Thursday, September 23, 2010
Carry on Voting! (Or rather don't)
I blogged earlier about the comical antics of the Labour Party NEC in relation to the selection of a candidate for Mayor of Tower Hamlets (http://jonrogers1963.blogspot.com/2010/09/third-past-post.html).
Having learned more I do wonder whether the Party NEC are not seeking to revive the "Carry On" genre - which was of course popular under the Wilson and Callaghan governments.
Christine Shawcroft, the member of the Labour Party NEC who knows most about Tower Hamlets, has posted a report of the NEC discussion on her website (http://www.christineshawcroft.co.uk/).
This reveals a reality even more absurd than was obvious already from the decision itself.
It turns out that it was Unison's own Norma Stephenson who proposed the imposition of the third placed candidate from the selection meeting to be Labour nominee for Mayor of Tower Hamlets, having previously voted with the majority to - in effect - "sack" the democratically selected candidate.
I like Norma, who was a better President of our union than many I have known. However, UNISON members in her Region voted her off UNISON's NEC last year and did not vote her on to our National Labour Link Committee.
She therefore ceased - before last year's Party Conference - to hold any national elected position in our Union such as to justify her being our nominee for the Labour Party NEC, having lost a democratic election.
There is no persuasive argument to justify UNISON nominating someone defeated in an election to the Labour Party NEC (and in similar circumstances we did not do the same for the former Chair of the TUC General Purposes Committee).
However, under UNISON Rules our National Labour Link Committee is perfectly entitled to ignore the wishes of our members in this way and can (rightly?) ignore pesky NEC members such as myself.
Still, if I was on the Labour Party NEC as a result of support from the official machine, even though I had lost an election in my union, I think I might think twice before giving enthusiastic support to the candidacy of another such loser, pleasing another official machine at the expense of the democratically expressed wishes of another membership.
Is it worth so much to be on the Party NEC that it doesn't matter if you have to become a laughing stock?
I owe a further hat tip to the blogger who got me on to this topic (http://unionfutures.blogspot.com/) for sharing with me the pressure from a Torygraph journalist to which our Party's NEC is clearly responding (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100054781/lutfur-rahman-galloway-jets-in/). (Anyone who is genuinely worried about political Islam in this country needs to have a lie down!)
The only point that matters in this farcical episode is that one candidate clearly won the selection.
The actions of our Party's NEC - and of my union's representatives - manage the incredible double of being both shameful and ridiculous.
Were this a "Carry On" film it would at least have a more convincing plot...
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange
Saturday, 2 October 2010
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