Right-dominated NEC sweeps aside members and councillors and will appoint directly as cowardly ‘dictatorship’ imposed in country’s largest council
Keir Starmer’s cowardly regime has announced it will directly appoint the next leader of Birmingham council Labour group – and therefore the next leader of Birmingham City Council, bypassing the wishes of members and local councillors. The move has triggered huge anger.
Birmingham and the wider West Midlands have long been a cesspit of the Labour right, treating party members and council workers atrociously – but the party’s move again exposes the utter contempt of the Starmer regime for even the notion of local democracy – all while Starmer tries to fool the public into thinking he has the slightest intention of ‘pushing power out to the regions’.
Birmingham City Council spent years exploiting and bullying its workforce, to the disgust of unions – reneging on an agreement with its bin workers before finally capitulating after the details were exposed by Skwawkbox. Now the decision on who runs the city is going to be taken by a Labour leader, and his cronies, who poured contempt on the bin workers in neighbouring Coventry.
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Seems to me that the nearer the probability of a GE, the more this will happen because the plebs/lumpens won’t have time to be properly informed about their shithousery.
Not that the MSM will let them know.
I fucking despise everything about what that patty’s become under that slimy, gutless, talentless twat and his flunkeys.
“Birmingham and the wider West Midlands have long been a cesspit of the Labour right, treating party members and council workers atrociously”
Perhaps this is why the proposed panel will consist of NEC members and appointed regional executive committee members from outside the region.
Labour could oust council chief as NEC slams “dysfunctional” Birmingham
The Labour party is forcing the leader of Birmingham City Council to reapply for his job after a report accused Britain’s biggest local authority of having a “dysfunctional climate” – concluding the “status quo is not an option”.
A report into the local Labour group, commissioned by the National Executive Committee and seen by LabourList, claimed: “A legacy of years of personality driven factionalism, cultural challenges, two particularly bitter industrial disputes, a recent divisive leadership contest and changes to governance have had a detrimental impact on the mood and morale of the Labour group.”
The report has proposed that a panel of NEC and appointed regional executive committee members from outside the region interview and appoint the leader, deputy leader and group officers of the council. It is understood the changes have now been signed off by Labour’s general secretary and the NEC’s organisation sub-committee chair.
https://labourlist.org/2023/05/birmingham-labour-politics-news-latest-nec-leader-vote/
‘pushing power out to the regions’ is Starmer-speak for ‘my way or nobody’s’. People will find that ‘pushing power out to the regions’ means stamping his power on your region, regardless of what you want. This guy should carry a Government Health Warning: “Warning: voting this man into Government will seriously harm your life!”
‘pushing power out to the regions’
.
It’s a wonder the slimeball can push out a turd
(Or else the wee fella’d be unemployed)
Keef on (the broken pledge) student loans on the beeb right now:
“I DO understand young people…I’ve got nephews & nieces with loans”
What about yer own litter, keef? Are THEY gonna be in hock up to their eyeballs for the best part of their working lives, hmmm? 🤔
He’ll be on itv in a few mins, where I at least expect Reid & (the very good and far more of an opposition) Martyn Lewis to question the slime with a bit more purpose…
If they get away with this in Brum how long before it becomes standard practice for them to impose their choices on every Labour run Council? Of course this only extends their practice of intervening in Council candidate selections to impose their own favoured puppets.
Don’t forget they got away with it in Liverpool, too.
That’s just council leaders. Not councillors or parliamentary candidates. How many of them have there been imposed?
My (ward) councillor for a start…
Did you read the report into the activities of Liverpool Council?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/liverpool-city-council-best-value-inspection-report
This very same process has just taken place in Sheffield (observations in a moment):
https://www.thestar.co.uk/business/chaos-looms-as-sheffield-labour-councillors-threaten-to-vote-against-party-4143584
Consequently, it seems entirely reasonable to anticipate this may well be taking place elsewhere across the country and be part of a wider strategic approach which instead of devolving democracy down to the lowest level it instead devolves control down to the lowest level.
Sidebar: An approach taken by all the political party’s in various parts of the Country receiving EU Objective One funding to control that funding and its spending priorities against the wishes of genuine grassroots independent Community Organisations (with the active and tacit support of the EU organisations administering that funding) some twenty odd years back.
Health Warning:
Yes, this is certainly not how a rules based and democratic process should operate. And, as implied by this article about Birmingham, it represents yet further evidence of a power grab by an over-weaning out of control Centralised and authoritarian clique which would put the Politburo to shame.
In the case of Sheffield – which now has 1 Blue Tory Councillor; 39 Red Tory Councillors; 29 Orange Tory (Lib-dems) Councillors and 14 Green ones – it has led to the leader of the Lib-dem Group in Sheffield to argue that he should be Council leader with the support of the Greens on the grounds that local democracy is being sidelined by Labour Party Central Office and that the City Council should not be run by diktat from the NEC of the LP and Keir Starmer (or whoever is bankrolling his grubby little clique of incompetent clueless nonentities).
However, (and this is where the health warning comes in) the easy assumption to make here is that a functioning local Labour Party Democracy exists as a counterpoint to this Stalinist centralisation in the first place.
For sure, there was a time when the District Labour Party (DLP) operated on a more democratic footing to this. With elected Councillors regularly attending meetings alongside local Constituency and Trade Union Party members.
However, the now themselves replaced and therefore defunct Local Campaign Forums (LCF) which replaced the DLP’s stopped being funded by the Labour Group Councillors in Sheffield a few years back and the kind of direct link with Party members no longer operates on anything like an accountable democratic basis even in theory. And has not operated even on the limited terms of the old DLP process for some time.
