Tag Archives: mandatory reselection

Democracy and the Labour Party, The left

LRC and LLA: Recoiling from the challenge

Carla Roberts is puzzled by the decision of the Labour Representation Committee

The Labour Representation Committee has decided to withdraw from the Labour Left Alliance. As we understand it, this decision was reached at a meeting of its executive, but was far from unanimous. Graham Bash, for example, tells us he argued “strongly” against it.

In his article in last week’s Weekly Worker, he stated that “rebuilding the Labour left is a matter of extreme urgency”. Quite right. According to the LRC’s statement, however, launching the LLA in July 2019 – three and a half years after Jeremy Corbyn’s election – was “premature” and “a short cut”. We disagree. If anything, this launch has come very, very late – hopefully not too late.

Thanks to John McDonnell (who will remain president of the LRC despite his effective cooperation with the witch-hunters), there is now real pressure on Jeremy Corbyn to step down as Labour leader, should the party lose in the December 12 general election. Any candidate who wants to replace him will still require 10% of the votes of all MPs or MEPs. This remains a very difficult hurdle to clear for any leftwinger (not that there are that many). Sadly, in the hope of appeasing the right, Corbyn and his allies have refused to back measures that would help change the composition of the Parliamentary Labour Party – they instructed Len McCluskey to use his Unite block vote at the 2018 Labour conference to vote against the mandatory reselection of parliamentary candidates (aka ‘open selection’).

There was, of course, the earlier Grassroots Momentum initiative, which was set up just after the Jon Lansman coup of January 10 2017. But it was underorganised and, crucially, allowed the witch-hunting Alliance for Workers’ Liberty to participate – no wonder it came to nothing. After all, AWL members had helped Lansman to boot Jackie Walker off the leadership of Momentum (just before they in turn were booted off). Important lessons have been learned from this disaster: the LLA founding statement crucially contains the principled positions that it “opposes attempts to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism” and that it supports “the democratic and national rights of the Palestinians” – both demands that the AWL social-imperialists would not support.

The rightwing campaign against Corbyn and his supporters has been raging for over three years, but there is still no viable organisation that can exercise any real pressure from the left, as the politically corrupt selection process of parliamentary candidates is clearly demonstrating. Since last week, we have heard about three more leftwingers who were removed from their local shortlist – just before the hustings meeting that was voting on the parliamentary candidate. In South West Norfolk, the selected Labour candidate, Matthew Collings, was suspended one day after his election. The ‘evidence’ presented is, as can be expected, laughable: it includes support for Chris Williamson and Labour Against the Witchhunt. However, decisions reached because of the party’s “need to exercise due diligence” cannot be challenged – an affront to democracy, clearly.

So, while this is very strange timing from the LRC (which released its statement one day after the general election was called), its decision does not come as a great surprise to those involved in the LLA. We understand that the LRC’s representatives on the LLA organising group (OG) have been somewhat reluctant to get involved in actually building the initiative, despite being one of the two principal organisations (along with LAW) that set up the LLA back in July.

LRC’s statement contains a good number of inaccuracies, while giving the impression that it was somehow in a minority within the LLA and therefore could not achieve all the many good things it wanted to. And it mainly blames Labour Against the Witchhunt. Readers should keep in mind, however, that LAW only has three representatives on the LLA OG (which had over 30 members). The LRC, on the other hand, had its three national reps, plus three more from local LRC groups that had affiliated. The three delegates from Red Labour are also close to the LRC. Clearly, they could have easily outvoted LAW’s representatives on any issue, had they so wished.

It seems to us that, in reality, the LLA has developed more quickly, more successfully and with a stronger forward ‘momentum’ than the comrades had envisaged or could keep up with. The LRC is a rather slow and inert organisation, with very few active members (just over 100 made it to the last AGM). It argues that the LLA should not move beyond the stage of a network and should, under no circumstances, elect any officers. The flaws of such an untransparent structure of ‘volunteers’ taking initiatives (or not) have, however, become increasingly obvious in recent weeks, as the pressure to elect officers has grown.

