Labour Party (UK) Leadership Election, 2016

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Meanwhile USDAW's exec endorses Smith. Not really a surprise. Interesting union of course; fourth largest affiliate and growing but hasn't concentrated much on throwing its weight around politically. Will this change?

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It increases his de facto majority by one actually; the PLP voted on their section last month at it was -1 for the Left.

But if you effectively (if not officially) run seven candidates for six seats and are organisationally weaker than your opponents can you really be surprised that you miss out?

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Still +2 overall for the left; Angela Eagle was replaced by Jon Trickett as an Opposition Front Bench representative which neutralises the shift in Division V upon Skinner's retirement.

As that's already happened I was factoring it into the figures. But yes +2 for the year. Of course it then gets messy because the Left is not the monolithic block; e.g. Black has been unpersoned by McDonnell's little subfaction.

Oh God we're turning into the ALP. Help.

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In all fairness they're the token 'right wing' union who Endorsed Burnham last year.

Bit big to be a token anything, but yes this is no surprise.

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And all the inbuilt power they are given on various internal bodies. But they're very bad at getting their members to vote in internal elections, that's for sure...

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I'm reading that Jon McNicol is apparently going to get couped, a Corbyn source said (so that's Milne) Surely if this happened at Conference then it would go Nuclear?

It's not impossible than an attempt will be made to remove McNichol but by this point I think we accept that nothing is so until and unless it actually happens. Normally I'd add that rumours about that sort of thing would = not going to happen (because giving the game away is not bright) but everyone senior in THIGMOO appears to have picked up the idiot ball this year so who knows.

General Secretary is not responsible to the Leadership but to the NEC and to Conference. Given that McNichol is a GMB man any attempt to get rid of him would be a declaration of war on said union.

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It's hard to talk of such things because you need perspective and you obviously don't have that while you're in the middle of it.

Like, what happened within Labour in the early 1980s was a lot worse than is widely remembered (c.f. Callaghan resigning out of frustration with the membership and much more besides), things were very unpleasant in the early 60s and the situation in the mid 50s was absolutely dire. And then there's the 1931 crisis.

But I think this is certainly the most ridiculous crisis for a major party since then.

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Vote percentages per NEC slate: Left 49.2% (+3.0), Right 31.2% (-3.0), Other 19.5%

Changes on 2014. Errors possible. Please don't sue me!

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Why aren't the unions doing a better job at turning out their members? One would think that in a party like Labour they would be used to playing an important role.

The role they're used to playing is institutional; they dominate Conference and the NEC and this is they way they like things. And Conference still operates on the old block vote; the representative of the union casts all of the members votes for them. OMOV isn't something they're much good at; turnouts in internal union elections are terrible as well.

And additionally a lot of them are now the product of megamergers and are rather distant from their members.

And, yes, those that have a considerable number of clerical-and-upwards public sector members often also have a lot of members who don't and won't vote Labour anyway, let alone participate in internal Party votes.

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Result I was expecting but the margin is larger.

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Notable is that they're are using the findings of said weirdo consultation as a sort of mandate to appeal for calm as well as an excuse to not have to go All In for the incumbent, which I suspect may have been the point. About as close to fence sitting as is possible in these times.

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Have you ever seen a General Secretary gloat-troll people on twitter before? Because that's what Roache has spent his time doing since his little gamble paid off: https://twitter.com/Tim_Roache

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Supporters and Members are not the same thing. Unless Americans grasp this point can they stay out of this thread? Diolch.

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Still not getting the issue I see.

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In further 'Labour Party to change name to 'Jerry Springer Party' news...

Ignoring any appeal issues...

The Party appealed and won. Basically the Court of Appeal picked up the judgment of the lower court and contemptuously ripped it to pieces.

Which, by the way, is significant for other parties and indeed clubs, societies and so on: it means that the law has not been changed and that they remain basically sovereign over their own affairs.

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Official TU supporting nominations...

Corbyn: ASLEF, BFAWU, CWU, FBU, UCATT, Unison, Unite
Smith: Community, GMB, Musicians Union, USDAW
No Nomination: BECTU, NUM, TSSA

With the closure of Kellingley the NUM has a membership of 100 and probably is going to be RIP soon so no nomination is as expected and BECTU didn't nominate last time. TSSA is rather surprising as their exec has endorsed Corbyn and senior officials are working on his campaign. I suspect they cocked the paperwork up.

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Sadiq Khan endorses Smith.

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Members 350,000
Affiliates 168,000
RS 129,000

Change on last time...

Members: +58,000
Affiliates +20,000
RS +17,000

Close to a third of RS applications rejected then.

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This is just beyond embarrassing

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This is just beyond embarrassing

It's a Blairite/Tory conspiracy clearly.

I for one can think of no other logical explanation.

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Ugh. I thought Corbyn was at least above this kind of dishonesty. At this point I'll be heartbroken if he still somehow wins.

Corbyn is a symptom of a wider malaise rather than it's cause. It's amusing but also telling how many people phrase arguments in his favour in the language of an excuse. But you shouldn't be surprised that anyone appealing to a curiously never particularly defined sense of authenticity turns out to be made of plastic. Only the inverse would be surprising.

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Guess which prominent American leftist just endorsed Jeremy Corbyn.

Or has he?

All aboard the clown car etc.

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No one really knows for sure what's going on; the selectorate is not known and there's no reason to assume that different parts of it will move in the same direction. Which is problematic in terms of attempting to survey it in any form (are you talking to the right people? etc). There hasn't been a single published poll since the very start of the process and even if there was one there would be inevitable question marks (given the above issue) as to accuracy. There have been straws in the wind but they can be argued in different directions (and have).

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Would treat the poll mostly as a benchmark of expectations as the figures don't scream WHAT?!?! in either direction.

Though I will repeat an earlier point...

...even if there was one there would be inevitable question marks (given the above issue) as to accuracy.

I will also add: please do not overanalyse the internals, thnx.

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Marxists all write basically the same argument in the same style these days don't they.

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He mostly writes clickbait-y articles for Jacobin...

Figures.

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Politics can't make people happy and people who believe otherwise are just setting themselves up to be destroyed emotionally.