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Your guide to the next phase of Labour’s

civil war
Jeremy Corbyn faces six alternative power centres in the Labour Party – his supporters face a huge
task in trying to take over them all 
John Rentoul | @JohnRentoul | Thursday 29 September 2016 12:45 | 64 comments

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Jeremy Corbyn (right) has six problems, and Tom Watson (left) is one ( Reuters )

Never mind the warm words about party unity in Liverpool this
week: the civil war goes on and it will continue until one side has
control over the whole party. Despite Jeremy Corbyn’s being
"Muslim boys coming back
confirmed as leader by a convincing margin on Saturday, his from prayer" saved lives
at Grenfell
enemies still control large parts of the Labour machine. That
means the leader cannot do everything his supporters want. There are abuses which
won't be covered by
upskirting laws
These are the six main alternative power centres in the party, with
my explanation of the task Corbyn’s supporters face in trying to Man receives 'Tory Rail
Mayhem' scratch card
take control of them. while waiting for train

People wondering 'where

1. Parliamentary Labour Party is Boris Johnson?' sparked
hilarious memes
That Corbyn has the committed support of about 20 of Labour’s
This 16-year-old’s amazing
232 MPs is his biggest problem. It is also the hardest for him to do makeup looks have gone
viral
anything about. So far his tactic has been to “reach out” to the soft
middle of MPs to try to persuade them to join him on the grounds
that they can’t beat him. MOST POPULAR
Erdogan declared winner
This involves the inducement of status in the shadow cabinet, of Turkey's presidential
election
combined with the threat of refusing to rule out deselecting them
as Labour MPs. In his speech yesterday Corbyn praised his BBC viewers rage over
'biased' England vs
parliamentary colleagues who had stepped up to fill the gaps in the Panama commentary
shadow cabinet and said pointedly: “They are our future.”
Trump attacks ' lthy' Red
Hen restaurant for turning
But Corbyn is reluctant to offer them any olive branches from the away Sanders
tree on his office balcony that would diminish his authority. He
Italian minister calls for
won’t move John McDonnell from the shadow chancellor post, 'mass cleansing' in
which would be the biggest sign that he was genuinely interested resurfaced footage

in running a broad-based, balanced leadership team. And he is XXXTentacion killers

resisting the idea that Labour MPs should elect some or all of his tracked rapper before
fatal shooting, police say
shadow cabinet. Here are the key battle grounds within the PLP:

SPONSORED FEATURES
Shadow cabinet elections

When the party was in opposition, Labour MPs elected some of

their own number to serve in the shadow cabinet, until the
elections were abolished by Ed Miliband in 2011. In the last
shadow cabinet election in 2010, MPs elected a list of 19 names: it
was then up to the leader to allocate portfolios to them.

The shadow cabinet is important because, as with the real cabinet,

leadership in the British system is collective. Although the leader
has the authority of his or her position, and the power to propose,
lead discussion and ultimately to sack shadow ministers, the
party's day-to-day line in the Commons is supposed to be decided
by the shadow cabinet, with a vote being taken if necessary.

Labour MPs have voted to restore shadow cabinet elections, but

this has to be approved by the National Executive (see below). POPULAR VIDEOS

The shadow shadow cabinet

There is nothing to stop Labour MPs electing a shadow cabinet

anyway, but Corbyn wouldn’t have to pay any attention to it. There
has been talk of the majority of Labour MPs setting themselves up iguanas hold up traf c as they
duel in Florida Starbucks car
as a rival grouping in the Commons. If most of the 172 who voted park
to express no confidence in Corbyn’s leadership in July joined it,
they would be the official opposition. But that would be to split the
party, and get the blame for it, with little evidence that there
would be a grassroots party to support it outside Parliament. Oh,
and it would require courage, leadership and organisation. Dolphins lmed Pawn Stars' 'Old Man'
jumping for joy off Richard Harrison has
Cornish coast died, aged 77
What they have done instead is to do what they usually do, which
is to elect the chairs of backbench policy committees. These
include Tristram Hunt, John Woodcock and Emma Reynolds.
Because the party is divided, these chairs are sometimes described
by journalists as the “shadow shadow cabinet”, and their views are
likely to be given more prominence than usual.

