Tag Archives: Momentum

Conference 2018, Democracy and the Labour Party

LP conference 2018: Democracy, reselection and Omov 

Carla Roberts looks at some of the rule changes before this year’s Labour conference

First, a note of caution: this will not be the final list of constitutional amendments before delegates at this year’s conference in Liverpool (September 23-26). Some of them will be composited with similar amendments and there are indeed a few where that makes entire sense – as opposed to contemporary political motions, which are usually composited into bland, motherhood and apple pie statements.

We also know that some amendments coming from Constituency Labour Parties will be superseded by the recommendations and proposed rule changes coming out of the Party Democracy Review (PDR) run by Jeremy Corbyn’s right-hand woman, Katy Clark. Unfortunately, it looks like the first delegates will get to see of them will be at conference itself – the national executive committee will take another look on September 18. Those recommendations will be discussed on the Sunday, the first day of conference, with the rest of the rule changes to be debated and voted upon on the Tuesday.

In accordance with one of the plethora of undemocratic clauses in the Labour rule book, proposed constitutional amendments from CLPs are parked for almost 14 months before they can finally be discussed by delegates. Among them is motion 10, which proposes to do away with this crassly anti-democratic delaying rule.

CLPs are only allowed to submit either one contemporary motion or one constitutional amendment per year, which means that any reform attempts from below take an incredibly long time to filter through. And, once conference has voted on an issue, it cannot be revisited for another three years – even if it only deals with the same question tangentially. The result is a ridiculously long, overcomplicated travesty of a constitution. Yes, the PDR will push through a number of changes (including, apparently, the abolition of the three-year rule). But clearly, the whole thing should be ripped up and replaced by a new, streamlined constitution that is fit for purpose.

We will look at the recommendations from the PDR as and when they are finally published, but, judging from the leaks, it is fair to say that it will probably not contain many of the radical proposals that would be needed to transform the Labour Party into a real party of the working class. This would require Jeremy Corbyn and his allies making a conscious decision to put two fingers up to the right inside and outside the party.

No, the most radical proposals come from below, from CLPs. For example, in order for Labour to become the umbrella organisation for all trade unions, socialist groups and pro-working class partisans, all undemocratic bans and proscriptions must be abolished. Constitutional amendment number 6 from Mid Worcestershire, Rugby, Truro & Falmouth, Bexhill & Battle makes a useful start in that direction. It wants to remove the first part of the infamous rule 2.1.4.B (‘membership conditions’), which bars from membership anybody who “joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the party”.

 Although we fear it is unlikely to win a majority, it is an important debate to have. Jon Lansman has already made it clear that Momentum would oppose such a change, as “this could benefit groups who are opposed to the party”. What, like Progress and Labour First? Of course not.

Lansman knows very well that this rule has been applied in an entirely one-sided way against leftwingers only – among them supporters of Socialist Appeal, the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and Labour Party Marxists. Groups such as Progress and Labour First remain untouched and can continue to operate freely and in a highly organised fashion. And what about members of Stop the War Coalition or Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament? Surely they are also examples of a “political organisation”? This rule should go. Labour would be positively transformed by allowing members of left groups – who are often very dedicated – to operate freely in the party.

Instead, Lansman seems to have inspired rule change number 7 from Broxtowe, which adds a few words to the first sentence: “joins and/or supports a political organisation that is in conflict with the aims and principles of the Labour Party”. This formulation has been used, for example, to expel supporters of Socialist Appeal because, rather than recognise “the importance of the enterprise of the market”, the organisation wants to “consign the market economy to the dustbin of history”. The amendment carries that distinct danger and should therefore be opposed.

Mandatory reselection

The Parliamentary Labour Party urgently has to be brought under democratic control. The majority of Labour MPs have been shamelessly plotting against Jeremy Corbyn and sabotaging him at every turn. They are far to the right of the Labour membership and, once elected, usually enjoy a ‘job for life’.

It is unfortunate that Jeremy Corbyn – after all, he is the central target of the right – has refused to take up the challenge and include mandatory reselection in the Party Democracy Review. Nevertheless, there are eight rule changes, submitted by 13 CLPs, dealing with the subject of how and when the party selects its parliamentary candidates. If we ignore the rule changes that tinker with some of the less important issues around this question and combine similar rule changes, we can see that there are two clear alternatives.

  • Option 1: Rule changes 24 (Portsmouth North, Rochester and Strood) and 26 (Labour International) want to do away with today’s trigger ballot – which makes it more or less impossible to replace a sitting MP – and instead introduce mandatory reselection, where all those interested in becoming a candidate (including the sitting MP) participate in a democratic selection process.
  • Option 2: Rule changes 27 and 28, on the other hand, also do away with the words ‘trigger ballot’, but not the undemocratic concept. If a sitting MP receives more than 66% of “nominations” from party branches and affiliated organisations, the MP would automatically be reselected.

Such a system would still be hugely in favour of the sitting MP and could easily be rigged by affiliated unions and societies. Much better to have an open and democratic contest between all candidates, to be decided by Labour members – as envisaged by rule changes 24 and 26.

Option 2 smells heavily of Momentum’s original plan. Instead of doing away with the undemocratic trigger ballot altogether, Jon Lansman merely drew up a lame proposal to raise the threshold from Tony Blair’s 50% back to Neil Kinnock’s 66% – ie, two thirds of local branches and affiliates would have to vote in favour of the sitting MP, otherwise a full selection process would begin. Lansman even had this proposal sanctioned by the membership in one of Momentum’s tortuous and clearly biased online “consultations”.

But he seems to have undergone a mysterious change of heart and we can only speculate about the reasons behind it. He has certainly not explained them to Momentum members – or bothered to mention that there even has been a change. Lansman has still not told members which of the rule changes he wants them to vote for, but option 2 is clearly not it.

This week, he sent another email to the membership, informing them that Momentum now favours a system that gives

a fair chance to all candidates and does away with this negative, divisive stage of campaigning – so it’s an open contest from the start, and there are no ‘jobs for life’. That way, local members and the sitting MP can compete for the Labour Party’s backing at the general election, and run positive campaigns about issues local voters really care about.

Momentum has even set up a petition on the issue. Would it be petty if we thought this was a neat way of harvesting more data, while simultaneously jumping on an increasingly successful bandwagon?

Evidently, the increasingly vitriolic nature of the civil war in the Labour Party has given the campaign for mandatory reselection a new lease of life. With the support of Unite, the Fire Brigades Union, presumably the vast majority of CLP delegates and even the timid backing of Jeremy Corbyn himself, it has a good chance of winning at conference (even though John McDonnell managed to disappoint once more by declaring his support for the existing system).

Omov not the answer

It is understandable that a good deal of proposed rule changes want to extend the use of ‘one member, one vote’ to elect NEC representatives (rule changes 1, 2, 3 and 4) and even the party general secretary (18 and 19). After all, this is the method that allowed Corbyn to become leader.

This trend is also reflected in the recommendations that are expected to be in the PDR. The Huffington Post published a leaked summary, which apparently includes recommendations for “more digital democracy”, including “secure online voting systems for CLPs developed for policy and other matters”.

However, in our view there are some serious problems with Omov. As a general principle we should be against plebiscites in the party – for electoral contests or otherwise. There is a good reason why the move to Omov for the election of the party leader began with the likes of Neil Kinnock and John Smith, and culminated in Ed Miliband’s Collins review – it was a rightwing ploy to dilute the working class nature of our party. It atomises comrades and makes serious political engagement very difficult. For example, how do you question a candidate when all you have is a short statement and s/he does not reply to emails? In terms of making policy, how can you effectively move an amendment when you do not have the possibility of talking to people and explaining some of the nuances?

Take the contemporary motion on Brexit pushed by  People’s Vote. On paper, many lefties and Corbyn supporters find this entirely acceptable – allowing the people a say on the final Brexit deal sounds democratic, doesn’t it? Until you explain to them that this is clearly part of the coup against Corbyn, to embarrass him even further by undermining his pretty successful strategy of letting the Tories tear each other to pieces, while keeping all options open. Having to come out for a People’s Vote is likely to cost him in terms of votes.

Comrades should also bear in mind the farce that was Lansman’s Momentum coup, cynically wrapped as it was in a veneer of ‘democracy from below’. In fact, this pseudo-inclusive manoeuvre crushed the embryonic democratic structures of the organisation and substituted online voting by the entire, atomised and easily steered membership. Omov in Lansman’s hands was the vehicle for a profoundly undemocratic plot against the interests of the membership – one that stymied Momentum’s potential to be an effective, dynamic left trend in the party.