The LRC’s inertia has, of course, a political basis. The organisation used to act as entirely uncritical cheerleaders of the official Labour left. With the left now running the party leadership, the LRC has come under increasing pressure to criticise the many political retreats and the ever-expanding witch-hunt in the party. But it is clearly struggling with that role: it is used to defending Corbyn, McDonnell and co, rather than criticising them. The LRC looks to us like an organisation at an important political crossroads and it could dwindle into oblivion pretty quickly. That is not something we would celebrate.

What are their arguments?

  • The comrades write that for them it has been “crucial to win trade union support”. But when a couple of LLA members proposed a strategy that would, for a start, organise our supporters in the unions, they opposed it. No other effort to win unions to the LLA has been made by the LRC, we understand.
  • They write that the LRC argued for “the insertion into the LLA statement of the clause ‘supports and encourages struggles against austerity and all forms of oppression’. While this met no opposition, it has not been reflected in the political proposals of those LAW comrades involved in the LLA project, whose sole emphasis seems to be on internal party matters. We feel that this shuts down the wider potential and ambition originally envisaged.”

    Well, it is not called ‘Labour Against the Witchhunt’ for nothing, and it should therefore not come as a surprise that LAW would propose initiatives around trigger ballots, the selection process and the Chris Williamson case. The LRC, on the other hand, with its focus on “wider issues”, did not make any proposals at all – apart from inserting the above phrase.

  • The comrades criticise the fact that there has not been “space in the LLA to raise issues that should be the bedrock of Labour left organising – for example, whether solidarity with workers taking industrial action, international campaigns, opposition to climate change or defence of public services”.

    Now this is where things are getting a bit bizarre. We understand that LRC reps did not make a single proposal on any of those issues on the OG. Which seems to us would be the perfect “space” to make them. Or they could have used the three LLA Facebook groups in existence. In reality, LRC comrades have consistently argued against the LLA taking any positions on anything. They opposed LAW’s suggestion to discuss LLA’s political aims and campaigning priorities at the forthcoming conference, because the groups affiliated to the LLA “already have their own campaigns”.

  • They also charge “leading LAW comrades” of promoting “the formation of local LLA groups, rather than the – on paper – agreed approach of persuading existing, established and active local left organisations – whether Momentum, Labour Left or whatever – to affiliate.”

    We really struggle to see how that is a bad thing. Where the left in the Labour Party is not yet organised and therefore unable to efficiently and effectively organise in the party, clearly the point of a national Labour left is to support exactly the formation of such new groups?

  • Rather weirdly, they then claim that LAW representatives demanded that, in order to affiliate, unions would have to have a “minimum of members” who were “individual, signed-up LLA supporters”.

    Labour Against the Witchhunt has published its draft constitution for the LLA and this is what was proposed on this issue: “All national trade unions can appoint up to three representatives once they have paid the affiliation fee of £500/annum.” At no point has there been any other proposal, based on numbers of affiliated LLA supporters in a particular union. This claim by the LRC is just nonsense – based presumably on a serious misunderstanding.

  • Last but not least, we are told that the “emphasis” of LAW comrades is “that small left groups should be encouraged to affiliate to LLA, while questioning the affiliation of broader, genuine Labour left groups like Red Labour and Grassroots Black Left.”

    Here the comrades are being rather economical with the truth. We understand that LAW comrades raised the question as to why Marxist groups active in the Labour Party – for example Socialist Appeal, Labour Party Marxists or Red Flag – should be barred from the LLA (as demanded by the LRC), while groups like Red Labour, which barely exists even as an online endeavour, should unquestioningly be allocated three representatives on the OG. This was raised, discussed and then put aside within two days. Clearly, this is an issue that can be resolved at the LLA conference in February.

