Did Vox Political’s Conservative commenter change Labour’s leadership voting mechanism?
The line-up: Labour’s leadership candidates – Tory supporters will not be allowed to vote in the election, even if they pay their £3 and try to claim they support the party.
Note: Please don’t take claims about Vox Political‘s influence, made in this post, too seriously!
A Conservative commenter on This Blog may have helped change the voting mechanism for the Labour Party’s leader election after he claimed he would pay £3 to become a Labour ‘supporter’ in order to pervert the process.
Alex Clarke wrote yesterday, “I am a Tory and this morning I took out a £3 Labour party membership specifically so i can vote for Jeremy Corbyn in the leadership election.”
His words came after it was revealed that a campaign had been launched – “ToriesForCorbyn” – in order to elect the left-wing candidate to the Labour leadership. The idea was to sour Corbyn’s name by association with the Tories – but it seems he won’t be needing their endorsement as the public loves him.
However, it is important that the election process should not be perverted by supporters of other parties pretending to be what they aren’t, so This Writer emailed interim Labour leader Harriet Harman with Mr Clarke’s details and comment.
I added: “It is now vitally important that you, together with the other members of Labour’s leadership, reverse the decision to adopt this mechanism… You must not allow supporters of other political organisations to interfere with the selection of Labour’s leader.”
It seems she has been a little more clever than that.
According to the Daily Mail (which has no love for Labour, so it seems likely we can trust this information), “Labour sources said registered supporters must back the aims and values of the party and anyone publicly opposed to them will not be given a vote, although their £3 ‘donation’ will be kept.
“A party spokesman said: ‘All registered supporters must be verified against the electoral register and will only receive a vote if they support the aims and values of the Labour Party’.”
It remains to This Writer only to thank Mr Clarke (and also ‘Hayfords’, who made a similar comment today) for his donation to Labour.
You can bet he’ll try to convince us otherwise, but he will not be allowed to vote.
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Surely people who make public their unpleasant intention of, as they see it, wrecking the vote for Labour leader should not be allowed to join the Party. This character has declared his nasty intention and he has also said publicly that he is a Tory – is he a member of the Tory Party? If so then surely he shouldn’t be allowed to join the Labour Party.
Registering as a ‘supporter’ is not joining the Labour Party.
Previous voting records will now be considered in all cases so Tories won’t have a chance to wreck the poll.
How can they verify voting records, especially as I have moved house several times in the last few years. To them I am just a new member. I suppose I could also join a trade union as well for a bit of fun.
We want Corbyn for our leader.
Good luck!
So, what’s the panic? if the Tory City lovers want Corbyn, give them Corbyn, he will surprise them by actually making real Labour a political Party again, rather than an easy get rich quick opportunity for a bunch of lazy, deceitful liars, whose exaggerated speeches barely conceal the mediocre interest they have in promoting Labour Ideals.
Our Tory -lite MP’s
The Labour party can verify my details from the electoral register, but how can they verify that I support the aims of the Labour party.
Let us know how you get on.
Voting record? Isn’t that confidential? Surely it will be canvassing records they will check? Which is unfortunate as I am a lifelong supporter but have moved recently so my records may not show that.
Let us know how you get on.
How can they tell how you voted previously if you have no voting record as you came on board this year? It is easy enough to check backgrounds, but if you are looking into huge numbers of people that takes time and resources (perhaps they could ask for volunteers?). I hope that they have worked out how to stop the dirty tricks brigade. Conservatives used to be thought of as gentlemen, but they are now just as much con artists as the people who tell vulnerable pensioners their perfectly good roof needs thousands of pounds worth of work, and walk off laughing, leaving the pensioner destitute – except they wear a Saville Row suit when they do it!!