Online voting also marginalises the role of the unions in the party. Yes, the representatives of rightwing unions have played an entirely negative role on the NEC and when it comes to trigger ballots. But in general, the affiliation of unions is an enormous strength of the Labour Party. While they should not be allowed to stop the democratic selection of parliamentary candidates, unions have clearly played an important role in preserving the character of the Labour Party as a workers’ party, even under Tony Blair. In fact, we should fight for a serious commitment to a vigorous national campaign to affiliate all unions.

 

Momentum

Momentum: No politics, please

The July 15 ‘Momentum national conference’ will be a very special one, reports Carla Roberts: no motions, elections or decision-making of any kind

Labour Party Marxists is very much looking forward to the “Momentum national conference” on July 15 in Durham. We have prepared motions on how to transform the Labour Party, will be fielding a couple of candi-dates in the elections to the national coordinating group and are making preparations to intervene in the open and frank policy discussions that will determine Momentum’s campaigning priorities in the next 12 months.

Sorry, I’m only pulling your leg. Momentum conferences are rather more special than the tedious events of the past, where delegates sat around all day, talked, argued and – you know – made decisions. Bo-ring. We can leave all of those things safely in the hands of Jon Lansman, the founder, owner and self-crowned king of Momentum.

There will be no motions, no position papers, no elections and certainly no decisions taken in Durham. The Momentum website also describes the event (rather more honestly) as a “summer gathering” and that about sums it up. It has three aims: to help participants “get skilled up” by attending “training sessions”; “get to know other Momentum supporters”; and “celebrate everything we’ve achieved”. And that is all in terms of public information on the event. There is not even a timetable or a speakers list available. As if to underline how unimportant this ‘conference’ really is, just look at the date: it actually takes place on the same day as the football World Cup final (kick-off 4pm).

No doubt, there will be dozens of young and keen Momentum interns handing out leaflets about the event to the 200,000 or so people participating in the annual Durham Miners Gala on the day before. And you might even get a couple of hundred people coming to next day’s event.

But it is, of course, not a conference. After all, just a few weeks before Momentum was to have its first, real conference in 2017 (with motions, elections and everything), Jon Lansman simply abolished it all at a stroke. During the now infamous Lansman coup of January 10 2017, he got rid of all national and regional decision-making structures in the organisation, cancelled the conference, imposed an undemocratic constitution and organisational structures, and installed himself as the unchallengeable leader of his little realm.

Many Momentum branches collapsed as a result of the coup or in the months following it. In other areas, rightwingers and councillors have begun to join and are now often dominating Momentum to make sure their career in the party is safe. The organisation’s database of well over 100,000 Corbyn supporters means that in some areas it can help swing election results by mobilising supporters to come out and campaign (or not). It also played a useful role at last year’s Labour Party conference when it got leftwing delegates to vote along broadly pro-Corbyn lines, by sending them text messages before important votes. But Jon Lansman will not allow Momentum to do more than that: members are simply seen as voting fodder, used to push through the decisions and policies that Jon Lansman wants to see implemented (which most of the time coincide with what Jeremy Corbyn wants).

For example, there is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of Corbyn supporters and Momentum members support the demand for mandatory reselection of parliamentary candidates. It is an eminently democratic, long-standing demand of the Labour left. A real, democratic conference of Momentum members (or delegates) would in all likelihood vote in favour of such a basic democratic measure – but it would put the organisation very quickly in direct confrontation with Jeremy Corbyn, who is stubbornly persisting in his misguided attempts to try and appease the Labour right.

Such a real democratic gathering of the Labour left might even make criticisms of Corbyn’s complicit silence, when it comes to the witch-hunt against his supporters in the party. In other words, a genuinely democratic organisation of Labour left members would actually put pressure on Corbyn to start behaving like the socialist they were hoping he was.

That is why Momentum will not go down that road. Instead, Jon Lansman decides its policies and shamelessly manipulates its “digital democracy platform” to get exactly the results he wants (as was the case when Labour Against the Witchhunt almost succeeded in submitting a ‘winning’ proposal to Momentum’s input to the Corbyn review).

Political debate and discussion in Momentum are far from being an integral, organic part of the organisation – they are merely tacked on as a way to recruit people. Which is probably also why, somewhat interestingly, Lansman feels the need to describe this July 15 event as a “conference”. There clearly is a huge democratic deficit – not just in society, but also in the Labour Party. People who have been inspired by what they believe Jeremy Corbyn stands for actually want to talk about politics and how to change society. So Jon Lansman throws them some rather pathetic scraps.

For now, he has succeed in outsourcing political discussion to training sessions and events like ‘The World Transformed’, where people can talk about anything and everything, without ever coming to any decisions that could threaten the position of Jon Lansman, or publicly criticise Jeremy Corbyn.

People, Pits and Politics

The People, Pits and Politics event is very much part of that apolitical culture. This two-day event takes place just before the Miners’ Gala. In general, it is a pretty nifty initiative to set up an educational political event prior to one of Europe’s biggest political gatherings (even if the vast majority of the visitors at the Durham Miners Gala are not necessarily Corbyn supporters or even interested in politics – it is very much a family day out with a huge fair and lots and lots of booze).

We read with great concern, however, the following paragraph in the long list of ‘terms and conditions’ for participants at People, Pits and Politics:

“No literature or other products may be sold or distributed, no flyers handed out or placed on seats, no papers sold, in any festival venues without prior written permission of the festival organisers. Breaking this rule will invalidate your ticket, and you will be asked to surrender your wristband and leave.”

This deeply sectarian move is clearly aimed at the organised left – sellers of Socialist Worker, The Socialist, etc, and those pesky Labour Party Marxists who ruin everybody’s fun by handing out their paper that talks about transforming the Labour Party. Yawn!

A political festival without political discussion, in other words. Well, that sounds very much like our Jon. And, while the event is kept quite separate from Momentum’s ‘conference’ (presumably in order to reach further in terms of its potential audience), it is very obvious that the speakers, organisers and political/organisational methods of both events will be pretty similar.

The main organiser of the PPP event is Jamie Driscoll. He is also the sole director of the limited company set up in January for the sole purpose of organising the event (another hint that Jon Lansman is involved – he just loves setting up, renaming and closing down companies, as a quick glance at Company House’s database shows).

Driscoll is author of a book called The way of the activist and founder of ‘Talk Socialism’, which organises training workshops and reading groups, particularly around Newcastle. He is also chair of Newcastle Momentum and in December 2016 organised “Momentum’s first regional conference” in the city. We believe  it was Momentum’s only regional conference to date, maybe because its main claim to fame was the fact that it was addressed by socialist stalwarts such as Nick Brown, Chi Onwurah, Emma Lewell-Buck and Ian Mearns. They are all local MPs, in case some of their names did not ring a bell.

At Momentum’s “inaugural conference” on March 25 2017 in Birmingham, Driscoll was one of those called upon by Lansman to run the various workshops. I am sure he and his comrades at Talk Socialism have the best intentions at heart and are seriously committed to changing society. But a problem arises when those types of ‘workshops’ of that type are used to substitute for proper political debate and decision-making. Here is how we reported about that particular ‘conference’, which will no doubt have been very similar to what comrades can expect in Durham:

Labour Party Marxists supporters attended workshops that were run by The World Transformed, Talk Socialism and even Hope Not Hate. They were clearly based on ‘training sessions’ that these organisations run on a relatively frequent basis – utterly devoid of any real politics, focusing only on ‘method’ and run by young, overly eager people who reminded me of Duracell bunnies.

They included icebreakers like telling the person sitting next to you what you had for breakfast, shouting “one-word answers” about what you liked or disliked about the European Union ‘leave’ or ‘remain’ campaigns and writing “objectives” on paper plates, then sticking post-it notes onto a flipchart grid. You get the drift. It was really, really grim. Worst of all – any of these workshops could just as easily have been presented to Progress or Labour First.

Having said all of that, Driscoll does not seem to be a mere Lansman stooge. He signed an open letter against the expulsion from the Labour Party of Ella Thorp, a supporter of the Alliance of Workers’ Liberty. According to Lansman’s Momentum constitution, that also bars her from Momentum membership.

That is another decision that would probably be quickly overturned at any real, democratic conference of Momentum members.

Democracy and the Labour Party, Elections in the Labour Party, Inside the Labour Party

Wales: Blairite right clings on

William Phillips looks at the forthcoming leadership election in Welsh Labour

Jeremy Corbyn was the first Labour Party leader to be elected under the ‘one member, one vote’ system. Welsh Labour might well follow this lead. Its April 20-22 Llandudno conference agreed to review how it elects the Labour leader in Wales – something which became particularly urgent after Carwyn Jones dramatically announced his resignation in his final speech to conference. Elections are due in the autumn.

