Wounds reopen as rebels hit Starmer
LABOUR leader Sir Keir Starmer was humiliated yesterday as party divisions spilled out on his first day at the helm of the annual party conference.
Sir Keir had hoped to change the one-member one-vote system that had helped Jeremy Corbyn land the top job.
But his plans to replace it with a system that split the vote between trade unions and affiliated organisations, party members and MPS, were scrapped just as the conference in Brighton got under way.
It is Sir Keir’s first in-person conference as head of the party and leading Left-wingers did not hide their scorn.
Ex-leader Mr Corbyn told a Young Labour rally that “our party’s leadership seems to be turning its back on that hope for a more equal, democratic and sustainable future”.
The former shadow chancellor, John Mcdonnell, turned his guns on those at the top of the party when the National Executive Committee backed doubling the required threshold of support from MPS to stand in a leadership contest from 10 per cent to 20 per cent.
He said: “These desperate attempts to restrict the influence of party members demonstrate an almost pathological fear of democracy amongst the Labour leadership and bureaucracy.
“Defeated on their main attack on democracy they now pick away wherever they can.”
Labour General Secretary David Evans faced chants of “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!” when he asked members why they joined the party. Left
wingers are heartened that Sir Keir’s attempt to scrap one-member onevote was derailed and he can expect opposition when his watered-down package of reforms is voted on today.
These would make it harder for members to deselect an MP and no longer allow people to pay a fee and become a “registered supporter” so they can vote in leadership contests.
Mish Rahman, a member of the NEC and Momentum’s national coordinating group, said: “The central measure of Keir Starmer’s attack on democracy has comprehensively failed.the electoral college is dead.”
Deputy leader Angela Rayner sought to rally the party with a pledge to boost workers’ rights and a promise to “stamp out Tory sleaze”. And Shadow Business Secretary Ed Miliband will today unveil plans for a 10-year investment designed to “green up” the steel industry.
But the Tories sought to embarrass
the leadership by highlighting a conference motion calling for an end to deportations and to “scrap Prevent and racialised state surveillance”.
The motion, put forward by Sevenoaks constituency Labour Party, calls an “easy process for all UK residents to gain permanent residency” and pushes Labour to tackle the causes of crime rather than “increasing police powers within a criminal justice system that has been proven to be systemically racist”.
Conservatives argue that stopping deportations would, for instance, prevent the expulsion of members of a Rochdale grooming gang. Two members, jailed in 2012, have appealed against deportation orders.
Richard Holden, Conservative MP for North West Durham, said: “It beggars belief that their conference will argue for open-door immigration and stopping all deportations.”
Labour was invited to comment.