Still, wait and see. Perhaps he is holding back support to build up media interest? (Surely no politician could be so naive?). I must admit that I don’t see many of the “usual suspects” missing from the list of his declared supporters who actually filled out and returned nomination forms.
Personally I would have loved there to have been a real contest for the Leadership. Peter Hain would have made a convincing opponent to Gordon Brown. A conviction Blairite could also have posed a real, meaningful challenge. McDonnell would be better than nothing. But, assuming he manages to get enough nominations to stand. It is clear (to me anyway) that there he has no widespread support and the “Hard Left” is completely marginalised in the Party. MP’s would not dare to ignore their CLP’s or trade union affiliates if they felt that there was any significant support for McDonnell.
So, in one way it would be pointless to have a “contest for the stake of a contest”, since the real test of Labour Party opinion will not happen because Brown is not facing a mainstream “left” or “right” challenge.
So Hazel, Peter, Harriet and Alan have enough nominations. I assume that Jon will get one more nomination? Maybe the debate about the future direction of the Party will take place in the deputy leadership election?
UNISON National Labour Link committee meet tomorrow to decide on who (or if) to recommend to members. UNISON has made it clear that no-one but this committee will make recommendations on behalf of “Labour Link”. There is no trade union “block” vote and UNISON levy payers will have a secret ballot to vote for candidates.
However, the unions will be influential. The sensible announcement that UNISON and GMB (together they have in membership about a third of the 3.3 million trade unionists who will have a vote!) are working together to “maximise” influence over the leadership elections also seems to me to be another indication that we might be on the road to merger.
Nominations update - 6pm Tuesday 15 May (From Labour Party website).
Candidates for the leadership and deputy leadership of the Labour Party have received the following number of nominations as of 6pm on Tuesday 15 May.
Candidates for Leader of the Labour Party
Gordon Brown
282 nominations
John McDonnell
27 nominations
Candidates for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
Hilary Benn
34 nominations
Hazel Blears
48 nominations
Jon Cruddas
44 nominations
Peter Hain
49 nominations
Harriet Harman
60 nominations
Alan Johnson
64 nominations
12 comments:
"MP’s would not dare to ignore their CLP’s or trade union affiliates if they felt that there was any significant support for McDonnell."
I think you're wrong here, John. I am afraid they would dare. They fear Brown much more than the membership - to which they ought to be accountable.
I mean, you have to admit that there must be something wrong with the Labour Party when the members of the PLP "fear" their Parliamentary Leader (in this case, possibly the the PM in waiting) more than their CLPs/affiliated T.Us. It paints the picture of Party which has begun to ignore its members.
John McDonnell would make sure that this worrying trend comes to an end.
Comradely,
Mikael
Hi Mikael
Thanks for your views, but I think you are really wrong on this. There are nowadays very few really "safe" Labour seats. There has also been in this government a number of serious rebellions by MP's against the whip. Far more than enough to nominate McDonnell.
I know that the connection between MP's and their CLP is sometimes "strained". But I am absolutely convinced that many MP's would not vote for Brown if they felt it was really out of line with wishes of the ordinary CLP members.
Something remarkable (to me anyway) is happening in the Party. I am really interested at the lack of support so far for McDonnell.
Comradely!
Thanks for you reply, John!
I think we'll have to agree to disagree here! :-)
I think that concepts such as "prospective offer of employment" and "likely career boost" are the reason behind John's apparently low level of support within the PLP.
What you say about rebellions is of course true, but this "rebellion" (insofar as nominating John McDonnell is an act of rebellion against Brown) would surpass all others, by far at that!
I don't think anything "remarkable" - neither to you nor to me - is truly taking place within the Party. A great number of Councillors, TU. officials, Grassroots networks/organisations, and Community/CLP-activists have come out in support of McDonnell - not to mention ASLEF and Unison (Scotland). The letter, signed by more than 300 Party members, in John's favour printed in the Guardian was another great display of Solidarity. This clearly indicates that John's strand of thought has weight within the Party - after 10 years of New Labour!
The only truly "remarkable" (to use your words) flow away from John's, let's call it, "more traditional" Labourism is the one taking place within the PLP; which, after 10 years of New Labour, hardly reflects of the great majority of rank-and-file Labour activists and core voters.
Hi Mikael, no point trying to talk sense into JG im afraid.