The full list of chairs is here.

Deselections

Local Labour parties have the right to decide that they don’t want
their MP any more, and that they want to choose a different
candidate to fight the next election. As I explained yesterday, the
rules make it difficult. The procedure has to be started by a trigger
ballot, which can take place only when authorised by the National
Executive, which means that they are unlikely to happen until
after the new constituency boundaries are finalised in September
2018.

A trigger ballot is an odd form of democracy, in which all branches

and organisations affiliated to a local party have an equal vote – in
effect giving a lot of power to local trade unions.

But the politics make deselections even more difficult: they poison
relationships in local parties, and provide damaging stories of
disunity. An MP who feels threatened may resign, causing a by-
election, in which they could stand as something like Real Labour
or Democratic Labour against the official Labour candidate chosen
by members of the local party, and might well win.

2. National Executive Committee

The NEC is the party’s ruling body, although in practice it has to

share power with MPs, and the party’s annual conference (see
below) has the final say over policy and the party’s rules. The NEC
consists of delegates from parts of the party, including affiliated
trade unions, and is currently quite evenly and unpredictably
balanced between the forces of Corbyn and those against him.

The anti-Corbyn forces won two victories this week. First, they
expanded the NEC to include non-Corbyn representatives from
the Scottish and Welsh Labour parties. Second, they secured the
election – by one vote – of Glenis Willmott, a non-Corbyn leader
of the Labour Group in the European Parliament, as chair of the
NEC for the next year. (The Labour Group in the European
Parliament is a seventh centre of non-Corbyn power, although it
will cease to exist in a bit more than two years’ time.)

Corbyn supporters have already won a clean sweep of the six NEC
places that are directly elected by Labour members, so any
advances have to be fought through the thickets of structures to
nominate representatives of trade unions, MPs, socialist societies
and local councillors.

The NEC is the main battle field because it has wide discretion
over the rules – for leadership contests in particular – as the courts
confirmed this year. And it can propose constitutional changes to
annual conference. The next battle will be at an NEC “awayday” in
November.

3. Deputy Leader

Tom Watson has his own mandate, and used it to some effect in his
speech on Tuesday. Corbyn’s supporters thought it was malicious
and divisive; Watson’s supporters – ironically including his former
enemies who resented his part in Tony Blair’s downfall – cheered
him loudly.

Corbyn’s supporters could try to challenge him. Len McCluskey,

the leader of Unite the union, who didn’t get the unity memo
either, said yesterday: “If Tom wants to try and refresh his
mandate, it would be interesting to see what happens.”

But the rules require a challenger to be nominated by 51 Labour

MPs and MEPs, which seems unlikely to happen. McCluskey
managed to sound sinister and divisive without having the
capacity to deliver on his threat.

4. Local government 

Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, is the most powerful Labour

politician in the country. He is able to put policy into practice and
he is able to employ advisers and officials who are not Corbyn
supporters. His speech at Labour conference was also an obvious
challenge to Corbyn, with its repeated references to the
importance of being in power.

Andy Burnham, Sion Simon and Steve Rotheram may soon be in

charge of big metropolitan authorities in Manchester, the West
Midlands and Greater Liverpool. Burnham’s ideological position is
ambiguous and Rotheram was Corbyn’s parliamentary aide, but
wait until they are in office.

Labour local councils generally are in the hands of the non-Corbyn

forces: I cannot think of any council leader who is a Corbyn
supporter.

5. National Policy Forum

Labour Party policy is formally decided by the NPF, currently

chaired by Angela Eagle, a deliberately complicated and long-
drawn-out series of meetings, mostly of trade union and local party
representatives. It culminates in an all-night haggle, traditionally
at Warwick University, some months before an election to decide
the “programme” on which the party manifesto will be based.

6. Annual Conference

The NPF was created to muffle the absolute power of the Labour
Party’s annual conference to decide policy. In practice, policy is
decided by an interaction between the leadership and party
institutions, as happened on Trident this week.