Under existing rules the leader is chosen through an electoral college system that gives equals votes to (1) members, (2) the unions and other affiliated organisations, and (3) MPs, MEPs and AMs. While Unison and the GMB are keen on retaining their union block votes, they have talked about reducing the vote wielded by the politicians or eliminating it in its entirety. Others, however, including Mark Drakeford – finance secretary in the Welsh government and a candidate to succeed Carwyn Jones – are campaigning for Omov.

Who emerges as the new leader will obviously depend on the election system. But some idea of the balance of forces can be gleaned from Llandudno.

It is unlikely any trend or group would have left conference fully satisfied. “A score draw,” some comrades I spoke to reckoned; “2-1 to the right, but with the second half still to come”, was the verdict of another leftwing delegate. A deep fault line runs between the rank and file, which is left-leaning, and most union bureaucrats, councillors, assembly members, etc, who are still dominated by the right. Whereas the rank and file identify with Corbyn, the officialdom is determined to distance itself from the UK leadership.

Superficially, the bare facts of the conference appear to support a sober assessment for the left. Its candidate for the new post of deputy leader in Wales was defeated. Two motions addressing the electoral college system that delivered this victory for the right were rejected by the standing orders committee (SOC) in the run-up to Llandudno, and energetic lobbying at the event itself by comrades from the Constituency Labour Parties and Welsh Labour Grassroots/Momentum could not reverse the SOC’s ruling.

In November of last year, the Welsh executive committee (WEC) adopted the electoral college for leader and deputy leader elections. The WEC’s contempt for the membership it purports to serve was illustrated by the high-handed way it ignored the pro-Omov submissions from 19 of the 27 CLPs which responded to the membership consultation that itactually initiated.

The anger this sparked on the left is all the more understandable when you look at the victory margin for the right’s candidate for deputy leader, Swansea East MP Carolyn Harris. The result was 51.5% for Harris and 48.5% for the left’s candidate, Julie Morgan. (Their current locations on the political spectrum are relative and highly mobile, it must be said.)

However, burrow deeper into the detail and the real story of the deputy leadership election emerges. In terms of the combined 16,819 votes cast, Morgan had beaten Harris by 9,110 votes to 7,709. Particularly significant was that in the members’ section Morgan won by 6,244 votes to 3,336 – a ratio of almost 2:1 (although on a disappointing turnout of 38.2%).

It was the weighted electoral college system that had swung it for Harris, to the anger and frustration of many. The sections for elected representatives and unions, etc have been so far the least affected by the changes that have come with Corbyn.

Leftwingers are naturally annoyed that their votes were swamped. One particular statistic that is being bitterly repeated by comrades is that the vote of one elected AM or MP is worth the vote of 400 ranks-and-file members.

Omov

There is no question that the campaign for Omov – pushed energetically by many CLPs and members in the branches – will have received a boost from this widely discredited election. The notion that our elected representatives should command such a disproportionately huge influence is clearly absurd. By definition, our MPs, MEPs and AMs are the most susceptible to the seductions of power. They are the people who we really need to keep an eye on.

Tactically, it may be correct to support Omov at this stage in the fight in Welsh Labour. It would certainly make short work of the current leadership of Welsh Labour and install a pro-Corbyn team. However, as a general principle we should be against plebiscites in the party – for electoral contests or otherwise. Comrades should remember that the move to Omov for the election of the party leader began with the likes of Neil Kinnock and John Smith, and culminated in Ed Miliband’s Collins review – it was a rightwing ploy to dilute the working class nature of our party. 1)https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1000/labour-unions-vote-to-be-distanced/

Comrades should bear in mind the farce that was John Lansman’s Momentum coup, cynically wrapped as it was in a veneer of ‘democracy from below’. In fact, this pseudo-inclusive manoeuvre crushed the embryonic democratic structures of the organisation and substituted online voting of the entire, atomised and easily steered membership. Omov in Lansman’s hands was the vehicle for a profoundly undemocratic plot against the interests of the membership – one that stymied Momentum’s potential to be an effective, dynamic left trend in the party.

Moreover – despite our recent negative experience in Wales – it is in general an enormous strength of the Labour Party that it has the affiliation of important unions. It is pleasing that no comrades here seem to have had a ‘Christine Shawcroft moment’2)Specifically, her outburst on Facebook: “It is time to support disaffiliation of the unions from the Labour Party” – questioning Labour’s historic links with these vital working class institutions. In fact, as part of the democracy review that was won at the Llandudno conference (see below), we should include a commitment to a vigorous national campaign to affiliate all unions to Labour – a development that would go a huge way to making the party a genuine united front of the working class.

That would require rank-and-file initiative in the unions; hard campaigning work and persuasive arguments; and – crucially – a thorough-going democratisation of the unions from top to bottom.

Positive

Despite the results of this year’s conference, there were positive developments that could open up real opportunities for the left.

Firstly there is Mark Drakeford. He is, of this moment, the bookies’ favourite. Drakeford has a long history on the left in Wales and has been a consistent supporter of Corbyn.

Certainly, he could hardly be more inconsistent than the outgoing Blairite incumbent and supporter of Syrian air strikes, Carwyn Jones. The Jones ‘brand’ was undoubtedly tainted by his and his team’s handling of charges of inappropriate sexual conduct against Carl Sargeant, a Welsh government minister – resulting in the man’s suicide in November last year. But politically, Jones had already lost a great deal of authority, given the nature of the general election campaign that official Welsh Labour had foisted on the membership in June 2017.

This was clearly devised to dramatically distance the party in Wales from the leadership in London – Corbyn and McDonnell in particular. The Cardiff HQ drew up a different election platform, and pictures of Corbyn on official material were rarer than dragon’s eggs. Many rank-and-file members were angry at this sidelining of the leader and made their views known with some energy.

Other encouraging developments for the left came out of this year’s conference:

  • CLPs organised a useful fringe meeting on Omov, convened by the umbrella organisation, Cyfle (‘Opportunity’ in Welsh). By all accounts it was a lively meeting, with a combative resolution on display that the fight for the democratisation of our party would go on and intensify.
  • There was also some success for WLG/Momentum in elections to the SOC and even those lefts who were unsuccessful replicated the general pattern of support that was displayed in the deputy leadership contest. That is, the left won amongst the branch members; they lost out to the voting weight of the affiliate organisations.
  • WLG/Momentum-backed candidates won eight out of the 10 available CLP seats on the leadership.

I have already referenced the democracy review. The motion for this was moved by delegate Sue Hagerty and her call for the initial phase of the process to be completed this summer, ending with a special conference on the leadership election method in advance of the election itself, needs to be vigorously supported by the membership (especially because – while this proposal was very popular with delegates – worryingly, the final decision rests with the incoming Welsh executive).

The motion passed with very few dissenters and so comrades in Wales now have an opportunity to discuss this pivotal issue. Although the remit of the democracy review in Wales only covers issues specifically devolved to the WEC (which, happily, include the election format for leadership and deputy leadership elections), the logic of the discussion must take us far beyond these parameters and towards a permanent, democratic and militant organisation of the rank and file in Wales and beyond.

References

Momentum

Momentum NCG elections: no vote

A call from Labour Party Marxists

Momentum’s National Coordinating Group (NCG) has agreed a statement on anti-Semitism, which, while not available on its website, seems to be very much in keeping with Jon Lansman’s comments on the issue. This does not come as much of a surprise. He is, after all, the owner of Momentum. So we read in The Guardian that the statement condemns “anti-Jewish bias”, which is apparently “more widespread in the Labour Party than many of us had understood even a few months ago”. Obviously, this had nothing to do at all with the increased attacks by the right on the party on this issue.

We read that Lansman is working with “external groups” on developing anti-Semitism awareness training for Labour members. Judging by his uncritical description of the March 26 anti-Corbyn rally, ‘Enough is Enough’, on Radio 4 as an “anti-racist rally” and a “demonstration on anti-Semitism”, 1)Today Radio 4, April 3 (www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xcsdb we fear that he has not just the pro-Zionist Jewish Labour Movement in mind (which would be bad enough), but might well be in touch with some even more ‘mainstream’ forces like the Board of Deputies or the Jewish Leadership Council.

