Lisa Nandy « Labour Uncut

Posts Tagged ‘Lisa Nandy’

We need a commitment to radical devolution from the Labour leadership candidates

29/02/2020, 08:50:49 AM

by Alex Croft

Winning back Remain and Leave voters. Rebuilding the ‘Red Wall’. Appealing to Britain’s working-class. Just some of the claims from the Labour Party leadership candidates as the campaigns to replace Jeremy Corbyn heat up.

As the ballots land this week, Boris Johnson’s Government is busy veering left on major issues facing the country – speaking to parts of the electorate in the North of England which put their trust in the Tories for the first time. HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail for example – two critical components of the UK’s future transport network – have been spun as evidence Boris Johnson is delivering on his election promise to ‘level up’ the country.

During Labour’s time in office the North received record levels of investment, including devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The leadership candidates should be shouting loud and proud about how they are going to build on the successful elements of devolution and rectifying the parts that do not work for some parts of Britain.

‘Taking back control’ and the ‘left behind’ towns have become synonymous with the UK’s decision to leave the EU. But what is the magic potion required to build the coalition of voters needed to win the next General Election? Labour’s leadership contenders should commit to full throttle fiscal devolution – giving the North a ‘Barnett’ type formula so local leaders make decisions which are in the best interests of local people. For too long working people have been tired of Ministers and bureaucrats making decisions from behind their desks in SW1, which have a major impact on places like Merseyside. Devolution will help the party get closer to people – making sure their ideas or concerns are listened to rather than ignored by elected representatives. Giving voters the power to create their own destiny is an ambition which should not be scoffed at or, indeed, underestimated.

Local leaders in the North West have always banged the drum for greater decision making. Metro Mayors, Mayors and Leaders have all expressed a burning desire for more powers from Whitehall. After all, how it can be right that outcomes for residents in the Liverpool City Region are produced over 300 miles away in Westminster?

Keir Starmer, Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey promise to possess the recipe for all of Labour’s woes. But if the party wants to face up to its worst election defeat since the 1930s, giving people the chance to have a proper say over their own lives – through radical fiscal and economic devolution – would be a step in the right direction. All of the candidates should follow Labour’s lead locally by making that commitment.

Alex Croft is a campaigner and former political adviser to Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram.

Posted in Grassroots | 12 Comments »

Labour’s leadership contest is a disaster

20/02/2020, 09:44:55 PM

by Kevin Meagher

Does the Labour party ever want to win an election again? I ask in all seriousness because its acting to all intents and purposes as though the answer is, to invert Ed Miliband’s maxim, ‘Hell, no!’

This pained, drawn-out saga – which will not see a new Labour leader announced until April 4 – would better be described as a ‘lack of leadership contest.’ It long ago descended into a dreary, insular and circular exchange. Platitudes are issued, hands are wrung and virtues and signalled.

But are voters convinced?

Hardly. The whole thing serves as a rolling reminder of why Labour was trounced for the fourth time back in December and unless something radical changes the script for a fifth defeat will already have been written.

Broadly, there are three problems with Labour’s leadership contest.

The first and most obvious is that candidates are playing to the gallery. It almost goes without saying, but Labour members are not representative of the country. This much was true enough in the Blair years, but in the Age of Corbyn the gap has become cavernous.

As a result, the internal discussion skews towards pleasing activists rather than talking to the country at large. No-one in the real-world cares about mandatory selection of MPs or any of the other obscure preoccupations of activists.

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We like you, Lisa Nandy, so why are you throwing women under a bus?

19/02/2020, 10:17:35 PM

by Rob Marchant

Current Labour leadership campaign status: both cautiously encouraging, and flat-out disappointing.

Encouraging, because the nominations stage is making it look like the far left – in the shape of Burgon, Butler and Long-Bailey might finally, finally be on the back foot (that said, the actual vote for leader is likely to be far tighter and no-one should be complacent).

Disappointing, because for any moderates, there is actually no candidate at all aligning with their views. The choice is soft left, or hard left. That’s it.

And all are playing, to a greater or lesser extent, to the Momentumite gallery. Perhaps foolishly, given the occurrence of members of new members joining to oppose Continuity Corbynism and who are now crushed to see all candidates espousing dumb policies (not that policies will even matter for the next year or two, as the party tries to rebuild).

And then there is the debate on trans rights.

Let’s get one thing perfectly straight. No-one, on any wing of the party – or at least, practically no-one – is anti-trans. This is the gay-friendly, lesbian-friendly, every-orientation-party par excellence.

The issue most people are concerned about is a simple and specific one, and it is this.

Self-id, in any sphere of life where privileges are conferred by the attribute you are self-id-ing, is clearly open to abuse. It is obvious that pathological cases can falsely id themselves as having that attribute and claim the privilege. And it is happening right now with trans self-id.

So, women’s sport is being disrupted by suddenly having disingenuous people with male bodies competing against women and, surprisingly, winning everything. And a small but pathological minority of trans women with male bodies are predatorially invading women’s toilets and changing rooms, molesting or even raping them.

It. Is. Happening.

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10 Reasons Lisa Nandy should stand for leader

16/12/2019, 09:03:52 PM

by Alan Johnson

Lisa Nandy MP is ‘seriously thinking‘ about standing for Labour leader.

I really hope she does stand because:

(1) She is a serious, grounded, calm, personable, thoughtful, tough, hard-headed and very intelligent representative of Labour’s ‘soft left’ tradition; not the far left, not the Corbyn project. And that’s what is needed now, neither a Corbyn Continuity Candidate, nor a (I dont like the term, but you know what I mean) ‘Blairite’, though she could attract the support of many from both those wings, I think.

