest in bringing you any sort of change, vote however you must just get rid of those sleazy conniving wriggling bastard parasites, who killed the UK Labour Party slowly and painfully over 4y3m on 13 December 2019!
nellyskelly – “the Labour party is dead”
Self evidently it isn’t
The UK Labour Party IS Dead!
What you are referring to are The Neo-Labour Party TORIES, a Thatcherite Neoliberal TORY Party in the making since Blair gnawed his way into Parliament, via the sewers of Westminster dragging Thatcher/Reagan’s flavour of Neoliberalism in behind him, that is NO Labour Party and that much is Evident in their actions and words! Hailing Nazi loving Astor, 10 years for “Benefit Cheats”, Rivers or Riots, Tougher on Benefits, Ban The RT, Support the Nazis and many, many more!
nellyskelly – Why are you still obsessing about something that you claim is dead?
I’m not, it’s dead! If I was ever obsessed, it would be to destroy the bastards who destroyed The PEOPLE’S one and only chance to end 43 Years of Thatcher’s Neoliberal TORYISM!
Why? Because now The PEOPLE have a non-choice between two dreadful TORY Parties! The Eternal Merry-Go-Round from Hell of Neo-Labour Party TORIES or Conservative Party TORIES, much like the dreadful USA, NO CHOICE!
No we probably won’t survive another TORY term, BlueSteveH, a TORY term courtesy of the Neo-Labour Party TORIES, who will most likely be the next Government however we vote and who’s 5 year term we are guaranteed not to survive! “We will be tougher than the Conservatives on benefits” How many have the Conservatives killed by toughening up on benefits? 150K? 180K? And another UN Inspection, tell us Steve how can the Benefits POSSIBLY be toughed up on than it already is, FUCK OFF WITH YOUR CONDESCENDING TWATISHNESS, about the Disadvantaged and Vulnerable you utter TORY TWAT!!
nellyskelly – Thanks for taking the time to explain how stupid you plan is.
Coming from you BlueSteveH, that has no emotion stirred in me, perhaps a bit of irritation for seeing that rat yet again.
When democracy here and in the West has been bought and paid for by gazillionaires
Then unfortunately we are entirely dependent on the cavalry in the East coming to our rescue
Until they decide to bring down the Yankee dollar we are all fucked
Then again 13 members brought down Nick Forbes, Leader of Newcastle City Council, Red Tory and RIGHT hand man of Temporary Embarrassment
Who says ‘we havnt got the numbers’
You’re pushing for quick action stevieh because you know that if done right, at the right time, it would cause near-instant death to the neoliberal RW as-is Labour party.
The ball’s in our court, and your’re panick proves we have the means and method to play it well.
qwertboi – You need to get over yourself. Do you seriously think I’m going to panic about anything you have to say? I’m just bored of hearing about what you going to do sometime never.
Except Corbyn didn’t stand down , your gobshite manoeuvred to ensure his position was untenable.
As for asking how will a conservative government help anyone, you’re still to provide an explanation of how a so-called labour one will be any different?
So unless you tell us the alternative, we’ll continue to view Corbynist socialism as the alternative, and no amount of fannying about from you is gonna change it.
Therefore, you either shit, or get off the pot. .
Have no fear Paul, I won’t be voting Labour. And judging by the view of the Public I won’t be the only one doing the same. Labour is a corrupt, racist and bankrupt Party.
I don’t know anyone who will vote Labour and it make me so happy knowing this fact. Labour must be destroyed
Andrew – Destroyed to be replaced by what, or is that still under (endless) discussion?
baz2001 – Have you compared the current Labour party polling results with the polls when Corbyn was in office?
And don’t canvass for them, either.
timfrom – Unfortunately I won’t be able to go out canvassing but my daughter has been out canvassing on 3 evenings so far. She tells me the response has been a lot better this time.
What, you mean there was one person who DIDN’T slam the door in her face? 😀
That’s what tories in the redwall are relying on. The tories have taken over Durham Council now even though they don’t have a majority. Every independent votes with the tories. It would only take a few independents to think and vote against the tories to make the council see sense again. Heard on the radio this morning that they are wanting to take over all of Tyneside.
So SteveH with the unpopular candidate now standing as a candidate in that Sheffield Branch of the LP should those disgusted by this shenanigans campaign for him?
Given that it IS a sacrifice and hard work to stuff leaflets through letter boxes or to door knock – particularly for
those of us who are older – why not just stay at home?
Not only that – maybe it is worth looking through the other
candidates to see if there is a better one than the
imposed LP one?