We repeat: it is a shame that the LRC has decided to jump ship, especially at this crucial time in the civil war and the witch-hunt. Many LRC members have expressed disagreement with this decision online and it is good to see that the departure has – so far – not harmed the LLA. It might actually help it to move forward at a quicker pace and allow it to set its sights far higher. In which case the LRC will hopefully come back on board soon.

Democracy and the Labour Party

New trigger ballots will see many MPs given their marching orders

Perhaps some of the most obnoxious Blairites in the PLP will actually jump before they get pushed, hopes Carla Roberts of Labour Party Marxists

One is reminded of the boy who cried wolf when evaluating the latest reports about a group of Labour MPs planning to split from the party – perhaps to join with the Liberal Democrats or form a new Blairite, centrist party. We have heard it all before, of course. This is, after all, not the first time such ‘rumours’ have made their way into the national press as a way of putting pressure on Jeremy Corbyn since his election as leader in 2015.

However, there are a few reasons why we should not simply dismiss the possibility that, this time round, there might actually be something to it. And no, not because the reasons to split from Labour have become so overwhelming – in addition to ‘anti-Semitism’ and Brexit, some MPs apparently “despair” of the fact that Corbyn refuses to get behind a CIA-led coup in Venezuela – because these interventions tend to end so well, don’t they?

We only know the names of three of the six MPs behind this latest rumour (though Vince Cable has let it be known that six “is very much at the lower end of the figures” that he is aware of), but those three are very interesting: Luciana Berger, Angela Smith and Chris Leslie have been plotting against Corbyn from day one.

It is perhaps no coincidence that two of them have just had local no- confidence votes cast against them: Leslie’s Constituency Labour Party in Nottingham came out against him in September 2018, while Smith lost the vote in her Sheffield constituency of Penistone and Stocksbridge in November. Luciana Berger’s CLP, Liverpool Wavertree, might just had to cancel a scheduled no confidence vote, but there is no question that she is unpopular among members. The local CLP executive, which since 2017 has been clearly dominated by Corbyn supporters, has publicly ‘censored’ her on numerous occasions – for example, for not backing Corbyn over the Salisbury poison incident, and, more recently, over her public campaign for a second Brexit referendum. No doubt she will have also been instrumental in moving the motion in the Parliamentary Labour Party, accusing Corbyn once again of not acting on ‘anti-Semitism’ (more below).

Trigger ballots

A vote of no confidence does not start a deselection process, of course. Such votes have no official standing in Labour Party rules. Yes, they are a slap in the face for the MP and make for bad press, but, until recently at least, a sitting MP could just shrug off such votes.

That all changed at last year’s Labour conference, however. In the face of a very successful campaign led by International Labour for the mandatory reselection of all MPs (under the name of ‘open selection’), Corbyn and his allies agreed instead to reform the existing trigger ballot – a way, perhaps, of softening the blow and not spook rightwing MPs too much. But it was a huge political own goal, in our view. It is, after all, the right in the PLP that has been driving the slow coup against Corbyn. The membership, given half a chance, would have long replaced the most ardent rightwing MPs.

But until last year it was virtually impossible to get rid of a sitting MP. A majority of all local union and Labour branches affiliated to a CLP had to challenge the MP by voting ‘no’ in the so-called trigger ballot. Each branch and affiliate was counted equally, irrespective of the number of members. A CLP usually has far more union affiliates than Labour branches and, unfortunately, those union reps tend to vote with the right (just like they do on the national executive committee).

But last September conference voted to replace the current trigger ballot with two separate ones: one for local affiliated bodies like unions; and one for local party branches. The threshold in both has been reduced from 50% to 33% and it is enough for one of the two sections to vote ‘no’ to start a full selection process – ie, a democratic contest between the different candidates. It is a small step forward from the status quo (though totally insufficient, when one considers that in the 1980s the party allowed the full, democratic and mandatory reselection of all candidates).

There is very little question who would win the support of local members if there was a democratic contest between a campaigning Corbyn supporter and a Blairite like Angela Smith or a back-stabbing career whinger like Luciana Berger. And they know it.

