Morgan in petition to change vote system

A PETITION to change Welsh Labour’s leadership election system has been launched by Cardiff North AM Julie Morgan, who failed to win the party’s deputy leadership despite securing 65% of members’ votes.

Ms Morgan lost out to Swansea East MP Carolyn Harris because of Welsh Labour’s “electoral college” voting system, under which ordinary members have only one third of votes.

Ms Harris won the election because she got majority backing from MPs, AMs, trade unions and other organisations affiliated to the party.

Ms Morgan has now launched an online petition at change.org, calling on Welsh Labour to urgently change the way it elects its leader and deputy leader to the OMOV (one member, one vote) system. She wants OMOV in place to elect Carwyn Jones’ successor. The petition is backed by Vale of Glamorgan AM Jane Hutt and Swansea West AM Julie James.

Ms Morgan said: “Of course I accept the result as I stood knowing the electoral college rules. However, it really does seem wrong to me that a small number of parliamentarians and trade union activists were able to have a greater say than members. It cannot be right that my vote, as an AM, is worth 400 times the vote of a member – that’s why this system has to change and we need OMOV, as happened when we elected the UK leader, Jeremy Corbyn.”

In the trade union and other affiliates section of the ballot, there was a turnout of just 4.7%.