This sad story underlines why we will not be advocating a vote in the forthcoming NCG elections. Firstly, it is an entirely useless body, designed by Lansman and imposed on the organisation with the constitution he wrote in the wake of his coup of January 10, 2017 in which he abolished all democratic national and regional structures in the organisation. It is there to rubber-stamp whatever Lansman wants it to do.

Secondly, most of the candidates are utterly useless. The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty is putting forward some of their members and supporters, including three who have been on the NCC for the last 12 months. There is a chance that Sahaya James and Rida Vaquas actually support Lansman’s NCG statement – after all, they are supporters of the social-imperialist organisation that portrays pretty much the entire left as anti-Semitic, with AWL leaders actually describing themselves as “Zionists”.

 

References

References
↑1 Today Radio 4, April 3 (www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xcsdb
Anti-Semitism, Momentum

Momentum’s loose cannon

Why did Jon Lansman withdraw from the race to become Labour’s new general secretary? Carla Roberts of Labour Party Marxists looks for answers

Jon Lansman might have withdrawn his candidacy for Labour Party general secretary, but the charade continues.

In his statement, tweeted on March 10, Lansman assures us that he is withdrawing “with my aims fulfilled” and in order “to focus on my role on the NEC”. You see, all he ever wanted was to “open up the contest”. Apparently, he had “a number of party members get in touch to let me know they are applying for the role.” Therefore, “I reiterate my call for Labour Party members, especially women, with talent and experience to consider submitting an application.” He says that now the party “must draw a clear line between our renewed and reinvigorated mass-membership party and previous eras of command and control, where the views of members and affiliates were too often ignored”. Because he had put in his nomination, “NEC members have begun a productive, comradely debate about the future of the party”.

So much bullshit – where do you start?

Firstly, there already was a woman with “talent and experience” running for the position, even before Lansman declared his candidacy. She is called Jennie Formby.

Secondly, we do not believe for a minute that Lansman was just standing to inspire others to follow suit. Nothing quite says to a woman ‘Come and apply for this job’ better like the leader of a mass organisation with excellent access to the mainstream media going for it himself! Still, Owen Jones seemed to believe Lansman:

Bennism holds party democracy to be sacred, and on a point of principle Lansman believes important positions should be open and contested. Rather than seeking conflict with Unite, above all else Lansman is standing to open up the contest.

That says more about Owen’s trajectory towards politically naive La-La-Land than it does about Lansman. He clearly wanted the job – there is no doubt about it.

Thirdly, who are the other candidates that Lansman managed to inspire through his action? There is a certain Paul Hilder, a very managerial type of candidate who avoids talking politics – but seems to have vast experience in all sorts of sectors and roles, particularly in self-promotion. He previously tried for the general secretary position in 2011, so that one is not down to Lansman.

The only other female candidate who has – very quietly – thrown her hat in the ring is someone called Maria Carroll. On March 11 she tweeted that Jon Lansman “is encouraging members to apply and I am inspired to apply. So I’m seeking your views here.” She has been outspoken against aspects of the witch-hunt based on trumped-up charges of anti-Semitism and is no doubt serious. But we would have advised her not to stand. As we go to press, no other candidates have emerged, so Lansman’s talk about others applying as a result of the contest being ‘opened up’ by himself seems to have been a little inaccurate. [Update March 16: Ex-NUT leader Christine Blower  features on the shortlist with Jennie Formby, though we doubt if this is thanks to Jon Lansman]

Fourthly, thanks to the media’s interest in the left tearing chunks out of each other, we got a glimpse of the “debate about the future of the party” among members of the national executive committee following Lansman’s candidacy. It could be described with a lot of different adjectives, but Lansman’s “productive” and “comradely” are certainly not among them!

Not only did John McDonnell come out publicly for Formby in order to put pressure on Lansman not to run: Jeremy Corbyn was said to have called him twice before he finally relented. And we have heard talk of other, rather heated phone calls that current and former NEC members made to Lansman.

Fifth, had Lansman indeed been chosen as general secretary, his place on the NEC would have been taken by rightwinger Eddie Izzard (runner-up in the constituency labour party section). So much for his “focus on the NEC”, where pro-Corbyn members only have a very slight majority (21 to 17). If somebody is on holiday or falls ill (or disagrees!), that majority is in serious jeopardy.

Democracy à la Momentum

Lastly and most absurdly is Lansman’s claim to have done it all for the rights of ordinary Labour Party members – and his desire to put an end to the “era of command and control”. Owen Jones must be pretty much the only person on the planet who seems to believe that one. Apparently, Lansman’s “lifelong obsession is creating a grassroots-led party, and a democratisation agenda taken to its logical conclusion may well face moments of opposition from both union hierarchies and Loto” (the leader of the opposition’s office). Pass the sick bucket.

Do we really need to remind Jones that Lansman simply abolished all democratic decision-making structures and imposed his own constitution on Momentum during the infamous Lansman coup of January 10 2017? A few weeks ago, he got rid of Momentum’s youth wing in a similar way. A rather unusual “democratisation agenda”.

As if to prove the point, Momentum is currently engaged in a fake-democratic decision-making process over its submissions to the Corbyn Review. It really sums up the way Lansman operates.

To begin with, he asked Momentum members to put forward their own ideas. When it transpired that concrete proposals (pushed by Labour Against the Witchhunt) to end the purge of leftwingers were doing very well, leading the field with the most ‘backers’, he mysteriously managed to ‘inspire’ over 60 members to go online at 11.30pm on the day submissions closed. And, hey presto, his own lame proposal to slightly tweak the trigger ballot (as a safe alternative to the mandatory reselection of parliamentary candidates) won! Incidentally, had the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty helped to push LAW’s proposal on the witch-hunt, rather than submit its own a few days before voting ended, Lansman might have struggled to win. But the AWL, sectarian to a fault, insisted on an almost identical set of proposals – minus all references to the anti-Semitism witch-hunt, which, of course, it implicitly supports.

In any case, the LAW and AWL proposals combined had far more backers than any of the other 120. But that is not the reason that Lansman picked up on one point contained within both proposals for the last round of ‘online voting’. The reason for him asking Momentum members a question on rule 2.1.4.B is simply that he also wants to see it reformed. However, while the LAW and AWL proposals called on the Labour Party to delete the first part of rule 2.1.4.B, Lansman simply wanted to tighten it.

Under this witch-hunter’s rule, which automatically bars from membership anybody “who joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or unit of the party”, dozens, if not hundreds, of Marxists and socialists have been auto-expelled from the party, including supporters (or alleged supporters) of the AWL, Socialist Appeal and Labour Party Marxists.

So in his online questionnaire put to all Momentum members, Lansman stripped our proposals of all context – and managed to turn it around, so it would actually lead to the opposite outcome of that intended by LAW and the AWL:

Labour’s rulebook says membership of organisations other than the Labour Party can make people ineligible for membership, but the wording is imprecise. It should be clarified that this applies only to organisations whose objectives or methods are clearly incompatible with Labour’s.

Lansman’s proposal will do nothing to end such auto-exclusions. After all, you will just need to show that Socialist Appeal or LPM are in favour of “Marxism” or “revolution” or even just opposed to the “market economy”. The latter formulation was used in court to uphold the expulsion of Socialist Appeal supporter Jack Halinski-Fitzpatrick, when Labour’s barristers ‘proved’ that SA’s programme was incompatible with that of the party. Apparently, being sceptical of the “market economy” puts you in a direct clash with the party’s adherence to the “dynamism of the market” in the Blairite clause IV.

In reality, there is actually no such rule in the party’s constitution – yet. Clearly, in this case, the Labour Party’s bureaucrats found a sympathetic judge. A rule dealing with issues of programmatic “incompatibility” refers only to organisations that want to affiliate to the party – which, clearly, Socialist Appeal was not doing at the moment. This is about an individual’s party membership.

So Lansman’s reformed rule would, if anything, give the bureaucrats in the compliance unit more power to witch-hunt leftwing activists.

Momentum’s questionnaire also proves once again that online ‘referenda’ or online voting on complex political issues only appear democratic. It all depends on who asks the question and to what purpose. Clearly, as with so many referenda, answering Lansman’s question with either a straightforward ‘yes’ or ‘no’ was highly unsatisfactory.

However, as expected, his proposal won the day. Momentum has now reported that question 4 of 15 – “Should Momentum campaign for this rule change to clarify the eligibility for membership of people who support organisations other than the Labour Party?” – received 3,183 ‘yes’ votes (84%), while only 308 said ‘no’ (8%) and 296 abstained (7%). 1)https://my.peoplesmomentum.com/review/track_voting/2

Truth of the matter

But back to Lansman’s application for general secretary. Why did he withdraw? The man clearly wanted the job – he wanted it so badly that he even risked falling out with Jeremy Corbyn over it. The short answer is: he messed up.