While there is not often good news coming from the Labour NEC, we understand that the January 22 meeting of its organising committee commissioned general secretary Jennie Formby to “prepare a plan to ensure that CLPs have the opportunity to call a selection process if they so wish, even if Theresa May calls a new ‘snap’, short-campaign general election”. NEC member Darren Williams has confirmed that this is correct.

As an aside, it is questionable whether May really is preparing for a snap election on June 6 (or whenever). Yes, somewhat surprisingly, the Tories are ahead in the polls, but surely she has to consider not just how wrong the polls were last time (and one would have thought that the government’s inability to actually deliver Brexit will add to that uncertainty), but also the political make-up of new MPs. Many, if not most, local Conservative Associations are dominated by a very active pro-Brexit wing, guaranteeing that the next crop of Tory MPs will probably be even more opposed to any ‘deals’ that Theresa May can pull out of her hat.

No matter: the Labour NEC decision is of huge importance politically. When Theresa May called the last snap election in 2017, the NEC was still dominated by the right and the party bureaucracy still led by general secretary Iain McNicol. Together they agreed that every sitting MP would automatically become the candidate once more, without even allowing local members or union branches the possibility of a trigger ballot. And, in many CLPs without an incumbent MP, unsuccessful candidates from the 2015 general election were simply reimposed. That was a crucial trick to keep the PLP stuffed with Blairites, who would use their privileged position to sabotage and plot against Jeremy Corbyn.

We know that many CLPs have long been eagerly waiting for the NEC’s timetable to pop into their inboxes. Without the executive’s go- ahead, no trigger ballot can take place. That is why Berger, Smith, Leslie (and many others) will now be in serious discussions about how to salvage their political career – if it is indeed salvageable. All three are outspoken ‘remainers’ and supporters of a second referendum. They might consider standing for the Liberal Democrats, but, as that party is currently languishing at around 8% in the polls, it is hardly a safe bet.

Standing as an independent is perhaps even more risky – unless you are really popular locally, which Angela Smith and Chris Leslie are certainly not. Berger has a certain message that the media like – ie, Jeremy Corbyn is a dangerous anti- Semite. She might just get enough push from the establishment and the media to get elected. The virulently anti-Corbyn MP, John Mann, also seems to be seriously entertaining that option. He is one of the few Labour MPs who have responded positively to Theresa May’s pretty outrageous offer to ‘convince’ Labour MPs to vote for her deal in exchange for financial bribes: he has indicated that he would go for it, if she “shows us the money”. The man seems pretty aware of the fact that his Labour career is coming to an end. About time too.

If enough of those rightwingers get together and jump ship before they get pushed, there might even be a possibility of them forming some kind of new ‘centrist’ party. It is conceivable that such a party could come to an electoral deal with the Liberal Democrats in a few select constituencies, which could perhaps see the return of a few former Labour MPs.

The problem here, however, is not just the short-lived history of the Social Democratic Party, which still serves as a serious warning. There are also divisions over Brexit: the Labour right also has its fair share of Brexiteers – 14 of them defied Corbyn’s three-line whip and voted against Yvette Cooper’s amendment that would have required May to delay Brexit if she could not get a parliamentary majority for her deal. Those two wings could not coexist for long in the same small party, at least in this political period.

We would guess that quite a few current MPs will soon simply throw in the political towel and look for pastures new – perhaps some cushy job in a think tank or on a company board. Naturally, we would have preferred it if Jeremy Corbyn and the NEC had had the guts to expel these traitors.

Conference 2018

The future of ‘open selection’

Around 50 people met just after the end of the Labour Party Liverpool conference to discuss how to continue the fight for open selection (another word for mandatory reselection). Among them were Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, and Chris Williamson MP. Others included members of International Labour, representatives from CLPs who had submitted similar rule changes and volunteers who had helped to spread the message.

With over 90% of CLP delegates supporting the move to debate the issue, the organisers quite rightly, want to hit the ground running.