Moreover, in practical terms there’s not that much difference in the way – what I’ve heard described as ‘The Fat Boys Club’ – of the machine politics of the old Official political right at local level in this neck of the woods operate and that of what passes for what might be described as the ‘younger Turks’ who self-identify as the ‘left’.
Some of whom – including the then Deputy Council and Deputy Labour Group leader – flouncied out of the Cabinet a few years back in a naive fit of pique which only served to isolate themselves.
For decades the divvying up of Council positions has more often than note been decided by gangs of mates and friends of mates in return for small favours. Regardless of the surface political appearance. Which more than likely accounts for at least some, if not all, of the anonymous leaks from some unnamed Labour Councillors in this neck of the woods trying desperately to frame this as unhealthy and undemocratic Centralisation – which it is – versus a thriving local Labour Party Democracy – which does not actually exist and has not existed for some time (except inside a few heads).
Apparently, this has also involved some kind of shake up of the Party Regional Office in Wakefield. With the inept managerialist Regional Director functionary moving to Party HQ.
Whether similar shake up’s based on the same control freakery are taking place in other Party Regional Offices like the West Midlands may or may not be the case?
It would be useful to find out whether what is taking place here is limited to just a few locations or whether it is more widespread?
I suppose when entryists (re) take-over existing parties like Labour, the power-clique will always centralise funds and organisation. Interesting and thought-provoking post Dave H.
Here’s a view from Jack Deakin, a Birmingham Labour Councillor.
https://labourlist.org/2023/05/birmingham-labour-council-cib-nec-report-welcome/
Birmingham Labour must fix itself as Starmer has fixed our party
The Labour Party is a cause – a mission to change lives. The mission never ends. Labour is finally focused on winning for party & country; by putting country first, we put party first.
…..
Which has WHAT to do with keef taking control of the so-called “selection process” for the mayoral candidacy, wee gobshite?
Demonstrably increased dissatisfaction and disillusion with his clique in the city didn’t it, brains?
Everything and did it really, the ballot box tells a different story. Labour gained seats in Liverpool whilst the Liverpool Community Independents along with the other independents lost seats.
Wrong. Had NOTHING to do with blocking Anna Rothery and disqualifying her from re entering the contest. So, have yet ANOTHER try – and get THAT wrong too.
Oh, and (smarmerist) abour LOST three seats to the independents – the independents YOU said would all be totally bollocksed if they stood against smarmerism.
So take your ballot box tells a different story and worry your goats with it, nonce case.
Mikeinbrixton “how long before it becomes standard practice for them to impose their choices on every Labour run Council?”
Many/most Labour councils are already to the Starmer clique’s liking (well, they’re right wing or exceedingly obsequious), so Starmer and his power-clique will only need to target this activity against left wing Labour councils. Sadly, that’s remarkably few.
Re Birmingham, was this a ‘dummy run’ to test their abilities, or were there some ‘dangerous’ left wing players in the Labour group there that Starmer and his clique thought needed neutering?
quertboi,
Well the problem in Sheffield which apparently triggered the Central Office to intervene, according to the reports, was the long running debacle over the tree culling program.
Without going into the details this alienated large sections of the local populace against the local Labour run Council which eventually translated into votes for other party’s, notably the Greens. And the simple reason for this is instructive.
It was inept and incompetent in its execution and implementation at every stage of the process. Simply because, as is always the case with managerialists, it was badly thought out, with unrealistic assumptions.
What was worse was the sheer arrogance and ignorance of the response from Labour Councillors individually and collectively within the local Labour Group to any criticism and opposition. With local citizens attempting to protect the heritage assets of the City from this privatised vandalism being arrested and charged by the police at the behest of the Labour run Council.
And the problem here is not only that those running this program – those in decision making charge of the policy and its implementation – were deaf and blind to any other view than their own but that they are on the political right of the Party. These people definitely could not be described in any way shape of form as being supportive of the kind of policies and program associated with the previous national Party leadership.
In the current parlance they are Starmers people adopting exactly the same approach as Starmer is on behalf of those standing behind him. Arrogant. Ignorant. Incompetent. Inept. Clueless. Careerists.
Replacing them with others, as has been the case this week, into the key decision making posts and roles within the local Labour Group in the City is merely replacing like with like. For example, if you get my drift: it is most unlikely that any of those handpicked by Party Central Office could fare any better than Starmer publicly did not too long ago in being able to answer a very simple question involving a noun.
As a consequence what we are seeing played out here at local level in places like Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield and possibly elsewhere is what Labour would look like in national Government.
If those operating an incompetent and unworkable paradigm and its approach with no possibility of any efficacy – because inefficacy is a built in feature not a bug – which is imposed from the Center are not having the desired effect they will simply be replaced with those equally incompetent, ignorant and arrogant to pursue the very same unworkable approach and its model.
Just like Starmer is being groomed at the higher national level right now as the continuity candidate of the idiocracy.
Those, like the denizens of Sheffield who were arrested and prosecuted at the behest of these numpties for getting in the way of their incompetence will face the same treatment, Just as they are now with the Blue Tories from within the Privy Council, which outranks Parliament in the unwritten British Constitutional hierarchy.
Except, of course, that the Labour Party – in the words of its current CEO – will be ‘more Tory’ about it than the Tories. Hence the support for the present draconian anti-protest laws and immunity from prosecution for illegal acts by agents of the Security State against what are considered to be uppity subjects of his Divine Majesty The King.
When you are out in the street and you see someone abusing their dog one of the first thoughts to run through your head is that you would not want to be part of that individuals family of circle on the grounds that if they behave that way towards their family pet they are likely to behave that way to both their family and everyone else. As a result, you would want to avoid them rather than, say, have any part in putting such people in a position where they have decision making power over not just their dog but over you and others.
Unfortunately, that’s where we are. A situation which the historical record demonstrates does not end well.