How to stop democracy-hating right-wingers from hijacking the Labour Party – again
Oh dear. Right-wing troublemaker Luke Akehurst is causing more trouble in the Labour Party.
He has put out an email to members of Labour First, the group which exists to enforce the supremacy of ‘moderates’ (in reality the far-right wing of the Labour Party) over the majority of left-thinking members who have joined to support Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
Mr Akehurst is very keen on using party rules to squash any left-wing behaviour out of the party and maintain it as a pale-blue clone of the Conservative Party. Nobody knows quite why he’s so keen on this because it is electoral suicide (as the last two general elections have clearly demonstrated).
To this end, he wants Labour First supporters to push for large CLPs to switch from all-member meetings to a delegate-based structure, with the delegates being Labour First members and everybody else squeezed out, of course.
That way, the election of delegates to next years national party conference can also be rigged to ensure that right-wingers are sent, who will oppose measures put forward by Mr Corbyn’s team.
Forewarned is forearmed. Labour Party members who support democracy now know what is being planned and can act against it.
One good pre-emptive strike would be to call a vote that confirms your CLP will continue to have all-member meetings, ensuring that any ‘delegate-only’ vote cannot take place for several months. A debate on this topic should help flush out the ‘moderates’ in local party structures, too.
Those of us who support the rule of the majority should also consider our own nominations for delegates to the party conference next year – starting now. These people need to start building support across branches, to ensure Labour First is foiled when it really counts.
Luke Akehurst and his organisation hate democracy. But democracy can beat them. All Labour members have to do is use it.
The email detailed the change in date of the group’s 2017 Annual Conference. And in it, Akehurst announced that Watson will be the conference’s keynote speaker.
He also advised members on Constituency Labour Party (CLP) meetings. He urged CLPs with more than 500 members to opt for “a traditional delegate-based General Committee structure” for meetings. Rather than ‘all-member meetings’.
In his email, Akehurst claimed that selecting delegates to represent the CLP is a more “realistic” option for those with a larger number of members. He also addressed the election of delegates by CLPs to the Annual Labour Conference.
Finally, he explained why his focus on delegates was so important. Members need to start thinking about “who the moderates are” in their CLPs, he wrote. Because “the key objective” of Labour First is to ensure that the majority of delegates at the conference are “moderates”.
Akehurst acknowleged that stacking the conference with ‘moderate’ delegates would help win key votes suited to that agenda. Essentially, following the failed Labour coup this summer, Akehurst is planning to ensure the system is set up in such a way that Corbyn – and his 300,000+ supposedly ‘hard left’ supporters – can’t get anything done.
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How many times do you have to say these people should be kicked out ASAP they are nothing but Blairits and will stop at nothing to get there way they don’t know the meaning of Democracy
I see another word has joined ‘democracy’ in the conservative dicshunary: ‘moderate’ now seems to have become virtually indistinguishable from ‘member’!
Internal gerrymandering by the far-right
oh dear that olive branch was snatched broken in two by watson oh dear oh dear deselection by clps they now that stiching these up we lost our voice again unless they all thrown out has backstabbers greedie mps now if corbyns in then they lost
The best way forward is get akehurst and watson out of the labour party
What exactly, if anything, is Jeremy Corbyn going to do to end this chaos? Why can he not get rid of these far right back stabbers? What does he have to do to rid the party of back benchers who serve little purpose except to make the Labour Party unconstitutional, undemocratic and unelectable?
It seems to me we have been led down the proverbial garden path which is going nowhere any time soon, if this continues more people will start to fall away from the Labour Party – many of them are now chasing for electoral reform in order to stop a right wing Labour Party from being able to get elected in 2020.
I voted Labouir in 2015, not because I wanted the LP to win, but to force a coalition involving Labour as opposed to Tory – that didn’t work out too well.
Mandatory yearly deselection/ reselection needs to be brought in but of course those who will oppose it – with good reason, as they very well know, are the right wing of Labour. It’s quite shameful that so many of these right wing traitors know they are not representative of their constituents and have betrayed them several times, yet still try to hang on to their little empire.
If Corbyn can’t push this through then he really isn’t in charge, which is not a good omen for any kind of future for the LP.