Considering the role that Len McCluskey and Jon Lansman played in defeating this important political principle, it was decided that extra effort should be made to win over trade union members and branches to the open selection campaign. For example, urging branches to affiliate. Comrades will also produce a petition to go to Momentum (which needs to be signed by 4,000 people in order to be put up before to the entire membership).

The informal meeting agreed to hold a conference on the issue very soon and to produce one ‘super rule change’ that could be used by as many CLPs as possible. There was some confusion about when exactly open selection could be brought back conference: some comrades feared that the undemocratic three-year-rule would prevent any amendment being heard next year. Others seemed convinced that this should be possible, as the issue was not actually properly debated. The decision was made to approach the conference arrangements committee for some guidance.

There was an interesting discussion on how to deal with the reform of parliamentary selections that was voted through at conference: from now on, an open selection process will take place once either 33% of all Labour branches or 33% of all affiliate branches (unions, socialist societies etc) of a CLP request it via the trigger ballot.

Some comrades suggested that Open Selection could run a successful campaign to organise trigger ballotseverywhere – “including particularly North Islington, where a certain Jeremy Corbyn is the MP”, as one comrade suggested. Not to get rid of him, of course, but to show that there is nothing wrong with giving the membership the choice who they want as their parliamentary candidate.

Others feared that a successful campaign to run trigger ballots everywhere could take up a huge amount of resources and mean “that we might lose sight of the prize: Open selection”. There is, of course, also the danger that this could turn out to be too successful – ie, if lots of CLPs manage to win trigger ballots with the new system, this might reduce the sense of urgency in fighting for proper mandatory reselection. Again, comrades decided to seek guidance on how exactly this new type of trigger ballot would actually work, which might solve the above dilemma.

There was also some discussion on how the campaign is “naturally” touching on other important issues where the Labour Party is ripe for radical reform. “There are lots of other issues where the left needs to be better organised”, said Matt Wrack, who lamented that some unions had voted against a rule change that wanted to introduce written standing orders for conference.

Another comrade told how in her CLP, leftwingers are being stopped from running as councillors, because local campaign forums – which are usually dominated by councillors and regional officials – stopped them from being selected. A rule change to abolish LCFs and re- establish the much more democratic local government committees was withdrawn after the movers were “heavily leaned on”, she reported.

All in all, it was an inspiring meeting. Hopefully it will push the fight for mandatory reselection and other democratic demands forward.

Comrades who want to get involved should sign up on https://www.labour-open-selection.org.uk

Conference 2018

Open selection: a dark day of betrayal and climbdowns

MONDAY full
Red Pages, Monday September 23

Articles in today’s issue:

Open selection: a dark day of betrayal and climbdowns
Jon Lansman and Len McCluskey let their members down – and have 
delayed the possibility of mandatory reselection for at least three years

Small mercies
What has happened to the NEC’s commitment to membership democracy?

“They can fuck off”
Alexei Sayle, Chris Williamson MP and others addressed Labour Against the Witchhunt’s fringe meeting last night

Read the PDF version  here

Open selection: a dark day of betrayal and climbdowns

Jon Lansman and Len McCluskey let their members down – and have 
delayed the possibility of mandatory reselection for at least three years

Yesterday’s discussion on the Party Democracy Review was clearly dominated by one issue only: delegate after delegate spoke about the highly contentious issue of the way the Labour Party selects its parliamentary candidates. This is particularly pertinent, as this question had not actually been part of the review.

But International Labour had run a highly successful campaign in support of its rule change on ‘open selection’ (aka mandatory reselection). Thousands of party members had signed IL’s petition demanding the abolition of the undemocratic trigger ballot and the establishment of a truly democratic selection process before every election.

The campaign received an important boost when Unite’s general secretary, Len McCluskey, confirmed that he would fight to implementhis union’s 2017 conference decision to support mandatory reselection (rather than shelve it, as happens with many good conference positions). And after a lot of zig-zagging, even Momentum’s Jon Lansman eventually decided to support open selection and even appeared to be rather enthusiastic about it (having previously abandoned this old leftwing principle on the day Jeremy Corbyn was elected).

