Labour Party impending deselections

[VortexofBloggery]

I am a Labour Voter (historically) and I read this article in the guardian about MPs facing deselection
www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/07/four-female-labour-mps-hit-with-deselection-threats

I am trying to understand what is the process here, if anyone can help or is in the constituencies of these MPs and might know if they've been terrible MPs, fiddled expenses, polling badly?

50 Labour MPs are up for selection ahead of election. I understand this process. 10 are standing down, 35 are automatically standing again (OK, they haven't underperformed, won their previous election, have a good chance of winning again) but 5 are up for Open Selection which means there was a vote, and they didn't meet the threshold so may face Open selection. What have these 5 in particular done, to lose Confidence of their party? Does anyone know? I checked some of their voting records, mostly they vote along party lines, they all won their last election, I assume they would win again (if not marginal seats I guess?) so why these 5 are no longer wanted by the Labour Party? It's a mystery!

Louise Ellman, Liverpool Riverside
Diana Johnson, Hull Nth
Margaret Hodge, Barking
Emma Lewell-Buck, South Shields
Roger Godsiff, Birmingham Hall Green

Diana Johnson appears to be standing up for Domestic Abuse services (a quick search, so I may be wrong) but what exactly as she done to lose the confidence of the LP membership? It's like the LP are giving away seats with this move, or am I missing something?

There are accusations of antisemitism, sexism etc in the party, but if we are to believe those things are just smears, then what exactly have these 5 done wrong? Does anyone think they are bad MPs?

Quite honestly, I couldn’t give a shit about the Labour Party. They threw women under the bus a long time ago. These 4 women didn’t stand up when we needed them, but all of a sudden being a woman now matters?

I would love it if the men who try to overtake them identified as women. It would be exactly what they deserve.

Margaret Hodge has been outspoken about anti-Semitism.

Roger Godsiff has defended the Muslim parents protesting about the teaching of the No Outsiders programme in Birmingham schools.

Don't know about the others, but my guess is they'll have been critical of Corbyn or will have said something about anti-Semitism in the party.

I'm guessing they're shafting Margaret Hodge because she very publicly called Corbyn to account over anti-Semitism.

As an ex Labour member I suspect this is primarily a Momentum/Corbyn versus moderate Labour fight, rather than one rooted in sexism (though I'm sure it will unleash the misogynistic streak in the far left which is never far below the surface).

Momentum has totally buggered up the Labour party. They should just change its name.

Louise Ellman: also Jewish and has spoken out about anti-Semitism.

www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/louise-ellman-faces-fresh-attempts-to-oust-her-as-mp-1.489762

It’s going to vary a bit but basically they’ve annoyed their CLP, who are responsible for who gets nominated.

Some will be due to being outspoken on controversial topics (inc party leadership) but honestly, it could be because they don’t turn up for the leaflet stuffing and school fete ribbon cutting, which along with regular surgeries for consitituents is the main grunt work of being an MP when not in London.

I think this kind of mechanism (deciding who is eligible to essentially ‘be’ the party at a national level) is important, but like most well intended stuff it’s potentially open to abuse.
It’s our equivalent of a US incumbent being challenged in a primary (I think the Lib Dem’s have this process written into their rule book as a routine matter ‘mandatory reselection’).
Getting nominated to a safe seat shouldn’t mean an unchallenged job for life, but it also, MPs aren’t delegates and aren’t compelled to toe the party line - they shouldn’t be cowed into silence by local members, especially as once elected, they are tasked with representing ALL constituents, not just the ones in the same coloured rosettes.

Corbyn only made it to the leadership ballot because Hodge ‘lent’ him her nomination (in the interest of a broad-church policy debate).
She’s been pretty outspoken about how much she regrets it!

My MP chaired Owen Smith’s campaign against Corbyn, but she’s a bloody hard working MP and almost all local members appreciate her, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.

Now, if only she knew what a woman was!

Thanks everyone for your insights. So much more interesting to hear from you than these opaque guardian articles. I will be watching those seats if they are deselected, at the next election. I agree these positions shouldn't be "job for life" and if the rules were applied evenly like mandatory open selection, it would appear to be fairer. It wouldn't, however, stop a majority faction like Momentum purging female / Jewish / Gender Critical / moderate / not turning up to school fete candidates. I think they give the Tories a much easier time, than their own MPs. Apparently New Labour achieved nothing. We'll see. I doubt they're going to win a majority, and I'm not sure they should in the current format.

If any of the women MPs on the list were original selected from an all-woman shortlist, they should have another all-woman contest.

This goes for the seats that MPs are voluntarily stepping down in too - we should probably keep an eye that.

