EXPLANING THE LABOUR LEADER RULE CHANGE DRAMA
Everything you need to know about the continued infighting for Labours future
With the Annual Labour Conference today, votes on Labour replacing the One Member One Vote system back to the Electoral College fundamentally change how Labour decides it leaders. But as the conference draws near, Keir Starmer might not to get this drastic new rule change to even be voted on.
Here is everything you need to know about the Electoral College motion.
What is the Annual Labour Conference.?
A conference being held in Brighton to decide the future policies of the Labour party. Selected representatives will go to represent ether there CLP or affiliated organisation E.G. a union to vote on the policies the Labour party will run on. Before a motion can be voted on, it will need to pass the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party.
Why is this year controversial?
Keir Starmer and his allies in the NEC want to get rid of the One member, one vote (OMOV) system for deciding the Labour Party Leadership elections and replace it with the electoral college (EC), the system they used before OMOV. Starmer is trying to pass this vote though the unions, hoping the increase in influence will persuade them to agree.
What is OMOV?
All members decide the leader on popular vote. You can vote by being an Affiliate member (member of a union who has signed up to vote) or a registered supporter (paid member.)
What’s the electoral college?
One third of the vote each goes to paid members, unions, and Labour MP’s. Between these groups there’s a popular vote. So, one MP would have significantly higher percent of the vote than a member. Union members would also not have to vote to register as they do currently.
Why KeIr Starmer says he wants this system
It would centralise power way more easily and allow Labour shadow cabinet to create policies that appeal to the public more than the membership.
According to the guardian, Starmer said this to his shadow cabinet: “We need party reforms that better connect us with working people and reorient us toward the voters who can take us to power,”
Why does the left not want this?
It would significantly take away power from the membership to make a leadership decision, and the membership of the party tends to sway to the left, as can be seen by former labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s wins of 59 percent in 2015 and 61 percent in 2016.
Why the split in the Left of the party and the right of the party?
Why the Left feel betrayed
Apart from the obvious explanation of having different ideologies and ideas of where the party should go, there is a suggestion in the left of the party that the right doesn’t want them there. This was spurred on by the Jeremys Corbyn’s treatment during his time as leader. Key factors of this can be seen it
The continuous resignations of multiple cabinet members and constant criticism of him on media from them. E.G., comments from Jess Phillips like “‘The day that ... you are hurting us more than you are helping us, I won’t knife you in the back, I’ll knife you in the front.’”
MP’s calling for a second leadership election after the Brexit referendum
Internal documents revealing some members of the Labour party may have actively trying to make Labour loose in the 2017 election, with what’s app messages taken revealing ideas to move party money over to safe seats.
The leaked antisemitism report revealing these what’s app messages is a major point or reference for distrust of the right in the party.
Going back on the 10 pledges
But more to the point recently, some are angered by Starmer’s apparent dropping of more radical policies.
Starmer made 10 pledges that he said would be “the base for the moral case of socialism”. The most important proposals (for this conversation) he made are here.
Increase income tax for the top 5% of earners, reverse the Tories’ cuts in corporation tax and clamp down on tax avoidance, particularly of large corporations. No stepping back from our core principles.
Public services should be in public hands, not making profits for shareholders. Support common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water, end outsourcing in our NHS, local government, and justice system.
Many people already feel the promise of unity has been Brocken with this recent attempted rule change.
Moreover, Keir recently released a 11,400 word document with the Fabian society outlying what direction he wants to future of the party to go in. the creation of state owned public services was not mentioned once in the document. Instead, the document, that 10 new pledges, seems to have a huge focus on “not stifling” the private sector and even mentions public services in a more negative light than private ones.
Keir Starmer: “If we are to come back better than before we need to fundamentally rethink how our country works … It means banishing the culture that unthinkingly accepts public services not keeping up with the sort of advances we have come to expect in the private sector.”
While this could be more of a jab at Tories handling of the public sector, this, no mention of some of the key policies he promised to bring to the party, and a reference to ideas of unification of the private and public sector being like that of David Cameron’s idea of Big Society, has left much confidence in the left with Keir.
The removal of Jeremy Corbyn’s whip
This is the big one. After the Antisemitism enquiry was released by the EHRC, Jeremy Corbyn appears in an interview where he said: “The scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.". This led to Jeremy Corbyn’s party suspension and removal of whip.
This caused a massive outlash with the left of the party. With many constituency Labour Party's (CLP’S) voting for a motion of support to Jeremy Corbyn. It’s a sore spot of discussion today, and despite having membership restored he has yet to get his whip back.
The Right believes the left divide us with the public too much
One argument made by people in favour of EC is that it brings the party more in line with the public.
One Major group in Labour and one of Keir Starmer’s donor’s Labour Together published a 2019 election report. The report investigated why Labour did so badly in the 2019 elections, and by cataloguing different types of voters, came up with steps on how Labour could win an election in the future. This document is listed by The New Statesman as “a blueprint for Starmerism”
A key finding of the report was the divide between the more socially liberal Labour voters and the rest of the country. For instance, the three groups considered “socially liberal” are “Progressive Cosmopolitans”, “Younger Instagram Progressives”, and “The Green Left” oppose
Tougher restriction on immigration
The idea of an eye for an eye
And are less likely to agree with the statement “I am proud of my country”.
This could be a strong reason why Starmer wants less power for membership to decide leaders, as they most likely fall under this socially liberal group that the right of the party believe will push for policies that are less palatable for the electorate.
We can already see Labour taking ideas from this report when it was leaked that the parties head of research gave a presentation explaining Labours new strategy of “The use of the flag, veterans, dressing smartly at the war memorial etc give voters a sense of authentic values alignment.”
More power for donor’s
There has been an enormous amount of money going into the hand of certain Labour cabinet members. For instance, the Huffington post revealed that Shadow Justice Secretary Wes Streeting has had 4 private donations totalling to £45,000 this year.
Giving one third of the vote to MPs in tern gives more influence to donors. And that in turn introduces a lucrative opportunity for cabinet members to acquire more money.
And as Labour faces’ resent cutback with staff due to finance problems, insiders have told the Huffington post that some cabinets have been preparing to staff up for an upcoming leadership election.
Can they pass the EC motion?
Getting though the NEC
Before the motion can be voted on in the conference it must first be agreed by the NEC. It was originally expected it would pass the NEC, but after a “car crash” meeting with the unions, the NEC did not vote on the plans yesterday, and meeting will instead have to be held today at 11am.
Keir Starmer needs the support of the Unions
In order to pass this motion though both the NEC and conference, Starmer would need to have support from the Union. In particular, the three union members he would need to pass this motion are GMB Unison and Usdaw as Unite, CWU and TSSA have already refused to back the motion.
Many of these unions have also requested that he delay this plan for a rule change past the conference but Keir Starmer has still pushed for the motion to be voted for this Saturday. Starmer originally planned to convince these unions during the Trade Union & Labour Party Liaison Organisation Yesterday.
The “Car crash” TULO meeting.
Sienna Rodgers a writer for Labour list has described the meeting as a car crash. Gabriel Pogrund, the Whitehall correspondent for the Sunday times has reported that Starmer failed to bring a last minuet turnaround and more importantly, angered Gary Smith the general sectary of the GMB union. Gary Smith said it was embarrassing that Labour was fighting for a £10 minimum wage unlike the £15 minimum wage GMB supported.
While the meetings have gone badly, Labour List sources have said there’s still a chance for Keir Starmer to turn this around and persuade Usdaw and UNISON and that the negotiation remain “fluid”. Keir Starmer will need to come to a deal before the NEC meeting at 11am.