Clearly, the NEC felt the need to put somethingforward on the issue – in order to stop mandatory reselection. So they presented their fudge, which will see the trigger ballot slightly reformed (see box for details). It had been packed rather disingenuously into the rule changes coming from the Corbyn Review. But it was a trick: a vote in favour of the NEC package would mean that all other rule changeson any of the issues dealt with would automatically fall (they were scheduled o be discussed on Tuesday) – including International Labour’s, of course.

Matt Wrack, leader of the Fire Brigades Union, hit the nail on the head when he told conference that he was “disappointed” with the way this clearly controversial issue had been handled: “In our union, we would be discussing different views on a matter openly and democratically, hearing all sides on such an important subject,” he told conference.

Therefore, delegates supportive of open selection tried to reject the morning’s report from the conference arrangements committee (CAC) – which is the only way you can change the proposed timetable. They demanded that rule changes should be discussed first, before the recommendations of the Party Democracy Review. The chair asked for a show of hands on the CAC report and the result was incredible: around 95% of CLP delegates voted againstthe report – a rare show of unity. Then the unions were asked to vote and here the picture was the absolute opposite: no more than half a dozen delegates put their hand up against the report (mainly delegates from the FBU), but about 50 voted in favour. And because the whole union block counts for 50% of total conference voting, a card vote had to be called.

The result was incredibly close: 53.63% voted for the report; 46.37% against.

It turned out that Unite had instructed its delegates to vote in favourof the CAC report – despite their official commitment to open selection. At Unite’s meeting earlier in the morning, McCluskey had told his delegates to do so “on the request of Jeremy Corbyn, who asked for the support of the unions on this issue”. When pressed by angry delegates why the union had given up on its position, he told them it had not: Should the motion by International Labour reach conference floor, he said, Unite would instruct its delegates to vote infavourof it. In the meanwhile, he was clearly doing everything in his power to stop that.

Corbyn calls the NEC proposal an “affirmative ballot”. Howard Beckett, assistant general secretary of Unite, described it as “selective reselection”. But Pete Firmin, stalwart of the Labour Representation Committee, eloquently told conference that “A trigger ballot is a trigger ballot is a trigger ballot, no matter what you call it.” Quite right.

Having lost the CAC battle in the morning, supporters of open selection tried to mobilise delegates to vote against section 8 in the NEC proposals, which dealt with parliamentary candidates (as well as section 6, which contained the NEC fudge on leadership elections). Speaker after speaker got up to oppose section 8. As we go to press, we don’t know the outcome of the vote.

However, another change of heart by a certain Jon Lansman has dramatically reduced the chances of success on this matter. Midway through the debate, Lansman put out the following message to Momentum delegates:

“Momentum is supporting card vote 8 because it addresses one of the key flaws of the existing system. By separating the party branches from affiliates, it gives members the power to begin an open selection. It isn’t perfect, but it is a step forward and there is no guarantee any of the remaining rule changes on reselection will pass. Please support card vote 8. We may not get another chance to increase accountability of MPs.”

And from then on the speeches on conference floor shifted markedly. Most speakers were still supportive of open selection, but more and more often you heard phrases like ‘but a small step forward is better than the status quo’. And that despite the fact that news of McCluskey’s ‘tactic’ was spreading like wildfire: if conference voted to reject section 8, that would mean that IL’s motion would be tabled on Tuesday – and that Unite would instruct its delegates to vote in favour of it, making it almost a certain win.

This charade clearly shows not just how inept Lansman has become as a politician. Unfortunately, it also shows that Jeremy Corbyn – despite three long years in the crosshairs of the right in the PLP and the establishment – is still not prepared to do what is necessary to transform Labour into a real party of the working class. He is still being a conciliator – trying to appease the right and keep them as calm as possible, so that he can become prime minister.