HFM – https://skwawkbox.org/2022/04/06/labour-uses-expulsion-to-remove-overwhelmingly-selected-left-candidate-and-impose-right-winger/#comment-220229
Every time this kind of thing happens, a significant proportion of activists will be very unhappy (to say the least). Many of those could well vote with their feet and sit at home with a book and a coffee rather than go out leafletting and canvassing. We will find out on 6th May how counterproductive all these manoeuvres have been.
The question of whether any other party can provide a “credible alternative” to Labour is irrelevant. The real question is whether Labour can provide a credible alternative to the Conservatives and that is, at the very most, very doubtful.
For “most” read “best”.
goldbach -The reports I’ve heard have been very positive. We’ll soon see who’s proved right.
We already know how it will play out
5 million lost votes and bankruptcy
They have no money to campaign, they have no boots on the ground
Sorry forgot Temporary Embarrassment has a nuke he can use
Let’s make Brexit work
Shit shite amen to that
Doug – You can tell me all about it when the results are in.
A fuller article by Tim is on the SheffieldLabourLeft fb page
https://www.facebook.com/SheffieldLabourLeft/?show_switched_toast=1&show_invite_to_follow=0&show_switched_tooltip=0&show_podcast_settings=0&show_community_transition=0&show_community_review_changes=0
The rumour mill that Labour are considering changing their colour to dark blue may well be true
The skids can be put under the vile usurper Starmer and his fellow RW’ers in May.
If they can’t make serious inroads with this political backdrop and Johnson’s unpopularity, then when can they? A poor performance and Labour MPs will start to get v.nervous about a possible snap election next year..
Use your votes wisely, or don’t use them at all, i.e. sit on your hands.
Andy – Will anybody notice? 🤔
One thing those of the “left wing” on here need to learn from the fascists of the labour party.They accept all versions of right wing and stick together like glue….George and many others outside the labour party have faults and who amongst us hasn’t.The change will come from outside the labour party and we must welcome all versions of the left who have made a difficult decission to leave or expelled.from labour.We are not here to amuse Steve H and his disgusting labour party thats already in terminal decline….Stick together as comrades in “the struggle” for the working class and remember that we are the majority and together the true left wing…socialist,communist or democratic socialist can work together as one united group and support any party that is of the people
So from all the above comments we are still going around in circles. There doesn’t seem to be any other option. The labour party Exmembers still haven’t organised themselves! Quite frankly that’s pathetic. Skwarkbox aren’t promoting any one.
All I have heard here is about George Galloways efforts. If there are others they need to start talking to each other and unifying. A federation of parties is vital otherwise we will always remain in this virtual quagmire of complaining to each other and amounting to nowt.
*I guess Skwarkbox isn’t part of the solution*, perhaps its a Tory project to allow us to vent and be ineffective. Just like Malcolm X claimed of certain Afro-American organisations during the 60s which did nothing but were used to contain radicals and to take their steam away from real change.
To put it another way :
All my life, the Labour Party has been a useful vehicle to deliver the working class for Capitalism.
There is one reality that Starmer & Blair both understand…..we have government by MSM & its function is to control & manipulate public opinion. Starmer has embraced the loving arms of Rupert Murdoch for good reason & the new BBC chairman Richard Sharpe donated over £400k to the Tory Party prior to his appointment & now supported by Tory appointee Lord Michael Grade. Speaking truth to power is difficult when you have no platform.
Surely the Labour Party is acting outside UK law in suspending a Party member of HM Opposition for a transgression of Party Rules which took place prior to the particular rule being made? There is such a thing as Natural Justice in the UK which is supported and upheld by the Civil Courts.
We have trade unions or more in particular their grassroots activists.
Of course Jeremy Corbyn could leave a great legacy by announcing his intentions for the next GE soon and if he stands as an independent or under the label of Peace & Justice or Jeremy Corbyn Independent (?) this enables a candidate under such a list in every constituency (apart from where there are Left Labour MPs) and we would have 600 or so Socialist fighters.
There are hundreds of thousands of us Corbyn supporters out there unorganised, just waiting.
Otherwise in the next GE it’s which Neo-Liberal colour wallpaper do you prefer:
Blue, Pink or Yellow?
Possibly Green?
Haven’t the Greens have done well under FPTP
I hear the bullshit of Oh the Unions will help the working classes and then I smell the stench of the likes of Steve Fucking H! Who should have been taken out and fucked up the arse years age!. We have no chance while we allow these vile infections to infest our forums or our Political partiers. I tell you straight Cunts like SteveH knows exactly the game I am talking about.
Andrew – Aww diddums, do you have difficulty in coping without a safe space.
I doubt that Corbyn will stand at the next GE, why would he take the risk.
I would love to know your adress
Andrew – Why, do fancy a holiday in the Sun?