He had hoped to peel away support from Jennie Formby by appealing both to the right through critiquing the unions and to the soft left, by presenting himself as some sort of champion of members’ rights.

Well, it blew up in his face, big time. He could not keep all his different tactical plates spinning. The man does seem to suffer from a serious case of over-inflated ego and a sense that everything he touches will turn to gold. But critiquing the unions, while simultaneously relying on union delegates on the NEC to vote for him was, to say the least, a high-risk strategy. At worst, pretty stupid.

Lansman also did not seem to take into account the fact that his allies on the NEC might not be as easily controlled as the membership of Momentum. One of the main reasons for his withdrawal can probably be summed up in two words: Christine Shawcroft. Or, more precisely, her outburst on Facebook: “It is time to support disaffiliation of the unions from the Labour Party.”

Lansman and Momentum quickly tried to disassociate themselves from her angry and inane remark, but it did not help that the rest of her (very rare) online comments were focused on praising Lansman. Combined with his own suggestion that the general secretary should be elected by members and his publicly stated “dissatisfaction that the role should be chosen behind closed doors by Labour’s NEC, which in practice would mean a deal struck between major trade unions for their preferred candidate”2)www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/26/jon-lansman-set-to-stand-for-role-of-labour-general-secretary, this indicates that Shawcroft probably thought she was doing Lansman a favour and was acting in his interest.

Well, she did not. All hell broke loose and pretty much every left organisation felt the need to issue statements in defence of the union link. We hear that union after union got on the phone to Lansman and Corbyn, demanding to know what on earth he was playing at. The tacit support of some rightwing unions for Lansman – as their best hope to stop Jennie Formby – quickly evaporated after Shawcroftgate. Lansman had to withdraw for the simple reason that he did not want to be seriously humiliated in the NEC vote on March 20.

And he may have just managed to ruin his political career in the process. For example, can Corbyn and Seumas Milne continue to rely on this man to deliver the required votes at conference? Last year, Momentum managed to text delegates ‘live’ with voting instructions, swinging quite a few decisions. But Lansman has proved to be a loose cannon. Yes, one with well over 200,000 pro-Corbyn members on his database. But still, Jennie Formby would be well advised to work out alternative methods of engaging directly with the ‘Corbyn army’, many of whom do not yet attend Labour meetings.

The witch-hunt continues

In reality, of course, the union link was never really under threat. We have never heard Lansman (or Shawcroft) publicly complaining about the role of the unions before his ill-considered candidacy. It is unlikely they have only now found out that even the representatives of leftwing unions tend to vote against individual Labour Party members on disciplinary questions. They knew, but they chose to tell us about it now, in the context of Lansman’s candidacy.

Clearly, Shawcroft was very upset when the NEC disputes panel – now chaired by her – did not follow her advice to dismiss all cases brought before it by the unelected bureaucrats of the compliance unit (they still operate under the instructions of Iain McNicol, who remains in post until March 20). It decided by a clear majority to refer three cases to the national constitutional committee (NCC), which has a robust rightwing majority and clearly makes politically biased judgments. Even Ann Black admits that this committee is “seen as increasingly politicised”, as she writes in her latest NEC report. Bizarrely though, she thinks that is a bad thing only because it leads to a lack of complaints, as “members [are] reluctant to come forward”.

Yes, that is exactly the main problem in the Labour Party at the moment, isn’t it? Too few members are being fingered to the compliance unit! In November 2016, Christine Shawcroft reported that there had been 11,000 complaints against Labour Party members since Corbyn’s election the previous year, “as well-resourced rightwing hit squads scented a golden opportunity and began trawling through known Corbynistas’ Facebook and Twitter accounts”. There must have been thousands, if not tens of thousands, more since then – though no official figures have been published.

To further underline how wrong it was for Ann Black ever to have been featured on the slate of the Grassroots Centre Left Alliance, her report then goes on to praise McNicol for having “continued” a “trend towards neutrality and fairness to those of all factions and of none”. Needless to say, Jon Lansman supported this GCLA slate uncritically until very recently.

Shawcroft knows, of course, that, once a member is suspended and referred to the highly political NCC, he or she has little chance of getting a fair hearing. She quite rightly wants the NEC to deal with all disciplinary cases. But it seems that all union reps on the NEC – even those from pro-Corbyn unions – take a cowardly approach. For each complaint, the apparatchiks working for the compliance unit prepare a report for the NEC disputes panel containing the allegations. Handily, the top page of each file (there are sometimes dozens of them at every meeting) contains a “recommendation on further action”.

Rather than investigate or challenge these recommendations, it appears that Jennie Formby and the other leftwing union delegates on the NEC automatically vote in accordance with that recommendation.

Critical support

Jennie Formby (and other leftwing union delegates) clearly deserve to be taken to task over their behaviour on the NEC. In the most recent cases that got Shawcroft so riled up, it appears Formby ‘absented herself’ when it came down to the vote that decided to send three disputed cases to the NCC.

That is why we in LPM agree with Labour Against the Witchhunt, which thinks that Formby should only be given “critical support” by the left:

LAW critically supports Formby for the job. We are concerned about her record on Labour’s NEC, where it appears she has, as recently as last week, failed to oppose the witch-hunting of Jeremy Corbyn supporters by rightwingers, who have weaponised false claims of anti-Semitism, despite Formby herself being the target of such smears. Nobody in the Labour Party can truly be a socialist if they support the purge and that includes the future general secretary.

Formby might have been trying to play it safe before the March 20 NEC meeting, which will decide on the new general secretary. But her behaviour is worrying – and a sign perhaps that her likely appointment will not lead to a swift change of direction, when it comes to the witch-hunt against leftwingers in the party. We also note press reports, according to which “senior backers of Jennie Formby are trying to reassure party staff that there are no planned overhauls, should she secure the job”.

Thanks to Tony Blair, of course, most staff are now on short-term contracts and do not have to be dismissed should they no longer be required. They simply might not get rehired. Others do not quite seem to trust Formby’s peace offering and are jumping ship before they are pushed. For example, Emilie Oldknow, Labour’s executive director for governance, membership and party services (which includes disciplinary processes, suspensions and expulsions), has just announced that she is leaving her post in the summer. Excellent news.

Naturally, Iain McNicol has been a key player in the ongoing civil war. But he is not acting alone. The right is still in control of the Parliamentary Labour Party and the bureaucracy. For the last seven years, McNicol has been in charge of hiring and firing the 200 staff working for the party. No doubt, he was politically biased when doing so. And we hope Jennie Formby will be too!

Glyn Secker

Take the most recent case of Glyn Secker. On March 7, the secretary of Jewish Voice for Labour received a letter informing him of his “administrative suspension” from the Labour Party, because of “allegations relating to comments on social media that may be anti-Semitic”. The letter, signed by “Sam Matthews, head of disputes”, states that McNicol had “determined to use powers delegated to him … subject to the approval of the next meeting of the NEC.”

As it turns out, the suspension was based on Secker’s ‘crime’ of being part of the Facebook group, Palestine Live, which has achieved some fame in recent days for having counted a certain Jeremy Corbyn among its former ‘members’. The pro-Zionist blogger, David Collier, sent the Labour Party a dossier of over 250 pages, which contain … fuck all. Some members of the group had posted dodgy links. Like people do every day on every single Facebook group.

Incredibly, without any kind of research themselves, most newspapers reprinted parts of the report, as if it was a scientific document. Tony Greenstein has done a good job exposing Collier as the vile blogger, “Gnasher Jew”. But even after days of splashing this non-story across various newspapers, neither Jeremy Corbyn nor Glyn Secker, nor any other of the Labour members suspended for belonging to that group were found to have posted anything even vaguely anti-Semitic. It was just another weapon in the ongoing campaign to smear Corbyn and his supporters.

After five days in which Labour members and branches vocally protested against comrade Secker’s suspension, Sam Matthews was forced to lift it, “because it would not be in the party’s interest to pursue disciplinary action in relation to this matter”. There is no apology – not even a withdrawal of the accusation of anti-Semitism. Just like in the case of the expulsion of Moshé Machover, which was quickly rescinded, it appears that the NEC overruled McNicol, who seems to want to cause as much damage as possible until the very last moment. But what about Sam Matthews? His letter to Secker clearly exposes his political loyalties.