And here’s the crux of the matter: even if Labour wins the next general election, the rightwing PLP has proved that they will not simply subordinate themselves to Corbyn. They will make his life hell at every opportunity. They are very likely to launch another no-confidence vote against him – he will, in effect, be unable to govern. The only way to avoid that, of course, would have been the implementation of mandatory reselection to get rid of the plotters and saboteurs.

The NEC’s rule change: very slight improvement

Currently, it is almost impossible to get rid of a sitting MP. If s/he wants to stand again, the ‘trigger ballot’ process begins. All the constituency’s branches and its affiliates (trade unions, socialist societies, cooperative organisations) have one vote eachand can choose ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to retaining the sitting MP as the only candidate. Each branch and affiliate is counted equally, irrespective of the number of members. Unless 50% of those vote ‘no’, the sitting MP automatically becomes the parliamentary candidate.

The NEC proposal seeks to replace the current trigger ballot with two separate ones: the first for local affiliated bodies like unions; and the second for the local Labour Party branches. The threshold in both would be reduced from the current 50% to 33% and it would be enough for one of the two sectionsto vote ‘no’ to start a full selection process – ie, a contest between the different candidates.

Incidentally, it has only now transpired that the NEC’s proposal would notmean that branches would have to achieve the 25% quorum stipulated in the rule book in order to be counted towards the 33% needed for the trigger ballot (which many had feared). In fact, the NEC proposes to keep the quorum of 25% only for AGMs, but reduce the quorum for “ordinary meetings” to 5% – or 75 members (whichever is lower).

The NEC’s proposal is therefore indeed a small step forward. It will remove the potential of union branches to keep a rightwinger in place despite the expressed wish of the local membership. But it is still far from what is needed to hold our MPs properly to account and to get rid of the saboteurs in the PLP, who have been plotting against Corbyn from day one.

Small mercies

What has happened to the NEC’s commitment to membership democracy?

Yesterday the NEC finally released its proposals for constitutional rule changes coming out of the Party Democracy Review – seven hours before conference was expected to approve them! This process makes a laughing stock of our democracy – how on earth are delegates supposed to give serious consideration to such proposals (even excluding the fact that the membership as a whole is totally excluded from the process)?

Yesterday the NEC’s statement  on the Party Democracy Review was carried on a show of hands, by the way, despite much opposition being expressed to the way the NEC had agreed to dilute its original positive proposals.

And within the proposed changes themselves, there is very little that can be said to enhance democracy in any way. For example, under ‘Membership rights’ it now states that members have “the right to dignity and respect”, and that party officers must “use their best endeavours to ensure procedural fairness”. But, of course, members are not guaranteed the right to free speech – particularly on Israel/Palestine – thanks to the NEC’s acceptance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance so-called definition of ‘anti-Semitism’. How does that ensure their “right to dignity and respect”?

We mentioned yesterday the proposed rule change under which the National Constitutional Committee – which deals with disciplinary questions passed on to it by the NEC – is to be expanded from 11 to 25 members. Perhaps this was originally intended as a means of changing the political balance on the NCC in favour of the Corbyn leadership, but the method by which NCC members will be elected is totally and utterly unclear. The proposed rule change begins by stating that the 14 additional members will be elected “at, or as soon as practicable after”, the 2018 conference. But it contains no recommendations on this, so will the chair ask delegates today, once the rule change is carried, if they now wish to nominate and vote for those extra members?! It is more likely that an alternative method will later be imposed by the NEC (perhaps a “one-member-one vote postal ballot”, which is listed as an option). What a shambles.

It is true that under the new rules the NCC will be obliged to “ensure that the charges are determined without undue delay and in a manner that is fair to both the individual and the party”; and that “a disciplinary matter against an individual is to be determined within three months of the NCC receiving the charges”. But we are still left with a body capable of taking arbitrary decisions aimed against the current leadership by witch-hunting the left.

