Labour Party NEC Election
Get out the vote for the Left/Centre slate!
Ballot papers will be going out to all Labour Party members from the end of July for the election to the Constituency section of the NEC.
The slate put together by an alliance of the Left [Network of Socialist Campaign Groups, Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, Campaign for Socialism (Scotland), Labour Left Briefing, Labour Women’s Action Committee and Socialist Campaign Group News] and Centre (Labour Reform) has already had some significant successes.
Despite the leadership setting a supposedly insurmountable barrier of for nominations, the 6 candidates broke this easily. They required nominations from CLPs in three different Party regions - they got them from a total of 128 CLPs, many not generally associated with the Left.
Candidates have been speaking at local meetings to promote the slate and at fringe meetings at union conferences, and more are planned in the next few weeks. Some candidates have also been able to break through the media silence to get coverage.
The leadership has a problem. Last year’s election, when Ken Livingstone beat Mandelson, showed that a candidate too closely associated with the leadership has a problem. Yet they are determined to see the Left defeated.
What an embarrassment for them if Liz Davies, who they refused to allow to stand as a candidate in the general election, were to get elected to the NEC!
Rather than one pro-leadership slate, there were 13 other candidates nominated (although some have since withdrawn). All are attempting to portray themselves as independent, but all are known to be unwilling to challenge the policies and undemocratic practices of the leadership seriously.
Rumours abound that the leadership intend to employ Labour students over the summer to ring party members urging them to vote for anyone but the left. These are of course denied.
These plans have been rather thrown out over recent weeks because the person said to be organising them was one Derek Draper. An organisation, ‘Members First’ has been formed to promote Blair’s candidates and has been given large advertising space in the magazine, Progress, which Draper founded.
The contempt with which the leadership treats the membership knows no bounds. The main person arguing in the press that the Left/Centre slate does not represent ‘ordinary members’ is Steve Bassom, long-time leader of Brighton Council – and now a member of the House of Lords.
Despite the Whips’ office initially giving MPs pre-printed nomination papers with the names of their favoured candidates for the MP/MEP section entered, Dennis Skinner and Alex Smith MEP have achieved sufficient nominations, and although they are unlikely to win they could garner votes from a wider section of MPs than usual who are disaffected with the leadership’s performance.
Over the next weeks the Left needs to pull out all the stops to publicise the Left/centre slate and achieve a good turnout. One of the biggest problems faced is the recognition factor compared with previous years when MPs were allowed to stand. Win or lose, the election should also be used to revive the Left, and in particular Campaign groups in the Party, linking up with campaigns and trade unionists.
NEC slate: Liz Davies, Andy Howell, Cathy Jamieson, Mark Seddon, Christine Shawcroft, Pete Willsman.
For the Conference Arrangements Committee: Doreen Cameron and Audrey Wise.
For the National Constitution Committee: Rosina McCrae.