Dear John,

This is an update from Labour First. We hope this is a useful information service for Labour moderates. If you have news for us to circulate or additional contacts who should be added to our email list please let us know. People can also join our mailing list here: http://eepurl.com/Nzh75. Please feel free to forward this email.

Latest situation - NEC meeting today

Following today's NEC meeting we know Jeremy Corbyn will be on the ballot to defend his position as Leader.

By an 18-14 majority the NEC ducked treating him equally to other candidates and requiring him to be nominated by 20% of the PLP and EPLP. This is daft – how can anyone lead a party if they have support from fewer than 20% of its parliamentarians? – but at least ensures that if he is beaten no one can question the process and the “mandate” and legitimacy of the winner.

However, at the same meeting the NEC closed some of the loopholes that turned last year’s election from a battle for hearts and minds of actual long-serving members into a lop-sided stacking exercise, won by the team with the biggest email lists. The notorious £3 Registered Supporters scheme will now cost £25 and only be open for three days between 18th and 20th June. There is a 6 month freeze date meaning to vote as a full member you will need to have joined before February (presumably newer members can pay the £25 to vote as Registered Supporters).

The full timetable will be published on Thursday.

I am not sure what the point is in Jeremy running for re-election.

If he wins he will still be in the same position:

    With an 18% rating on whether people want him to be PM compared to 62% for Theresa May and behind “don’t know” on 20%
    8% behind the Tories in the opinion polls
    Without the confidence of over 80% of the PLP
    With a frontbench so full of holes Labour cannot physically transact the day-to-day business of parliamentary opposition
    With the Soft Left so alienated they are providing candidates running against him
    With public knowledge of the low esteem his closest colleagues have for his performance
    With many of the young people who he inspired in 2015 deeply disillusioned that he let them down during the referendum campaign
    With the activists and councillors who are Labour’s campaigning backbone in open rebellion

None of this will be changed if Corbyn is re-elected, however wide the margin. MPs are not going to go crawling back to him saying they made a mistake. They will challenge him again and again as his failings and the un-tenability of his position become more and more apparent, until eventually he is defeated.

If he is re-elected and May calls a snap General Election this autumn Corbyn will go down in history as someone who chose to lead Labour to devastating defeat – probably including losing seats deep into our industrial heartlands - out of personal stubbornness and factional malice, rather than admit he is simply not up to the job of leadership and has political views that are anathema to most British voters.

If he is re-elected there will not be a split.

Members may quit in disgust. People may choose to drop out of political activity to do something more enjoyable. This will be understandable but ultimately self-defeating. It is what the Hard Left want – to make Labour such a miserable and vicious place that only they feel comfortable in it. Letting them have their way is just going to delay Labour’s eventual recovery.

But there won’t be a split along 1981 SDP lines with MPs founding a new party.

The lesson of 1981 was that Owen, Jenkins, Williams and Rodgers achieved nothing except personal ignominy whilst people with similar politics like Healey and Hattersley and Smith who stayed and fought got to see their party won back and winning elections.

We need fighters not quitters. This is tough but we know from 1997 that the prize – an electable Labour Party with everything it can do for working people – is more than worth the struggle.

The same goes for any future Scargills who want to try setting up a new Socialist Labour Party if Corbyn loses.

Anyone, right or left, who forms a breakaway party will find it near impossible to make an electoral breakthrough due to the First-Past-the-Post voting system. All they will do is split the centre-left vote and help the Tories, and harm their own side within Labour by tarnishing the stayers as potential leavers.

Corbyn can be beaten. I am confident that there will be only one moderate candidate, making this a binary choice. Corbyn’s character and politics are a lot better understood than they were in 2015 by people in the centre and soft left of the party who were prepared to give him a chance. Pro-Europeans have been deeply alienated by his role in the referendum. His sectarianism and that of Momentum has created an unprecedentedly broad alliance against him, a coalition of everyone who wants to save Labour as an electoral force which transcends right and left.

If he cannot be beaten this summer he will be beaten in 2017 or 2018.

NEC Elections

Whatever happens with the leadership, the National Executive Committee (NEC) elections are going ahead. Ballot papers will start to go out both by email this week by post next week. They have to be returned by 5 August. Only members who joined before 24 June can vote.

It is essential you remind all mainstream Labour members you are in contact with to vote, and let them know who our recommended candidates are. Control of the NEC is finely balanced as we saw today and we need mainstream candidates elected to ensure the Hard Left do not use the NEC to advance their factional interests within the party. Don't assume even active members will understand why they need to vote in this ballot or who the best candidates are to vote for.

Every full member of the party can cast six votes for the CLP section of the NEC. We recommend support for these six candidates:


    Luke Akehurst
    Bex Bailey
    Johanna Baxter
    Parmjit Dhanda
    Ellie Reeves
    Peter Wheeler


Councillors can also cast two additional votes in their own separate section. We recommend the following two candidates in the local government section:


    Nick Forbes
    Alice Perry


Here is a link to a model “Get Out the Vote” letter: https://gallery.mailchimp.com/linkremoved/files/NEC_GOTV_Letter.docx. We want you to post or email this in your own name to anyone you know in the party to encourage them to vote in the election. If you are a councillor or MP etc. with legitimate access to the membership list for the area you represent you are entitled to send an email of this nature to the whole membership list. Similarly CLPs that nominated our candidates can send a recommendation on which way to vote to their whole membership.

As soon as you have voted please tell people which candidates you backed on Facebook and Twitter. You can use the same hashtag as for the leadership issue - #SavingLabour

For people who like the geeky detail, here is my analysis of the NEC nominations by CLPs: http://labourlist.org/2016/07/luke-akehurst-nec-analysis-shows-momentum-thriving-in-unwinnable-seats/

Local Meetings

If your CLP is meeting in the immediate future, here is an Emergency Motion you can table:

"This CLP has no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn MP as Leader of the Labour Party, and calls for him to stand down from his position.

While we believe that Jeremy Corbyn is a man of great principle, we do not believe that he has the skills or capacity to effectively lead the opposition in this vital period for the future of our nation. As negotiations begin for our exit from the European Union it has never been more important for the Labour Party to hold an increasingly right-wing Conservative Party to account. With Jeremy Corbyn as a leader we are unable to do that and are not on course to form the next government.

We thank Jeremy Corbyn for his leadership during this difficult period and the many years of service he has given the Labour movement, and hope that he places the needs of that movement first at this crucial moment."

Recruitment

The procedures agreed at the NEC tonight mean that we need to refocus from recruiting people to full membership to recruiting people as Registered Supporters at the new £25 rate. This opens on 18th July so we will send the link round as soon as it is set up by the party.

Best wishes,



Luke Akehurst
Secretary, Labour First
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