As we also reported yesterday, the category of “contemporary motions” at annual conference is, thankfully, to be abolished. Previously the word “contemporary” has been used to automatically reject motions which were considered to overlap with reports from the NEC or National Policy Forum. Instead, CLPs will be able to submit motions to conference on any issue they choose and they do not have to continue to scramble around for ‘recent’ studies or articles to justify their submission.

But the NEC will still be able to stop discussion of proposals that ‘infringe’ on its territory. For example, the fact that the NEC’s decision to “review membership rates and discounts” is categorised as a rule change (which will “expire” at the 2019 conference!) means that the motion from Tewkesbury, calling for 50% of members’ dues to be returned to CLPs, automatically falls.

The NEC also wants to set up “equalities branches” – to be made up exclusively by women, BAME or disabled comrades! This is absurd. Why should there be separate local branches (presumably covering the whole of a constituency) for such comrades? Surely they should be organised alongside all other members – while, of course, having the right to come together in caucuses, if they so wish.

The NEC also wants to run “pilots” to allow “electronic attendance” and “online voting” locally to look into ways of “maximising participation”. As we stated yesterday, this is a retrograde step. Decisions should be taken by members who are fully informed and aware of the issues at stake – and in that sense it is positive that in another proposed change CLP executives will be obliged to “report all decisions in writing to the CLP general meeting for approval”.

We were wrong yesterday, by the way, when we stated that the rule changes would include a move to transform all CLP general committees into all-members meetings. In fact, this question is to be left to the CLPs themselves to decide.

But we were correct when we wrote that there would now be a “realistic quorum” for CLPs – it has been lowered from 25% to 5% under the NEC’s proposals, at least for ‘ordinary meetings’. I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies!

“They can fuck off”

Alexei Sayle, Chris Williamson MP and others addressed Labour Against the Witchhunt’s fringe meeting last night

“There can be no greater injustice than anti-racists being accused of racism by racists.” Scouse comedian Alexie Sayle travelled up from London especially to deliver this common-sense condemnation of the fake anti-Semitism smear campaign against Corbyn and the Labour left to Labour Against the Witchhunt’s packed Labour conference fringe meeting last night. The potential for “massive transformation” opened up by “the miracle of Jeremy Corbyn” had overcome Alexei´s longstanding abstention from voting, but he had not (yet?) joined the party, to maintain his ‘independence’ as a comedian. The witch-hunters can’t expel a non-member, he said, “so they can fuck off!”

Jewish Voice for Labour’s Jo Bird, newly elected as a councillor in Birkenhead, pointed out that in her election campaign “no-one raised anti-Semitism on the door”. She was appalled at the way neighbouring MP Frank Field had used accusations of anti-Semitism and bullying. To all those falsely suspended and expelled she said: “You are owed a huge apology. On behalf of the party, I am very sorry.” That moving apology was made particularly poignant when 73-year-old Bob Walker, the youngest of the ‘Garston 3’, described how the three pensioners were expelled for merely attending a meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.

Ex-Liverpool councillor Tony Mulhearn called on Corbyn and McDonnell to stand up to the witch-hunters: “No more apologies, no more retreats. When you apologise, you are accepting you did something wrong.” Recalling the “ridiculously long list of charges” he faced in his own expulsion in 1986, “a witch-hunt is irrational”, he said, “because the decision has already been made”. At that time John McDonnell had stood firm in his defence, but now he is saying: “We need to be conciliatory; we are a broad church.” As Tony Greenstein commented, “Even the broadest church does not expel atheists. The ‘atheists’ in our party are not, and never have been, socialists.”

Chris Williamson MP, confronting the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the party, confessed that he often describes Israel as an apartheid state, and compared Israel´s treatment of the Palestinians to the fate of the Cherokees in America. Denouncing the “terrible injustice” being done to Jackie Walker, he condemned the way Marc Wadsworth had been “demonised as a bigot” for “asking a question at a press conference”.

All in all, this first ever Labour fringe meeting organised by LAW was a tremendous success.