Honestly as somebody who has been on the periphery of local politics it would have to be seen to be believed. How there isn't a sitcom about it I have no idea other than it would be too surreal.

The best way I can describe it is if you can imagine a cross over between Phoenix Nights and Game of Thrones.

My local party has a core group of maybe 10 people, they are made up of 3-4 family groups. When the daggers come out it is very rarely over anything political. Our MP retired (I live in an extremely safe seat) the fight for the nomination was truly amazing with candidates ringing me and turning up at my house and all sorts. I'm not on Wattsapp (thank fuck) but apparently there was all sorts of nonsense between members on there.

For meetings to select officers and things local members turn up with their bored looking 18 year old kids and confused looking 80 year old grannies who have been told how to vote.

My point is that on a local level it's usually much more about interpersonal politics than actual politics.

Diana Johnson seems popular & effective from interviews on local news. This explains the numbers game.
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/reselection-battle-for-hull-mp-diana-johnson-triggered-by-just-16-labour-members-1-9988878

She is tagged online as member of Labour Friends of Israel & tweeted when controversial that she goes by internationally accepted definition of antisemitism.
She is in a leave area.

The ones I'm aware of are mostly Momentum driven internal battles. Like there's nothing else going on in the country at the moment.

What I read about Roger Godsiff was that he tried to mediate between the Muslim parents and the Birmingham "no outsiders" school. Which I thought sounded sensible. But he was massively condemned by most of the Labour Party from what I could see, they wanted him to side with the school and condemn the parents. There is no room for the hard work of finding common ground and bringing people back together across cultural divides, it seems.

Margaret Hodge is implicated in ignoring child abuse and tax evasion. Don't know about the rest.

Do you have any details of the Conservative Party impending deselection? It might make an interesting comparison - must be at least 30 if not more?

Trigger ballots are a Labour party mechanism. According to this article it looks like Conservatives have a kind of mandatory reselection, where each MP writes to their local Conservative Association and the executive committed decides in secret if they are allowed to stand again.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-politics-47283976

A couple of local elections ago our local Tories tweeted a phone banking picture from their office with a whiteboard with local membership numbers behind them. The numbers were tiny small, with less in the whole of the area shown (Graham Brady’s constituency) than Labour have in single wards in the area. Wonder how candidates get selected from such small pools in the first place? Presume they get parachuted in from Erin old boys networks?

It is alarming the way both parties are lurching to the extreme ends of the political spectrum, aided by the way the constituency party system leaves itself wide open to small numbers of entryists manipulating things.

Labour is possibly less worrying in this respect - as I understand it, the procedure means it's quite easy for a small number of activists to pack s meeting and force a reselection ballot - but that ballot is then open to anyone from that CLP. So for instance my constituency which has a long standing moderate (brilliant constituency MP, very good at a national level too) could quite easily be forced into a reselection ballot, but (I hope) at that point the constituency as a whole would vote them back in by a landslide.

The shenanigans in the Tory Party are actually more worrying (from a perspective of having a functioning parliamentary democracy rather than two bunches of extremists screaming at each other across the barricades): Boris has actually withdrawn the whip from his rebels and expelled them - and as a PP pointed out, the selection/deselection process seems to function via cabals in closed rooms.

Emma Lewell-Buck is my MP. She is far from perfect but doesn't shy away from standing up and being counted, and I respect her for that. The CLP here don't seem to like her much, I'm not entirely sure what triggered that but they seem hell bent on getting her out.

Louise Ellman has now quit the Labour Party,
www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/dame-louise-ellman-becomes-second-jewish-labour-mp-to-quit-party-over-antisemitism-1.490131

I wonder how she campaigned in the last election?

Just adding Sally Gimson to the list. The solicitors Michon de Reya are instructed on this occasion. mobile.twitter.com/SallyGimson/status/1192447566249635841

Labour is possibly less worrying in this respect

The current Labour party is the most worrying thing I can think of in UK politics in my lifetime. And I say that as a former member.

And yet Keith Vaz isn't on the list
How strange

Roger Godsiff has been deselected, apparently for attending the demonstrations outside a school in his constituency regarding teaching children LGBTQI++ propagandaand talking to the parents (you know, his actual constituents) and saying that they have a point.

I deleted Twitter today after a critical mass of misogyny and some of the most appallingly eager anti-semitism I've yet seen and I realized I was in tears and actually properly frightened. I know full well politics is a rough and tumble business, and you will never find the perfect party, but to see the Labour party, the party of my working class family and the first party I ever voted for, so terrifyingly blase about casual woman-hatred and jew-hatred not only had me depressed, I've resorted to a stiff drink to calm my nerves.