Current Affairs The Labour Party

[davek]

Are the NEC not elected then?

And when you say grassroots, what the reality is, is small (relative to the Labour vote) numbers of like minded individuals imposing their collective ideals on everyone else. Ergo, undemocratic.

The wishes of 500,000 people being denied is not 'small'.

The electorate are the electorate. They aren't LP members and so the asrgument you put forward is bogus.

 

[roydo]

The wishes of 500,000 people being denied is not 'small'.

The electorate are the electorate. They aren't LP members and so the asrgument you put forward is bogus.

Fair enough. I get that point.

Its just that you rail against echo chamber stuff on here, but are seemingly ok with every LP MP agreeing with each other. As long as you agree with them that is.

 

[davek]

Fair enough. I get that point.

Its just that you rail against echo chamber stuff on here, but are seemingly ok with every LP MP agreeing with each other. As long as you agree with them that is.

I dont ask for every LP MP to agree with each other. I ask that the membership make the rules of who can stand for leader and who can stand for the party at elections.

 

[roydo]

I dont ask for every LP MP to agree with each other. I ask that the membership make the rules of who can stand for leader and who can stand for the party at elections.

Fair enough. I would rather the PLP did it myself. Doesnt keep me awake either way anyrate.

 

[roydo]

The wishes of 500,000 people being denied is not 'small'.

Its about 700 odd per constituency. Pretty small in that context.

edit. Which is fine, unless they all agree the sort of candidate they want. Y'know.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

A bureactratic committee still with a majority of enough people with vested interests to stop grassroots control of the party has voted to preserve the right of the parliamentary party to decide who can stand as leader.

That's not democratic.

Of course it is. We elect people to make decisions on our behalf. That's precisely what democracy is.

 

[davek]

Of course it is. We elect people to make decisions on our behalf. That's precisely what democracy is.

The electorate do not choose their parliamantary representative in order to have a say in internal party affairs.

The LP leadership and membership are in the process of trying to wean the LP away from the sofa cabinet / PLP dominated neo-liberal worshipping era and back to its roots as being the representative of a wider labour movement. That's the democracy being denied by bureaucratic procedure in the NEC.

 

[dholliday]

I read somewhere that if May's Tories haven't got a Brexit Deal in place by so-and-so date then Corbyn has grounds to call for an early election. Is there anything to this?

 

[tsubaki]

I read somewhere that if May's Tories haven't got a Brexit Deal in place by so-and-so date then Corbyn has grounds to call for an early election. Is there anything to this?

I think it’s that if May can’t get her Chequers deal through Parliament then Corbyn will try for a GE to prevent a no deal Brexit.

 

[dholliday]

I think it’s that if May can’t get her Chequers deal through Parliament then Corbyn will try for a GE to prevent a no deal Brexit.

here's hoping...the world, not just UK, could do with a Corbyn government. Tho' the campaign against him will get to unreal proportions if there is an early GE.

 

[Number_25]

Of course it is. We elect people to make decisions on our behalf. That's precisely what democracy is.

And Labour Party members should be given the right to elect the people that make decisions on their behalf.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

And Labour Party members should be given the right to elect the people that make decisions on their behalf.

You must accept however that there is a risk that a small proportion of the overall Labour voting electorate will distort things, just in the way lobbyists do in politics more generally? If Labour is true to its mantra about being for the many rather than the few then surely it has to do a better job of representing the wider electorate? As @roydo said, at the moment there is a risk of a very small proportion of Labour voters moving the party in a direction the electorate may not (or may of course) want to go in.

 

[Number_25]

You must accept however that there is a risk that a small proportion of the overall Labour voting electorate will distort things, just in the way lobbyists do in politics more generally? If Labour is true to its mantra about being for the many rather than the few then surely it has to do a better job of representing the wider electorate? As @roydo said, at the moment there is a risk of a very small proportion of Labour voters moving the party in a direction the electorate may not (or may of course) want to go in.

I think it's important to understand that the Labour Party isn't a standard "political party" in that it was conceived with the primary goal of representing local ILP interests in parliament.

 

[Eggs]

I dont ask for every LP MP to agree with each other. I ask that the membership make the rules of who can stand for leader and who can stand for the party at elections.

..makes sense but sadly I fear it leads to a party that will never form a Government or have a leader that will be a PM. Hope i’m wrong and the Labour manifesto is attractive enough to win the next GE.

 

[NilSatisOptimum]

You must accept however that there is a risk that a small proportion of the overall Labour voting electorate will distort things, just in the way lobbyists do in politics more generally? If Labour is true to its mantra about being for the many rather than the few then surely it has to do a better job of representing the wider electorate? As @roydo said, at the moment there is a risk of a very small proportion of Labour voters moving the party in a direction the electorate may not (or may of course) want to go in.

All the evidence is that current Labour policy is popular. Myself never gone for appealing to the middle Britain, it does not exist, a political party creates the middle ground through its policy. https://www.ft.com/content/c932b8ea-e223-314a-9e68-a412e7ac5ac2

And we have government that apparently believes in free market principles, yet has introduced caps in the energy market, basically replication of Ed Millibands policy, the son of the most dangerous Jew in Britain according to many centerists...