But annual conference is the ultimate arbiter of the party

constitution, and so any rule changes for leadership elections
would have to be voted on there. Corbyn supporters failed to
organise to ensure that they had a clear majority among the
delegates in Liverpool this year. Next year might be different, and
there has been talk about changing the rules to make it harder to
challenge the leader. However, such a change would probably not
go through the current NEC. So it wouldn’t be until 2018 that any
rule changes could be made, and that assumes that Corbyn gains
firmer control of the NEC next year.

In other words: several years of what Corbyn yesterday called

“trench warfare” ahead.

More about: | Jeremy Corbyn | labour leadership elections | Labour Party

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COMMENTS

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losttango 1 year ago

The leader of Islington Council, Richard Watts, is a Corbyn supporter,
afaik.
Reply • Flag 0 likes

Alex Wright 1 year ago

"Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, is the most powerful Labour politician
in the country"Does "in the country" mean England then?
Reply • Flag 2 likes

freespeech 1 year ago

The true agenda has yet to break through into the Labour party - away
from the technocratic careerists and liberals who have hijacked the
working mans party for their own CV. Who is the successor to Corbyn
within the current PLP - They will only offer a list which suits their own
left wing middle class agenda - they are not that weak either 200,000
members voted for Smith - demonstrating the left bourgeois have a strong
mandate in the Party and will not leave easily.No need for trench warfare
just yet - the take over of the party was slow and calculated by the well
educated elite of a meritocratic society - the working man will have to
show patience and determination to win his own party back.
Reply • Flag 2 likes

Albert Tatlock 1 year ago

Tory-lite Tom may get deselected by his local CLP. Let's see.
Reply • Flag 1 likes

ThomasPaine2 1 year ago

Corbyn isn't as lonely as you Mr Rentoul.... always eating lunch alone in
the Derry Street canteen.... where's Tony to keep you company?
Reply • Flag 1 likes

Toado 1 year ago

You a stalker?
Reply • Flag 0 likes

Victoria18 1 year ago

Yes, I am ready. Even Jeremy Corbyn now tries to sway to my cause, it is
too late to stop the inevitable.
Reply • Flag -1 likes

bailleul 1 year ago

Rentoul you must have some dirt on someone very important at the Indie
because the very fact that you continue unimpeded with these shoddy
offerings would be a miracle in the absence of blackmail. Whatever you
have, well done for getting hold of it. Any tips?
Reply • Flag 4 likes

bailleul 1 year ago

Poor old Rentoul, still waiting for that apple to fall. Sorry, it will be a very
long wait before Corbyn falls.
Reply • Flag 4 likes

[removed] 1 year ago

This comment has been deleted
Reply • Flag 0 likes

Toado 1 year ago

not unless he's firmly pushed he won't.
Flag 0 likes

RegEdit 1 year ago

Hard tripe, more like.
Flag 0 likes

Andrew Nichols 1 year ago

Gloating fool
Reply • Flag 1 likes

roywatson 1 year ago

"Your guide to the next phase of Labour’s civil war" - by one of its most
relentless agitators.
Reply • Flag 11 likes

Chomskyfan 1 year ago

Poor old Rentoul, still wearing sack cloth and ashes for his hero the
unlamented war monger.
Reply • Flag 8 likes