Also JG MPs can nominate once not 3 times.
John
I just heard from my regional Labour Link rep' that the UNISON supporting nominations will be deferred until after the upcoming candidate hustings. The good news however is that there was absolutely no support for McDonnell. For all the recent hype about UNISON in Scotland to boost his flagging candidacy - practically every speaker said that they would not support the ultra left candidate in any circumstances.
UNISON4John - you must be joking.
Terry
Hey Marsha,
Thanks for your advice, but John and I have agreed to disagree... so, I'll soldier on! Against better judgement, most likely...
:-)
I just wanted to add that the corelation between PLP and rank-and-file support obtained may well be negative in this case (i.e. great rank-and-file support for John translates into low support for him within the PLP).
Brown's level of PLP support is ridiculous. He doesn't need 250+ MPs to nominate. He clearly doesn't want a contest, which proves that he (and many in the PLP) are less convinced of his victory than many of his supporters.
Clearly, if John gets on the ballot, he'll make Brown's eyes water!
Hi Mikael
Just got home and heard the news that McDonnell (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6660565.stm) has conceded that he cannot be nominated. It is customary to offer congratulations to Brown and commiserations to JM (and his supporters - well, most of them, you included)
We have indeed reached an “impasse” over our views. I would only add that 300 names on a letter to the Guardian (not the Daily Mirror of course) doesn’t mean anything in a Party of 200,000 (odd – some very) and 3.3 million trade union affiliates. It is not in my view evidence of any “weight” in the Party. (BTW ASLEF has only 17,000 members and as you could read elsewhere in these comments – UNISON Labour Link would never vote for him).
Brown did not want a contest with JM because it would have been irrelevant (unlike a mainstream Left or Right challenge). Being a political anorak I personally would have enjoyed a contested election. However, I recognise Browns ruthless and single mined political strengths. Why should he allow opponents to hold an election purely for folks like you and me?
To me the most important quality of any future leader is the ability to beat the Tories and win the next election. I think Brown can do it. No doubt another thing we will have to agree to differ.
Hi Marsha,
I’m not sorry that JM didn’t get the nomination; however, I have been on the losing side quite a few times, so I won’t crow.
You are quite right that I was wrong about MP’s being able to nominate up to 3 candidates. I should have checked my facts – it did seem a bit odd.
Hi Terry
Yes, I have heard exactly the same on the grapevine. Also, (utterly unsubstantiated) that joint favourites for deputy leadership UNISON nomination are Alan Johnson, Peter Hain and Harriet Harman (sorry Hazel, Sorry Jon).
Apparently though, the actual vote by UNISON Labour Link in the conference will be weighted to reflect the actual vote that each candidate gets from members.g. if so and so gets only 25% of the actual UNISON votes then they will still get 25% of the total UNISON allocation. Hope this is right!
The fact that there's only one candidate for Labour leader makes your previous post "Join the Labour party , get a vote" pretty redundant doesnt it John?
Whats the point in having a vote if you can only vote for one candidate? So Brown can get 99% of the vote? Thats only an election in the Saddam Hussein tradition.
No-one outside the Labour party will have anything but contempt for the idea of an election with only one candidate - and a fair number of people inside it will have the same opinion.
This was a serious mistake by Brown and by Labour MPs. Whatever you think of McDonnell or Meacher a lot of people inside and outside the party are very unhappy with many of the government's policies - the Iraq war , with Brown's refusal to rule out involvement in war on Iran , with PFI , with subsidising privatised rail companies with taxpayers' money while they jack up fares (personally i think they're both decent people even if i disagree with John McDonnell's IRA comments entirely)
Preventing a debate on these issues and trying to head off any chance of policy changes on them will harm Labour at the next election - and much worse cost lives and work against the government's aim of reducing CO2 emmissions.
Sorry - re-reading your blog post i see now that you think there should have been a leadership election.
Hi Calgacus
Top person for apologising! Even though to be fair, I wanted an election between credible candidates. I did not think that JM or Meacher were credible (even though with hindsight many are now saying that Meacher would have been nominated if he not JM stood).
My analysis is that it a coronation will not matter at all “outside the Party” but will p**s off quite a few Party activists who genuinely wanted an election. However, this will be tempered by the pretty widespread belief that the “left” so badly mishandled this whole campaign, that in reality they got the result they deserved.
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