Thread by @AngusSatow

What's going on with Labour's Parliamentary Selections?

A 🧵 on Starmer's purge and the implications for Britain's democracy...
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/…

Labour is in the process of selecting its Prospective Parliamentary Candidates for the next General Election, with the NEC signing off batches of seats.

Per Michael Crick's useful blog, only ONE out of the firsty FORTY can be classified as left-wing. Why?

https://twitter.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1589552918788599808

Tldr; every Left candidate likely to win is being blocked before the race even starts. So far:

- Doina Cornell in Stroud
- @cllr_maya in Hastings
- @LisaForbes_ in Peterborough
- @mowords in Camberwell & Peckham
- @LaurenJTownsend in MK North
- @emmadentcoad in Kensington
& more

How can they do this?

Well according to Labour's own rules - they can't. But....

There are three stages to selections: longlisting, shortlisting & the selection.

Longlisting: NEC Majority, w trade union input
Shortlisting: Local Party & TU reps
Selection: Labour members

LOTO and the Labour machine - working in tandem - are intervening at the Longlisting stage, where they have control.

This is when they're blocking candidates from even being considered or voted on by members - even council leaders, senior council figures and ex-MPs!

The Labour Party Leadership are clear about this - they are ensuring that loyalists are selected, figures from the Labour Right who will never cause any problems.

They're stitching it up.

The strategy for this was brazenly revealed to @siennamarla just before Conference: the Heir and the Spare.

They block all left-wingers from the start, and ensure any candidate offered to members is 'friendly'.

This is no democratic choice at all.

But they face a problem:

Under a rule agreed by Starmer's NEC, trade union-backed candidates are *automatically longlisted*.

Every left-winger blocked has enjoyed trade union backing, often from Unite and the CWU.

In @LaurenJTownsend's case from 6 unions inc Unite AND Unison.

So they come up with a workaround: 'due diligence'.

A 'dossier' is compiled of 'concerning evidence' which has 'come to light in the course of routine due diligence' checks on social media.

There are some truly laughable examples of what this evidence consists of.

- Once having liked a Caroline Lucas tweet
- Liking a tweet by Nicola Sturgeon about testing negative for covid

Equally, there are some truly disturbing examples of 'evidence' which is grounds for blocking:

- having mentioned Palestinian refugees (a blatant act of anti-Palestinian racism)
- Liking a tweet calling on Labour to be bolder in its economic policy
- a 'history of protest'

It's not hard to disprove the Leadership's half-baked claim that this is about 'quality control'.

For example, here's the Leadership's 'heir' for Milton Keynes North doing the exact same thing as Lauren Townsend.

https://twitter.com/PeoplesMomentum/status/1584149145492652032

In Barking, Labour Right NEC members first ignored, then swept under the carpet evidence of Blue Labour figure Darren Rodwell engaging in what have been termed racist jokes.

He was let off and won the selection. 'Quality control' ?
independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

Upon receiving the dossier, the candidate is then invited to a meeting at one day's notice, with the outcome all but certain: blocking.

These amount to nothing less than show trials.

The next day, the candidate receives a perfunctory email, saying only that the panel considered their representations, and they

No rules are cited, no judgement given. No due process.

You might wonder - will the trade unions tolerate this blatant abuse of process, blocking their candidates?

The answer is no - earlier this year, trade unions agreed with the NEC a clarification of 'due diligence' that it could only be used for e.g. serious financial wrongdoing.

But this agreement has been ignored, time and again.

Candidates backed by unions across the board - from USDAW to Unite, UNISON to the CWU - have been blocked on spurious grounds.

Nor is it only left-wingers being blocked.

From Bella Sankey in Hastings to Jack Hemingway in Wakefield, even soft left figures are being blocked.

As Momentum put it, anyone to the Left of Tony Blair faces attack.
theguardian.com/politics/2022/…

All this is the polar opposite of what Starmer promised in 2020.

The media shouldn't have any hesitation in saying this: Starmer lied to get elected.

He did so because this strategy is wholly out of touch with the mood in the Party and the country.

https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1224662165271056385

Instead, as reported by @patrickkmaguire, it is a tight coterie of Starmer staffers on the hard-right of the Party leading this purge.

Their desire to reshape the PLP with Starmerite automatons trumps all else, from trade unions to local parties. thetimes.co.uk/article/starme…

It's out of step with the country, because people want their MPs to be local, but from Wakefield to Stroud, the Leadership are happy to exclude popular local champions in favour of loyalist parachutes.

Back to the bad old days.

https://twitter.com/tomhcalver/status/1589213053987717120

And polling also shows that from a higher minimum wage to public ownership, people want left-wing economic policies!

But whether it's deselecting SCG members or blocking left-wingers, Starmer is intent on wiping these ideas out of the public sphere.

But there are more damaging effects still. As @MichaelLCrick reports, very few candidates are working-class.

Instead, they are from the professional political classes.

https://twitter.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1589552918788599808

In Milton Keynes North, Lauren Townsend, a trade unionist who came to the labour movement by organising her workplace as a waitress, was blocked.

The Leadership's supposed heir is a pollster.

This is the Starmerite counterrevolution to put working-class interests back in a box.

It gets worse.

In Camberwell & Peckham, @mowords, a prominent anti-racist activist and working-class black man, was blocked. No black man has been elected as a Labour MP since 2011

Meanwhile, Rodwell was let through, despite his 'black man' remarks.

Britain's leading Black newspaper - The Voice - has sounded the alarm on a crisis of anti-black racism within Labour.

All this within the context of Forde and criticism from Black MPs.

Yet the Voice has been *ignored* by the Labour Party.
voice-online.co.uk/news/uk-news/2…

Meanwhile, in Kensington, the ex-MP, @emmadentcoad, the only person to ever win the seat for Labour, and a passionate advocate for a community scarred by Grenfell was blocked.

Locally there was widespread disgust at the decision. standard.co.uk/news/londoners…

As @FisherAndrew79 has remarked, this obsessive purge is also draining Labour's activist base.

With members disempowered and local councillors and even ex-MPs blocked, why would anyone go out and knock doors? The disrespect is palpable. novaramedia.com/2022/10/21/lab…

Indeed, when the Party blocked the *deputy leader of the council* in favour of two people who live outside the constituency, the entire Wakefield CLP Executive resigned.

theguardian.com/politics/2022/…

So in sum:

❌ promises broken
❌ rights of trade unions disregarded
❌ local members & parties disrespected
❌ failing on anti-racism
❌ anti-democratic stitch-ups

This is Keir Starmer's Labour Party.

At @PeoplesMomentum we work relentlessly to expose this scandal, defend the Left and build up socialist strength wherever we can.

Join, or donate if you can! peoplesmomentum.com