(2) She knows the bullying, trolling sub-culture of the party from the inside (and I suspect she knows exactly what to do with it!). She has spoken of the abuse she received for not supporting Corbyn, which she described as leaving her “genuinely frightened”. She compared her treatment to that which she had received at the hands of the far-right when she first campaigned to become MP for Wigan in 2010.

(3) She understands that ‘we just haven’t heard what people have been telling us for some time’. She says her mission is to ‘bring the Labour party back home’ to those who could not vote for us on Thursday. She gets how the over-centralisation (i.e. Londonisation) of party structures, decision making and power is part of the problem.

(4) She supports ‘the decisive break we made in 2015’ on austerity, before which ‘we had been too afraid to stand up for our values’. But she also understands that the very radical ‘offer’ the party made in 2019, the blizzard of spending commitments, needed a huge bank of trust that the party just didn’t have it, if it was to be accepted.

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Posted in Grassroots | 4 Comments »

How Labour’s potential leadership candidates measure up against member priorities

02/03/2017, 02:36:23 PM

by Atul Hatwal

This is Jeremy Corbyn. Like Wile E Coyote he has run off the cliff. Yes, he’s still leader, but after Copeland, it’s just a matter of time until political gravity exerts its force, most likely in 2018.

Croydon Central is in many ways a bellwether CLP for Corbyn. In 2015, it voted to endorse him 80% to 20%, reflecting the final vote among registered supporters. Last year, it backed him against Owen Smith by 60% to 40%, in line with the eventual overall result. Speaking to party members and local officials over the weekend, estimates of the balance between pro and anti-Corbyn support were 50-50, tipping steadily against the Labour leader with each passing month. Similar movement is being reported in pro-Corbyn CLPs across the country.

By 2018, whether Jeremy Corbyn steps down voluntarily or is challenged, his time as leader will end.

When that happens, four criteria will determine the identity of Corbyn’s successor: parliamentary nominations, Brexit, baggage (absence thereof) and whether they are a woman or a minority.

Nominations

The first goal for candidates is to secure the backing of 15% of their UK and European parliamentary colleagues. This translates as 37 nominations in the PLP and 1 from European Parliamentary Party.

Regardless of how a candidate polls among the general public, their popularity with journalists or the polish of their performance on TV, they need the support of their colleagues to get on the ballot.

The Corbynites are desperate to secure an amendment, which would reduce the nomination threshold from 15% to 5%. The McDonnell amendment – so called after the barely concealed ambition of the shadow Chancellor – would need to be passed by conference and at this stage, it looks unlikely.

The threshold will remain as will the need for a credible level of PLP support. This time round, no nominations will be lent to candidates unable to make the ballot unaided.

Brexit

More than any other issue, Brexit has undone Corbyn. It has united Blairites, the soft left and even sections of the hard left. Corbyn’s Praetorian Guard, Momentum, surveyed its 11,000 members during the referendum campaign with 66% backing Remain and 20% Brexit.

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Posted in Uncut | 27 Comments »

Conference Notebook

02/10/2012, 05:24:06 PM

by Jon Ashworth

Ed Balls wowed conference with a barnstormer of a speech ripping apart the government’s economic credentials. With increased levels of borrowing to pay for the failure of their policy, delegates know Osborne is increasingly the weak link in this Tory government. It was all vintage stuff from Ed who is fast becoming one of our strongest conference platform performers.

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While it seems the back room fixers have helped find “consensus” on the various union composites, there are minor rumblings about the scheduling of an emergency motion tabled by the TSSA. The Conference Arrangements Committee who effectively keep the conference decision making machinery ticking over present the CAC report every morning outlining the timings for day. Some delegates attempt reference back which is defeated – just. Luckily for me I don’t have to worry about CAC reference backs anymore, but this looks like one for conference aficionados to keep a beady eye on.

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The conference book shop appears to be doing brisk trade with memoirs of messrs Straw and Hain flying off the shelf. While both tomes are on my reading list I’m mostly looking forward to reading ‘The Clockwinder Who Wouldn’t Say No’ the biography of the late Leicestershire MP David Taylor by Paul Flynn. I didn’t know David well but I knew he was a hugely principled politician and is who hugely missed in Leicestershire and beyond. We need more like him in politics.

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There is real vibrancy and dynamism on the fringe with big idea being debated with gusto. Jon Cruddas, as you would expect is a popular draw, but my top tip is Lisa Nandy who spoke morning and passionately at the packed Labour Friends of Palestine meeting. That women has stamina, speaking at something like 20 fringe events including one on social media where she had the cheek along with Tom Watson to criticise my ‘dreary’ tweeting. I hope Labour Uncut tweeters will rush my defence….

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Friday News Review

13/08/2010, 08:01:31 AM

Backers revealed

David Miliband‘s leadership donations came from less high-profile names, with £50,000 donated by the PR man Anthony Bailey, £10,000 from the businessman Gulam Noon, £25,000 from the Usdaw union and nearly £23,000 from the businessman Lord Sainsbury. He received the most of any candidates in July – £138,835.12 – and has received the most overall with a total of £277,000, plus £47,100.33 in non-cash donations. – The Guardian

Liverpool and England centre half Jamie Carragher is throwing his cash behind Evertonian, Andy Burnham’s Labour leadership campaign. Carragher, who is known for his action on the grass roots of Anfield, rather than grass roots politics, added a £10,000 cash donation to Burnham’s war chest, figures released by the electoral commission showed today. – Liverpool Click

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