Also, compare comrade Secker’s treatment to that of Jeremy Newmark – until recently chair of the Jewish Labour Movement. Despite the JLM calling in the police to investigate allegations of fraud under Newmark’s watch, he remains untouched by the compliance unit, because, we are told, his behaviour in an organisation affiliated to the Labour Party is a “private matter”.

Rightwingers like Sam Matthews should follow their masters, McNicol and Oldknow, to the door marked ‘exit’.

 

 

References

Anti-Semitism, Momentum

Lansman and witch-hunting

Momentum has drafted a ‘Charter of members’ rights’, which promises to put an end to the deluge of unjustified suspensions from the party, writes Carla Roberts. But it does not oppose political expulsions and also leaves the compliance unit untouched

In an attempt to appear democratic, a few weeks back Momentum asked its members to “help us draft proposals for Labour Party democracy review (Corbyn review)” by submitting proposals and/or ‘nominating’ the one they preferred. The organisation’s most comprehensive proposal, the ‘Charter of members’ rights’, was not among them, we should state from the outset. It will apparently be put to an all-members’ vote shortly, but its origin remains somewhat mysterious. We will deal with it further below.

Labour Against the Witchhunt decided to submit a short version of its demands in the second of three ‘tracks’ of the review: ‘Membership involvement and participation’. For a week or so, the proposal had around 50 nominations, easily leading the field in that track.

Of course, LAW comrades were under no illusion that Momentum would actually put our proposals forward. After all, Momentum owner Jon Lansman has played a pretty despicable role in the anti-Semitism witch-hunt – for example, by throwing Jackie Walker to the wolves after she was suspended from the Labour Party on trumped-up charges of anti-Semitism. He arranged to have her removed as vice-chair of Momentum (just before he abolished all democratic structure in his coup of January 10 2017).

Another organisation involved in that sorry affair is, of course, the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, whose members on the Momentum steering committee voted for comrade Walker’s removal – just before they were ‘removed’ themselves by Lansman.

Momentum-demoCottoning on to the fact that it might be politically useful to use Momentum’s “digital democracy platform”, a few days before the deadline of February 16, the AWL submitted its own proposal on the witch-hunt. This was pretty much in line with LAW’s motion – with one important omission: it does not contain any references to the anti-Semitism witch-hunt or criticism of the Labour Party’s support for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. This IHRA definition, in its list of examples, conflates anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism and support for the rights of the Palestinian people.

The AWL, not seeing the wood for the trees, seems unable to grasp that the hundreds of suspensions on false charges of ‘anti-Semitism’ are an integral part of the witch-hunt. Thanks to the AWL’s ‘unique selling point’ of seeing anti-Semites everywhere, it is very happy to go along with that aspect of the campaign against leftwingers in the party – see ‘When chickens come home’ Weekly Worker February 15. 1)To add a small correction to that article, we would like to point out that there seems to be some difference on the issue within the AWL. Leader Sean Matgamna continues to call for Ken Livingstone to be expelled from the Labour Party (see www.workersliberty.org/ story/2017-07-26/livingstone-and-anti-zionist- left). Meanwhile, the editorial team of the AWL paper Solidarity officially says it disagrees (see www.workersliberty see org/node/31045). Despite that it happily publishes Matgamna’s articles without any ‘correctives’ and regularly denounces Livingstone as an ‘anti-Semite’ in its pages.)

In any case, the AWL mobilised heavily on and off Facebook and its Momentum proposal quickly caught up with LAW’s motion. Just before the deadline (midnight, February 16), however, some rather mysterious events unfolded.

LAW’s and the AWL’s proposals were ahead, neck and neck, until just before 11pm, when they were suddenly both overtaken by another one, that had been lingering at a distant third. It is the rather lame proposal to raise the threshold for the Labour Party’s trigger ballot for the reselection of MPs from 50% to 66%. (At present an MP needs to win a simple majority of nominations from local party branches and affiliated trade unions and socialist societies in order to become the candidate once more).

We know that this proposal has the support of Jon Lansman – not just because it won, but because he has been raising the issue in recent interviews. This system now seems to be Jeremy Corbyn’s preferred alternative to the long-standing principle of ‘mandatory reselection’ of MPs. But this system is still disproportionally in favour of the sitting MP. Rather than allowing for a full and democratic automatic selection process before every election, a sitting MP has to be challenged. This is the wrong way round. Lansman knows that, of course. He has campaigned for mandatory selection all of his adult life. Corbyn and Lansman are wrong in thinking this will placate the right in the party.

Nevertheless, within the last half an hour or so, that proposal suddenly received more than 50 nominations, so it topped the list of nominated proposals (you can read all three further below). Maybe some Lansman loyalists suddenly remembered they had not yet voted. Or maybe Lansman did a ring-round to garner last-minute support. We may never know.

To add further to the mystery, it appears that some people already knew well before the deadline which proposal would win. In the February 16 issue of The Times (written, of course, the day before) Lucy Fisher writes: “Momentum has proposed raising the threshold [for the trigger ballot] to two thirds of nominations”. Clearly, it is enough for Jon Lansman to declare his support for something to make it official Momentum policy – Lucy Fisher got that right.

All this calls into question Momentum’s so-called ‘democracy’ once again. Anybody who believes that Jon Lansman abolished all previous structures and decision-making bodies in order to make Momentum more democratic (yes, there are people who believe this) is clearly deluded or – more realistically – hoping for a career in the Labour Party.

This episode also exposes the limits of so-called online Omov (one member, one vote). It sounds democratic, but it is anything but. For a start, very few members actually participated. There were quite a few proposals – with some comrades submitting their own rather eccentric hobby horse – but the number of ‘nominations’ for each proposal rarely managed to get into double figures. The three mentioned above were way above the rest and in the end Lansman’s proposal had garnered 114 nominations, while the AWL’s received 74 and LAW’s had 70. Out of a Momentum membership of over 20,000!

Even worse: most of the people who did participate in this fake-democratic exercise did so only because they were urged to do so by their ‘faction’ – be it LAW, AWL or the Lansmanites. Which means that a fair chunk of participants will not even have read the rest of the proposals.

The ‘factionalism’ so criticised by many Omov supporters is evidently still in full swing in Momentum – it is just a lot less transparent than it would be with a proper democratic decision-making process: for example, a conference.

Momentum Charter

Interestingly, Momentum felt obliged to send Tony Greenstein (under whose name LAW’s proposal was submitted) a message on the morning of Saturday February 17. A mere 10 hours after nominations closed, the unnamed participants of a “panel” of the Momentum national coordinating committee had already decided that some points of the LAW proposal were worthy of support and, indeed, “are covered in the ‘Charter of members’ rights’, which will be put to a ‘one member, one vote’ of Momentum members shortly”. According to the email, the charter covers these LAW demands:

that “the Chakrabarti report to be fully implemented”;

that “people accused of breaches of the rules should be given evidence against them and explained the process”;

that “membership rights should not be removed until an investigation is completed (ie, suspension should only be used as a last resort)”.

We do not know who exactly has drafted the Momentum’s charter, what kind of legal standing it would have in the Labour constitution and how indeed it would be enforced. It is presented as an amendment to the ‘membership rules’ (section A, chapter 2) in the rulebook, but also states that these “rights should be protected under Labour’s constitution” (our emphasis).

In any case, the charter does indeed contain some pretty useful and overdue stipulations. No doubt these proposals are also supported by Jeremy Corbyn, on whose behalf Jon Lansman is, of course, running Momentum.

In the point, ‘Transparency’, the charter contains, for example, the “right” of party members to “inspect the financial records of the party” and the need to give members “access to all key documents governing national and local-level party activity, including rules, standing orders, guidance notes, appendices, codes of conducts and procedures, which should be collated and made available on membersnet in clear and accessible language”.

Labour Party Rule Book - Labour-Party-2018-Rule-BookAny Labour Party member who has ever tried to get hold of the full standing orders of their Constituency Labour Party or local campaign forum will know that they are often treated as a closely guarded secret by people in control of the levers of power.

Other useful points in the charter include ‘Capacity building and skills development’, which again sound like a lot of obvious waffle – unless you try first-hand to organise a training session or education event in your CLP.

Most important is, however, the section on ‘Disciplinary justice’, which is subdivided into 12 points and forms the longest part of the document. It contains many recommendations from the Chakrabarti report and its aim is to “ensure that disciplinary matters are dealt with fairly”. It is designed to put a (middle-sized) spanner into the works of the rightwing party bureaucracy, which has suspended thousands of pro-Corbyn members on the most absurd charges. In many cases, members are not actually told what they have been suspended for. Suspensions are upheld for many months, often years, without any effort on the bureaucracy’s side to resolve them.

