Mr Corbyn’s challenger for the Labour leadership, Owen Smith, warned the party could be “decimated” in an early election.
Advertisement
Everything happening at the NEC today is both about tedious institutional process and is absolutely fundamental to what kind of party Labour will become – whether the current takeover of the party by grassroots activists will be hard-wired, entrenched, permanent.
As part of his reconciliation efforts, the Labour leader has said he is willing to restore elections to the shadow cabinet.
Mr Watson said this proposal, if agreed by the NEC, could allow Labour to “put the band back together” in time for a possible early election.
It comes after Mr Smith said Labour was “sleepwalking towards an electoral disaster” which could tear it apart if Mr Corbyn remains leader.
Labour MPs could regain the right to elect the shadow cabinet under a proposal to be considered on Tuesday by the National Executive Committee, the party’s main rule-making body.
The Labour leadership contest is to conclude on September 24, and there is plenty of chatter that if Jeremy Corbyn democratically succeeds again then the party may split. “What we’ve got is a 300,000 increase in membership in one year so any party that had that increase in membership would be a rather different place and those members come from a wide range of political opinion, not necessarily fixed in one position”.
Jeremy Corbyn wants to give the Labour members a role in electing the shadow cabinet and shaping policy in the next radical phase of his leadership. The interviews suggested Momentum members were sometimes advised to be “discreet” about their affiliation during the leadership election.
Mr Findlay told the Star: “All through this contest I have felt that Owen has been badly advised by colleagues who I don’t believe had his or the party’s best interests at heart”. But he said the change would only come in after Mr Corbyn retires, adding: “This won’t be a sort of sword of Damocles”.
But Mr Watson denied a plot against him by his leader, instead saying: “When you have these internal elections you get a lot of hotheads on the campaign team and they can generate a lot of negative headlines in newspapers”. The Labour Party didn’t go after him for that out-and-out racism. Which would probably have significant implications for towns such as Doncaster as it would affect the local power base/Labour voters, and affect the many councillors and MPs that have benefited from safe Labour seats.
In a press release from Momentum Kids, Sasha, one of the group’s founders, said: “It sounds like such a cliche when you say it out loud but it remains true, our kids are the next generation of people who can change the world”.
“I’d be very happy for someone else to take the onerous responsibility of trying to keep the Labour Party in order if that is the case”, he said.
The AM – who shares an office in Pontypridd with local MP smith – has challenged the notion that Labour can only win with a change of leadership.
Advertisement
“Women still do a disproportionate amount of caring work and this can leave them shut out of many political spaces”, said co-founder Jessie Hoskin.