All money to the Labour Party coffers is gratefully received, perhaps the Tory Party itself would like to contribute a few mill in the “Back Jeremy Campaign”? Who’da thunk it eh, the Tories running scared of a “Lefty Bogeyman”? Although we at the bottom of the heap will get clobbered the worse during Camoron’s short reign as PM it will be most interesting to see the depths to which he and his Government and Party will plunge to ensure their rich pals don’t suffer?
All this is just stupid political banter….regardless of who wins the leadership it’s how the leader performs in front of the nation that counts…The party cannot command even 25% of the country’s support at the moment and it’s ALL the media outlets that taunt the party to have their say and despite what labour party supporters may think and hope for you cannot hope to get support from the sheep of the voting public unless you can produce a leader who is not only competent in front of the baying mob but can put across policies that command attention from all political preferences….As has been said,it’s not what the media think of who should be leader with regular banality it’s who the membership choose.My guess all along is that it would be time for the Labour Party to choose a woman but only one who can cross swords with a spoilt public school brat(s)…..that narrows the field down to Ms Kendall and Cooper…of the two my vote will go for Yvette Cooper because she can be a good calm listener but also act like a lioness when provoked…..dont underestimate her.
What a shambles!
What are these previous voting records of “supporters” who are not members of the party.
Easy to sign up as a supporter for 3 pound
https://supporters.labour.org.uk/leadership/1
The item about supporting is at the bottom of the form
I support the aims and values of the Labour Party, and I am not a supporter of any organisation opposed to it.
Don’t forget that constituency boundary changes was in the Queen’s speech. That should be the final nail in a Labour victory. Labour are likely to be out of power now for a generation.
Dream on!
Absolutely correct, it may be that some sort of ‘Coalition’ opportunity could arise, otherwise we will never see a Labour Government again.
This actually means that you are in no position to be bleating at the SNP, IT WILL NOT GET THOSE 50 SEATS BACK and, they were lost because the Scottish people well understood that Labour were no longer interested in the ordinary Man’s welfare, they went to pray at the City of London’s dirty, criminal Mammon….even to the extent of handing out Taxpayers money to rescue these crooks, WELFARE on a gargantuan scale, free at the point of delivery.
Did it SAVE the Economy, exactly what Economy was that, will some kind person inform me, was it the Mad Thatcher Estate Agents one, or the swindling Banksters one..maybe even the ‘Skunk Bonds’ and shares one so beloved by the Labour, they were so impressed with it that they allowed them to keep TAX Free Trading, so we paid them to do it, all during the Blair and Psycho period in power.
Pshaw! no wonder nobody believes a word Labour say.
Ho ho ho! This is the best laugh I’ve had all day.
Labour handed out ‘WELFARE’ to the Dirty City of London, free at the point of distribution, the Bank of England.
Did it SAVE the Economy, exactly what Economy was that, will some kind person inform me, was it the Mad Thatcher Estate Agents one, or the swindling Banksters one..maybe even the ‘Skunk Bonds’ and shares one so beloved by the Labour, they were so impressed with it that they allowed them to keep TAX Free Trading, so we paid them to do it, all during the Blair and Psycho period in power.
Pshaw! no wonder nobody believes a word Labour say.
Saved your bank account, though.
My suspicion is two fold a) The Tories really ARE frit of JC being leader..coz he speaks his mind and is elequent at exposing Tory Lies and b) The idea that Tories are joing Labour to vote for JC..is a smoke screen and that in reality they will vote instead for one of the other 3 candidtaes..dependent on who they think will perform the worst at the Despatch Box…just my two pennorth…
I tend to agree with Stephen. These people are blatantly dishonest and don’t bother to hide their dishonesty. They are carrying out what they perceive as wrecking tactics, so why should we believe what they say say publicly? They should be disqualified from having any say at all.
Labour has now admitted that they cannot stop Conservatives from voting for Corbyn.
You got that from Guido, didn’t you?
Of course. He did attribute the comment.
… to somebody who is not directly involved. I smell horse manure.
I am not sure why you are suspicious. I read Guido as well as your blog, together with other political sites.
We all know what Guido is, though.