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Shadow Cabinet elections to be postponed

Harriet HarmanI hear that it is proposed that Shadow Cabinet elections be postponed until a new leader is in place – which means the end of September if, as expected, Labour’s National Executive this afternoon adopts the longer campaign option. This will involve balloting in August/September alongside that for the National Executive itself and the National Policy Forum.

Perhaps someone will explain the wisdom of allowing an entire team that has just been rejected by the public to retain their portfolios whilst the Government makes £6billion cuts that they have themselves identified, albeit sooner than they planned.

Of course Labour must take some time to review its rejected programme, but effective opposition cannot be delayed.  We have an acting Leader. Organising that effective opposition is her role, and beginning to put some distance between us and our rejected programme is an urgent requirement.

We need a different team, one with several more female faces, with new responsibilities so that those who speak for Labour are not chained to their own record in government.

The PLP Standing Orders are quite explicit about when Shadow Cabinet elections should be held: “as soon as possible after the General Election”. The decision to ignore this rule was announced to the PLP verbally by the Chief Whip without written or other advance notice that the matter was to be raised.

2 Comments

  1. Duncan Hall says:

    Has this been confirmed? Is there to be no Shadow Cabinet election until after the summer?

    1. Jon Lansman says:

      I hope it will be challenged but that is the current position.

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