CLP Nominations — Guide for The Left

Last night I attended our CLP meeting to nominate candidates for leader and deputy. I expected us to nominate Rebecca Long-Bailey by a narrow margin based on the composition of the CLP. In the end we nominated Sir Keir Starmer by 2 votes instead. This is a guide based on my experience to make sure your CLP makes the right choice and nominates Rebecca.

1. Do not assume your CLP will back RLB just because the active members are left wing. Each CLP will have members from across the ideological spectrum, any of whom could turn up. We had 50 at our meeting, from a membership of over 500,many of whom were retired councillors from the new labour era. For this reason, your first task is to make sure the members who are known to be left wing are present at the meeting. Message, pester, cajole, beg. Do whatever you need to do to get them in the room and your battle will be half won already. Labour party and trade union internal fights are always a game of numbers and in all honesty this is something we neglected.
2. The guidance put out by the NEC stipulates that discussion for the leader and deputy leader nominations should take 2 hours, with each attendee being allowed to speak for three minutes once. This means you can’t reply to other people after you have spoken. For this reason I strongly recommend NOT speaking first and waiting for other people to make points that you can respond to. This is a mistake I made by speaking early and I found it very frustrating having to sit and listen to people making inaccurate statements — such as that the 2017 result was actually worse than 2010, or that Brexit wasn’t important — without a right of reply.
3. The main point people supporting Starmer and Nandy will be making is about electability. For this reason you want to make sure that when you do speak, you address this point. I opted to point out that while Starmer appeals to middle class liberals, and Nandy appeals to working class leave voters in towns, we actually need both of these types of voter in order to win and RLB is best placed to do this as MP for Salford and Eccles: a metropolitan city, and a left behind town. This would have been more effective if it was being made in response to other speakers.
4. Another point people will be making is that we have suffered the worst election defeat since 1935. This is a soundbite, not a fact, but you won’t be able to counter if you speak too soon. Labour got a higher voteshare in 2019 than it did in 2015 and 2010, and many social democratic parties in Europe are polling much lower. In Germany the SPD is polling at 13%, and the Parti Socialiste in France is polling at 3%. In contrast, in Spain and Portugal we now have two radical social democratic governments that include left populists and communists within their parliamentary coalitions. It is clear, if you look at other countries and our own result in 2017, that centrism is not the way forward and only populist radicalism can return Labour to government.
5. The most effective tactic was employed by a friend who printed off the ‘guide for corbyn supporters’ that has been going around on social media and contains the candidates voting records. This was circulated to members and despite complaints from Starmer supporters, the fact is there is nothing untoward about circulating literature about candidates’ voting records in a nomination meeting. If you have a chair who you suspect will take a different view, hand it out outside the meeting! I will stress: this was the most effective tactic we employed and I encourage anyone reading to do the same. There ARE still people who will read ‘abstained on tory welfare bill’ and who will be swayed by this.

Print this off and circulate it at the meeting. With thanks to Ed Poole.

I hope this guide helps you with your upcoming CLP meetings. Now lets get out there and win this for Rebecca Long-Bailey.