I left the Labour Party a few months ago. It wasn’t a rash decision, I’d been thinking about it for some time and finally decided to end my membership on my birthday (a sort of treat to myself). Here are the reasons that made me finally pull the plug... 1) The change in the nomination rules for leader or deputy leader make it impossible for a socialist candidate to run for either of those positions in the future, as there simply aren’t enough socialists in Parliament to nominate a candidate.

The post-Conference comments by Shadow Cabinet members should not come as a surprise. For as long as the Labour Party has existed there has always been a battle between the de jure sovereignty of Conference and the de facto autonomy of the parliamentary leadership. The struggle to shift the balance of power inside of the party in favour of the membership has been in many ways hindered in the past four years by the blind faith that the leadership will do the right thing.

Tom Watson is much harder to get rid of than you realise: a thread. There's no point signing petitions calling on the NEC to pass a motion of no confidence against Watson, even if they did it would have no effect as such a mechanism doesn't exist in the Labour Party Rule Book.