One of the culprits for rendering Your Party a nullity was its importation of Labourist culture. The bureaucratic shenanigans, the behind-the-scenes bullshit, the flouting of democratic votes and "abbreviations" of its constitution have turned a promising project into a Corbyn Glee club, minus decent tunes and a promise of joy. So it's of interest that, according to The Graun, would-be defectors from Labour to the Greens want to bring something distinctly Labourist along with them: a God-given right to "their" seat.
We read that among the chats/negotiations Zack Polanski and other leading Greens have had with disaffected Labour MPs, the issue of guaranteed seats has come up. I.e. If they make the jump, that want to be sure they will be the Green candidate in the subsequent election. This is custom and practice among the other parties. Remember when Christian Wakeford waltzed over from the Tories to Labour? His automatic reselection for Bury South was part of the deal. Of course, when politics is just another career you can imagine politicians treating defection as a shuffle sideways from one position to another, with the same perks and pay intact. This attitude is baked into Labourism, seeing as the party's constitution enshrines it and successive generations of parliamentarians treat Labour as an apparatus to serve them. Hence their utter horror when the party started showing signs of a democratic life of its own during Jeremy Corbyn's tenure.
That, presumably, left wingers thinking about crossing the floor have the same attitude is disappointing, but not surprising. What's bred in the bone will out in the flesh. The problem, unlike Labour, is it's not in the gift of the party leadership to guarantee seats. Mandatory reselection sensibly rules in the Greens, as does a more decentralised structure of party affairs. An approach that has deep roots in Green parties across Europe as a collective prophylactic against bureaucracy and institutional capture by unelected party officials. The relevant part of the party's constitution lays out the procedures for candidate selection, a process that sitting MPs would, at present, be expected to go through prior to the next election. In terms of the rules, there are no privileges that attach to being a sitting member. Formally speaking, everyone is equal in candidate selection.
There are provisions for leadership intervention where no candidate has been selected, which would be appropriate to a snap election like 2017, or where a selected candidate drops out for whatever reason and a replacement needs slotting in hurriedly, but that's it. The party membership are unlikely to vote in a Labour approach simply because they like being in a party in which the membership are actually sovereign. Nor are the leadership likely to expend political capital bending over to accommodate the uncertain pledges of defectors. Right now, heading into the local elections, as the rising electoral power the Greens have the psychological whip hand. New MPs coming from Labour are a nice-to-have, but are inessential. If Labour politicians are serious about coming on over, they have to leave the belief in the supremacy of MPs, the chief tenet of Labourism, at the door.
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100% agree, labourism has done enough damage without it being imported into the green party too
ReplyDeleteNice to hear that the Green rules make a decent fist of eschewing cynical anti-democratic mechanisms, but I'm not sure the likely medium-term effects are quite so rosy. Without a sufficiently strong incentive for Labour MPs to cross the floor, many of those may decide instead to fight the Greens to the last vote; a gift for Reform, whose strategy appears to be the standard "we only need to win once" of all fledgeling autocracies.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with these kinds of selection shenanigans, which I've seen happen in both my hometown (Labour) and my adopted home (Conservative) is that once it becomes a business transaction you can't expect any loyalty beyond what's good for business on either side. It is by definition mercenary behaviour.
ReplyDeletePeople on the whole vote for the party not the individual.
ReplyDeleteSome people do, others know the candidates' history
DeleteReform has been criticised for taking in Tory defectors and becoming the new Tory Party. It justifies its action by saying it is necessary to prepare for government. The Greens are unlikely to be the next government. It does not want to become the newest Labour Party. So it should be wary of any 'seeing of the light' by Labour MPs.
ReplyDeleteThe article explains why the defectors gambit is doomed. Rightly. If someone wishes to move party then they need to show that this move is motivated by more than just a fear of losing their seat. Being an MP is a privilege, not a right, and should depend on you being selected by your local party membership as the first stage, which should require that you know and understand the principles the party holds, and the rules it works to. If your first act on contact with that party is to show that you have no respect for or understanding of these, that should disqualify you.
ReplyDeleteAs for the fear expressed that this would open the doors to Reform...here we go again, the same old tired and busted whinge that Labourites croak out whenever under threat from the Left. Let's turn it round. Why are Labour still pretending to be a progressive, leftish party? Why are THEY standing if it might split the non-right vote? They might as well merge with the Tories or Lib Dems and form a Centrist blob. Labour are neoliberal to the core and Reform-lite-to-middle-weight in some key policies. They offer nothing that is even one millimetre left of centre, and a lot that swings over to the right. So, stand down and stop trying to suck votes rightwards you closet fascists! Or do you Labour lot want a Reform government? You are doing a good job of bringing one about by proxy with your demonising of immigrants, abolition of juries, jailing of protestors, selling out to techbro surveillance creeps and private equity vultures, and criminalisation of anyone who says anything critical of genocide.
Anon 22:38 here, purely to report that in fact I have as little love for (and even lower expectations of) the labourists and the present travesty of a Labour Party as does Merrit; and heartily agree with nearly all of Merrit's second paragraph invective. It's Merrit's apparent optimism about the civic-mindedness and potential behaviour of sitting Labour MPs which is the primary point where we differ.
DeleteA hypothetical strategic compromise is to give would-be defectors a strictly once-only reselection guarantee as part of the deal. But is that even possible under Green structure...? A miserablist cynic would say that if such pragmatism isn't allowed within the party, then it isn't ready for government. A more idealistic critic would say that this is a case which should be appealed to the party membership: vote to give the rats a life raft from their sinking ship, and a controlled window for them to prove themselves worthy of it.