Tarry in Trouble?
We understand that the favoured tactic of Labour’s Corbynite Left, the mandatory reselection of MPs is being implemented in the seat of Ilford South. Strangely, this time the axe is not being wielded by the Left, but by supporters of the council leader Jas Athwal.
Readers will recall, that when former Labour MP, Mike Gapes left the party, the seat was taken by Corbynite, Sam Tarry. Tarry’s selection was eased by the fact that there just happened to be a disciplinary case against local front-runner and council leader, Jas Athwal. As soon as the selection was completed, the disciplinary case, and Athwal’s suspension, disappeared. Curious that.
For years, the Left of the Labour Party have demanded that sitting MPs should face mandatory reselection, reviving fears of Labour’s disastrous decade in the 1980s that the 1981 conference presaged.
Now, for some reason, it seems that they are not quite so keen on having reselection battles, (repackaged as ‘open selection’) where there the sitting MPs are Corbynites.
Labour’s rule changes, brought in under the leadership of one J. Corbyn, now allow for the easier reselection of sitting MPs. The blog, The Constitution Unit notes the key elements of the changes:
A trigger (or affirmative) ballot must be carried out as a matter of routine business through party and affiliated branches for all incumbent MPs seeking readoption.
The new rules reduce the threshold for triggering a selection process from a majority of all branches (party or affiliated) to one third or more of either party branches, or affiliated organisations.
All branch votes for a selection need to be ‘quorate’ to be valid but, crucially, the NEC has reduced the quorum for all party branch meetings from 25% to just 5%, making it easier for a small and determined group to instigate the deselection process.
Unfortunately for Comrade Tarry, the members in Redbridge are making their intentions very clear, and Tarry is currently losing the popular vote amongst members by more than 2:1 with 224 votes in favour of an open selection and only 104 in favour of Tarry. This might be causing his friend in Newham, Rokhsana Fiaz, a little concern.
Fiaz, you will recall, was imposed by a panel from Labour’s NEC, a panel which quite coincidentally included the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. This avoided the embarrassing position of Fiaz being thrown out by the membership.
Mind you, Fiaz and Tarry seem to be using the same campaign textbook. We learn from Guido Fawkes that letters of support from prominent(ish) politicians have been sent to members. “Most eyebrow raising was an email to members from Lord Wajid Khan… Notably this email was sent exclusively to Bangladeshi members, who were told “Sam has spoken up tirelessly during his time as a member of the APPG for Kashmir as well as serving on the Executive Committee of Labour Friends of Kashmir.”
Is this another dog whistle?