rjerrington 1 year ago

The trouble with Rentatoul's slavish Blairism is it renders all facts
distortable, resulting in inaccurate journalism:1. 57 members of the PLP
did not support the unconstitutional 'no confidence' vote, meaning
Corbyn has a lot more to play with than a mythical 'about 20'. The concept
of backbench policy committees was imagined and pushed through
through by Tony Benn, backed by Corbyn. They are all-party affairs and
not used for partisanship. And trigger ballots can take place at any time.
Once McNicol goes they will not be blocked if there are good grounds.2.
The NEC is finely balanced, Corbyn will have the edge once the 6 new
members are in place, and it will then go back to a balance once the
Scottish and Welsh reps join. So no change. But if I were the Scottish or
Welsh leaders I would watch my back! A proportion of MEPs (my own in
the North-West for instance) are actually pro-Corbyn.3. Large fellow
though he is, I don't think you can call Watson a separate source of power,
but just the covert ringleader of the PLP rebels (sliding off to Glastonbury
fooled no-one). He could easily face a challenge next year over his
disloyalty and if so, he's toast...4. Khan is the only one of the 4 Mayors
mentioned who has recently failed to support Corbyn, and only got
elected thanks to Corbyn supporters! If he wants re-election he won't rock
the boat too much. Nobody knows who council leaders support but with
the party expanded by 2/3rds you can bet the change will soon be noticed
at leadership level!5. The National Policy Forum is an undemocratic
Blairite creation which could well be abolished before the GE.6. Annual
Conference went pretty well for Corbyn and his majority party support
despite some CLPs trying to pack it with rightwingers. You can bet
representation will more truly reflect the new membership next year and
from then on.So basically, (now all Rentool's inaccuracies have been
corrected) there's everything to play for, Corbyn's in the ascendant and
the Blairites, having twice been defeated, are on a steep decline...
Reply • Flag 8 likes

[removed] 1 year ago

This comment has been deleted
Reply • Flag 0 likes

rjerrington 1 year ago

Right-wing nut job alert! They can explode any time of day
or night, as they have no control...
Flag 5 likes

RegEdit 1 year ago

And "A hiding to nothing", to quote a favourite phrase of mine.
Reply • Flag 0 likes

harpy 1 year ago

Note that many Corbyn supporting delegates fell victim to the purge.
Reply • Flag 3 likes

Elderrights 1 year ago

There is I suppose an almost inevitable attempt by journalists of the
calibre (?) of Mr Rentoul to paint the future of Labour in as bleak a way as
possible. Whether or not this is a reflection of likely possibilities, or
whether it is more a reflection of malevolent wishful thinking by Mr
Rentoul, is a point worth considering. No doubt there are going to be
challenges ahead, but will they pan out as described in this article? It isn't
inevitable. Even among the 172 MPs who were discontent with Corbyn
there are a sizeable number who want the situation to improve, and will be
happy if it does. Just look at the tweets in support of Corbyn's speech from
MPs who were part of the 172 as a good example!I suppose the reality is
that Rentoul will keep delivering his negative articles, his predictions
won't come off so he'll dream up new ones, and the rest of us will get on
with finding a working way forward. Such is the political world of Britain
after 35 years of being told the Tory way is the only way. But it isn't!
Thankfully.
Reply • Flag 9 likes

bazquin 1 year ago

look at the polls
Reply • Flag 0 likes

Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt 1 year ago

UNITY
Reply • Flag 3 likes

Bryan 1 year ago

10th October 2009, John Rentoul said re Blair..........Despite my slavish
admiration for a former prime minister, I never liked even his
overwrought rhetorical presentations.
Reply • Flag 4 likes

Bryan 1 year ago

John Rentoul has described himself having a "slavish admiration" for Tony
Blair. Nuff said.
Reply • Flag 6 likes

[removed] 1 year ago

This comment has been deleted
Reply • Flag 0 likes

RegEdit 1 year ago

Not as likely as a load of Blairites being deselected, sonny.
Reply • Flag 2 likes

Coleshill 1 year ago

Why were people cheering Watson? PFI debts that are crippling the NHS,
the introduction of tuition fees which are now £9000 a year, Iraqi civilian
dead at 164,171 – 183,289. Brilliant legacy.
Reply • Flag 8 likes

[removed] 1 year ago

This comment has been deleted
Reply • Flag 0 likes

Coleshill 1 year ago

He was fulsome in his praise for those responsible, stating
that they should be "celebrated".
Flag 8 likes

Calico 1 year ago

I'm prepared to listen to criticism but this is just spin, lies and propaganda.
If Rentoul fancies himself as a commentator he needs to sift the facts,
opinion and self-serving slant(s). WNot all of is are thick.
Reply • Flag 4 likes
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