This section contains useful proposals on how to make the disciplinary process more open and clearly understandable, with decisions and complaints being given in writing and the need to give those complained about “a length of time the process is likely to take” (though they fail to take up LAW’s proposal to set the limit at three months). The proposals would also end the practice of some automatic and instant expulsions, which carry an automatic ban of five years, without the right to appeal (though this would probably have to be deleted from the rule book in another amendment). The proposals include:

  • “Alleged breaches of party rules shall only be investigated if the breach complained of took place within 12 months prior to the complaint” (except when it is a case of “alleged criminal conduct”).
  • There should be an “equitable time lapse, specified in the rules, for the readmission of expelled members proportionate to the gravity of their offence” (to replace the automatic five-year ban).
  • Where the NEC considers “auto-exclusion”, “the member shall be informed of the allegation in advance of the decision and have the right to make representations within a specified time scale before the decision is made, and there shall be a right of appeal”.
  • “Suspensions shall be a last resort” and should only be used “where the NEC decides that there is a prima facie case of a serious breach of party rules”; normally where the NEC is considering suspension, “the party member shall be informed of the allegation in advance of the decision and have the right to make representations within a specified timescale”.
  • “… all complainants (if any) and the person complained about shall receive a written decision on the outcome of the complaint, giving reasons”.

And then the bad

More interestingly, as always, are the points in LAW’s proposal that Jon Lansman will not support. It is highly interesting to see them spelt out in the email to Tony. The email states that the “NCC panel” (Lansman and Corbyn?) disagrees with:

The call for the replacement of the staff team charged with enforcing compliance in the Labour Party with elected representatives, on the basis that disciplinary justice does require having independent and professional people in charge of implementing disciplinary affairs. In addition, key decisions over disciplinary affairs are already taken by elected representatives: namely those on the NEC disputes committee.

They also disagree with the proposal to delete the first part of rule 2.1.4.B, as this could benefit groups which are opposed to the party.

Finally, they believe that is outside of Momentum’s remit to take a position on precise definitions of anti-Semitism.

The last of the three points is the least surprising, in that Jon Lansman and Jeremy Corbyn have made it clear that they will continue to go along with the absurd claim that the Labour Party has a huge problem with anti-Semitism. They will stick with the IHRA definition and, crucially, its widely derided list of “examples”, which conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.

Worryingly, they also want to keep rule 2.1.4.B in place, according to which “a member of the party who joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or unit of the party … shall automatically be ineligible to be or remain a party member”. We wonder if they think that the punishment of auto-exclusion for that particular crime, with an automatic ban from membership of five years, should remain in place?

This rule has been applied in an entirely one-sided way against leftwingers only – among them supporters of Socialist Appeal, the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and Labour Party Marxists. Groups such as Progress and Labour First (also not affiliated to the party) remain untouched and can continue to operate freely and in a highly organised fashion. And what about supporters of the Stop the War Coalition or Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament? Aren’t they also examples of a “political organisation”? This rule clearly should go. The Labour Party would be positively transformed by allowing members of left groups – who are often the most educated and most dedicated in the party, doing most of the grunt work on the ground – to operate freely in the party.

Most worryingly though, Lansman and Corbyn want to keep the compliance unit in place. True, the NEC disputes committee looks over all cases. But the investigations, suspensions and expulsions are all instigated and driven by the unelected compliance unit, which is firmly in the hands of general secretary and anti-Corbyn witch-hunter general Iain McNicol.

Even if there is a plan to replace the man with a leftwinger at some point in the future, it would still mean that this important body remains in the murky shadows and can continue to operate without any accountability. It is not democratic if the members cannot replace it.

LAW logo high resLAW proposal

The witch-hunt and disciplinary procedures – Chakrabarti
Submitted by Tony Greenstein

The automatic and instant expulsions and suspensions – especially those based on alleged anti-Semitism and those based on members’ alleged “support for other organisations” using rule 2.1.4.B – have brought the party into disrepute: they have prevented and discouraged new members from getting involved in party life, while valuable resources have been wasted in persecuting some of the most energetic and effective campaigners for social change.

We believe that the party should end these practices, and that:

  • the recommendations of the Chakrabarti report should be implemented immediately;
  • all those summarily expelled or suspended without due process should be immediately reinstated;
  • an accused member should be given all the evidence submitted against them and be regarded as innocent until proven guilty;
  • membership rights should not be removed until disciplinary procedures have been completed;
  • disciplinary procedures should include consultation with the member’s CLP and branch;
  • disciplinary procedures should be time-limited. Charges not resolved within three months should be automatically dropped;
  • the first part of rule 2.1.4.B (‘Exclusions’) should be deleted: it currently bars from Labour Party membership anybody who “joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the party”;
  • the party should reject the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism which, in its list of examples, conflates anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism and support for the rights of the Palestinian people;
  • the party should immediately abolish the ‘compliance/disputes unit’. Disciplinary decisions should be taken by elected bodies, not paid officials.

AWL proposal

Reverse and prevent unjust expulsions and suspensions – for a transparent, accountable disciplinary system and a pluralist political culture
Submitted by Ed Whitby

The vast majority of the many expulsions and suspensions since 2015 have been politically unjustified/unjust and violated natural justice. They have prevented and discouraged new members with valuable skills and talents from getting involved, created a culture of intimidation in parts of the party, and wasted valuable resources on such persecution – all weakening our ability to take on the Tories and campaign to change society.

Therefore we propose:

  • The Chakrabarti report’s recommendations should be implemented.
  • The first part of rule 2.1.4.B – auto-exclusion for any member who “joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the party” – should be scrapped, as per the rule change already going to conference this year (https://stopthelabourpurge.wordpress.com/2017/06/19/urgent). All Labour supporters should be welcome in Labour: membership of particular Labour-supporting organisations or previous leftwing activity should be irrelevant.
  • The practice of auto-exclusion should be abolished. Everyone should be regarded as innocent until proven guilty and get a proper procedure, including advance notice of charges, the right to evidence submitted against them and the identity of the accuser/s, consultation with their CLP and branch, a full hearing, and the right to an appeal. Membership rights should not be removed until procedures are completed. This should apply retroactively to those denied these rights.
  • Responsibility for these issues should be transferred from the ‘governance and legal unit’ (previously compliance unit) to elected bodies and officials

Jon Lansman proposal

A democratic selection process for the 21st century
Submitted by Dan Iley Williamson

At present, the Labour Party does not have a democratic selection procedure for selecting its parliamentary candidates. The current ‘trigger ballot’ system allows for the possibility of sitting MPs to be automatically reselected, even when they lack the support of the majority of their local members; and, if members do want an input into candidate selections, it forces them to organise on a solely negative basis. I propose replacing the ‘trigger ballot’ system with the following democratic procedure:

  • If a sitting MP has indicated that they wish to stand for re-election, the NEC shall agree a timetable for a selection process for that constituency, candidates shall be invited to express interest in the selection and a shortlisting committee shall be appointed in line with procedural guidance to be issued by the NEC.
  • Party units and affiliates may each make a single nomination of a candidate.
  • If the sitting MP receives both (i) nominations from party branches with a combined membership of more than two-thirds of the CLP membership, and (ii) nominations submitted by more than two-thirds of the affiliates and party units other than branches submitting nominations, then the sitting MP shall be automatically reselected.
  • Where the sitting MP is not automatically reselected, the shortlisting committee shall present a shortlist of nominated candidates to all members of the CLP entitled to vote. That shortlist must reflect the requirements of the NEC to ensure that candidates are representative of our society, it must include the sitting MP and it must be subject to the requirement that any candidate who has received nominations either from party branches with a combined membership of more than one half of the CLP membership or from more than half of the affiliates and party units other than branches making nominations shall be included, subject to meeting eligibility criteria.

This democratic selection procedure ensures that to be reselected MPs must have the support of their local members. By ensuring a nominations process, this rule change allows both sitting MPs and potential candidates to seek out nominations from local units and affiliates, thereby increasing the accountability between members and MPs. The process allows MPs to get automatically reselected if they have the clear support of members and trade union affiliates, whilst at the same time offering other candidates a fair chance of getting a guaranteed place on the shortlist.

References

References
↑1 To add a small correction to that article, we would like to point out that there seems to be some difference on the issue within the AWL. Leader Sean Matgamna continues to call for Ken Livingstone to be expelled from the Labour Party (see www.workersliberty.org/ story/2017-07-26/livingstone-and-anti-zionist- left). Meanwhile, the editorial team of the AWL paper Solidarity officially says it disagrees (see www.workersliberty see org/node/31045). Despite that it happily publishes Matgamna’s articles without any ‘correctives’ and regularly denounces Livingstone as an ‘anti-Semite’ in its pages.
Momentum

Momentum’s proposed ‘Charter of Members’ Rights’

Click here to read the PDF version of Momentum’s Charter of Members’ Rights, which “which will be put to a One Member One Vote of Momentum members shortly” and is no doubt supported by Jeremy Corbyn.


The Labour Party Rule Book 2017. Section A. Chapter 2 Membership Rules. Amendment

Insert into a new Clause IV under Chapter 2 of the Rule Book, after the new Code of Ethics

2.1.3. There shall be a Charter of Members’ Rights to guarantee the rights of Labour Party members.

Introduction

As a democratic socialist party, the Labour Party’s ability to deliver on its core values and objectives depends fundamentally on its ability to fully harness the talent, ideas, and commitment of its membership base. This depends on guaranteeing those members rights to transparency, accountability, participation, training, and disciplinary justice. All party members and staff should be made aware of the rights of members, which are established in this Charter. These rights shall be established along with a set of responsibilities, which shall be covered in a Code of Ethics, which covers all actors in the Labour Party. Both the Charter of Members’ Right and Code of Ethics shall be supervised by the Labour Party Ombudsperson, to whom a complaint may be made by a Labour Party member, employee, contractor, officer, or representative alleging a breach of the Code.

 

Transparency

Party members should have rights to a minimum level of transparency from the party, including the following:

a) To inspect the financial records of the Party, on giving reasonable notice;

b) To be provided with full information about the Party’s finances on an annual basis;

c) Access to all key documents governing national and local-level party activity, including rules, standing orders, guidance notes, appendices, codes of conducts and procedures, which should be collated and made available on membersnet in clear and accessible language;

d) Right to know who their elected representatives are at all levels of the party, as well as the elected representatives of all affiliated organisations participating in any vote.

 

Accountability

As a democratic socialist party, the Labour Party shall guarantee meaningful mechanisms of accountability between its members, elected representatives, and paid staff. On that basis, members shall have rights to the following:

Elected Representatives

a)   Meaningful democratic mechanisms that ensure accountability between party members and elected representatives. These mechanisms should ensure that members are as fully involved as possible in the selections of all Parliamentary candidates, and candidates for other elections;

b) Elected representatives should report in writing to respective branches or CLPs;

c) Elected representatives should be accountable to their CLPs or branches in that CLP policy or branch policy should be taken into account when elected representatives cast a vote, or express a policy position, and if the elected representative does not adhere to branch or CLP policy, s/he should report that position to the branch/CLP and take into account the branch/CLP comments;

d) Elected representatives who are paid a full-time wage for their positions should not take on other employment.

Party staff

e) Party staff actions and behaviour should always be in accordance with the democratic socialist orientation of the party, promoting and cultivating a culture of public service, inclusiveness, and innovation, with the aim of building a participatory, transformative, members-led party, this culture should be maintained by meaningful line management and performance monitoring, with senior managers reporting directly to the NEC;

f) All internal elections, disciplinary matters and other internal issues of Party management should be conducted in a manner that is fully impartial, independent and (so far as compatible with personal confidentiality), transparency;

g) Managers to report regularly to the NEC, Regional Boards or other Party structure on the work of the staff;

h) Transparency in the Labour Party staffing structure, so that members are informed of the specific rights, remits, and responsibilities of staff members, as well as of relevant lines of accountability;

 

Participation

Labour is at its best when its members are fully engaged, and their talents, ideas and commitment can be fully harnessed. On that basis, members shall have the following rights:

a) To participate in local Party governance, and not to be excluded from it except in accordance with the rules of the Party;

b) To actively contribute to the development of Party policy, under the sovereign authority of Conference, and not to be excluded from it except in accordance with the rules of the Party;

c) To contribute meaningfully to the selection of candidates to represent the Party in elections to public office on an equal opportunities basis;

d) To be considered for nomination as a Party candidate for election to public office, on satisfying prescribed qualifying conditions;

e) To participate in the election of the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Party;

f) Where they are so excluded, to appeal to a separate decision-making panel;

g) To be treated with respect;

h) To have their diverse qualities, conditions, skills and talents respected and valued;

i) All meetings, and other activities, to be organised so that the widest numbers of members can participate, including ensuring that venues used are physically and culturally accessible, and that information is communicated in a variety of languages (if requested) and is visually accessible.

 

Capacity Building and Skills Development

In order to fully harness their abilities, Labour Party members should have opportunities to improve on their skills and talents to increase the contribution they make to the party. This will not only increase the overall contributions made by members to the party, but will also seek to minimise gaps in experience or skills created by an unequal society. They shall therefore have the following rights:

a) Capacity building for incoming officers on branch and CLP Executives, particularly for Secretaries, Chairs, and Treasurers;

b) Training in persuasive conversations, community organising, and workplace organising;

c) Access to broad-based political education opportunities and resources, covering key areas of thinking underpinning different ideologies and strands of thinking represented by the Labour Party;

d) Where requested by members, training in identifying and combating racism, sexism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia and other forms of discrimination, greater awareness of disability rights, in order to be able to identify prejudice and discrimination as and when they occur and challenge it;

e) Opportunities to apply for candidate training as councillors, MPs or other elected office on an equal opportunities basis as well as to gain skills-based training that is relevant for people interested in public office;

 

Disciplinary Justice

Running the Labour Party in line with its principles, and in order to achieve its objectives, will only be possible through the creation of a culture of trust and understanding shared by all across the party. This can only be achieved through ensuring that disciplinary matters are dealt with fairly. Members shall therefore be guaranteed the following rights:

a) To access a clear complaints procedure explaining clearly how and to whom complaints are to be made, and the information to be set out in a complaint. The procedure should also include the processes which may be triggered including processes for exploring an informal resolution of the complaint where appropriate as well as the length of time that each stage of the process is likely to take. This process could be operated by a Labour Party Ombudsperson.

b) For that process to be clearly explained to any complainants, and to the person being complained about;

c) For the complainant to be able to request anonymity and to have his or her request determined urgently by the investigating officer, and if anonymity is refused, the reasons for the refusal shall be put in writing and the complainant given the opportunity to withdraw the complaint before it has been communicated to the person complained about;

d) That alleged breaches of party rules shall only be investigated if the breach complained of took place within 12 months prior to the complaint, save that this limitation period will not apply to complaints alleging criminal conduct;

e) To freedom of expression, consistent with the requirements of the Labour Party Constitution, and not extending to the use of racist epithets, abusive references to any particular person or group based on actual or perceived physical characteristics, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, transphobia, Islamophobia, prejudiced remarks on the basis of disability or age;

f) An equitable time lapse, specified in the Rules, for the readmission of expelled members proportionate to the gravity of their offence;

g) For any potential political motivations of allegations to be considered in any disciplinary processes.

h) Where the complaint is of potential breach of the Party rules, so as to require investigation by the National Constitution Committee, the provisions of the NCC’s procedural rules shall apply;

i) Where the complaint is such that the NEC would consider “auto exclusion” i.e. removing a Party member of his or her membership because it has concluded that the member is ineligible to be a member, the member shall be informed of the allegation in advance of the decision and have the right to make representations within a specified timescale before the decision is made, and there shall be a right of appeal;

j) Suspension shall be a last resort. The NEC shall only suspend a Party member accused of potential breach of the Party rules in cases where the NEC decides that there is a prima facie case of a serious breach of Party rules; normally where the NEC is considering suspension, the Party member shall be informed of the allegation and possible suspension (pending disciplinary action) and have the right to make representations within a specified timescale;

k) That all complainants (if any) and the person complained about shall receive a written decision on the outcome of the complaint, giving reasons;

l) For the NEC to appoint an ombudsperson tasked with safeguarding the rights of members, such Ombudsperson to report to the NEC on his or her work, the pattern and outcomes of complaints received by him or her and to make recommendations as to potential management changes or rule changes. The NEC shall have no authority to review the Ombudsperson’s decisions on individual complaints.

 

Supporting Argument

A Charter of Members’ Rights is necessary to remake the Labour Party so that it is structurally and culturally coherent with democratic socialist principles. Given the massive potential of the incredible expansion of the party membership in recent years, it is necessary to ensure that the talent, creativity, and commitment of the members is fully harnessed. This Charter outlines key members’ rights which should be protected under Labour’s Constitution.