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CLPD recommends first preference backing for Jeremy Corbyn & Angela Eagle

Labour Leadership Candidates and now they are 5_edited-1The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) today announced that it will recommend a first preference vote for Jeremy Corbyn for leader and Angela Eagle for deputy if they are on the ballot paper. It will reconsider its preferences after the close of nominations and consider its position on subsequent preferences.

CLPD is wholeheartedly backing Jeremy Corbyn who has actively supported its campaign to democratise the party since the 1970s.

It is also not surprising that CLPD recommends a gender balanced leadership team as it was the first group in the Labour party to take up the issue of the under-representation of women in the party and in parliament. In 1980, it established a ‘women’s action committee’ which argued:

extending democracy within the party meant nothing… if it could not be extended to the large body of women effectively disenfranchised and largely excluded from the party’s powerful policy and decision-making  bodies”

The decision to make a gender balanced recommendation for its preferred candidates was made by its executive last month. Once Jeremy Corbyn announced his candidacy, there was no question about CLPD’s support for him in view of his record on party democracy, policies supported by the grassroots and the party-union link. Its officers therefore recommended support for Angela Eagle as first preference because of her unique record amongst women candidates in support of democracy in the party, of a policy-making process which was accessible to the party grassroots rather than one which was entirely based, in reality, in the leader’s office, of the impartiality of party staff in internal democracy and  of the party-union link.

25 Comments

  1. David Pavett says:

    While the reasons for CLPD supporting Jeremy Corbyn in the leadership election are probably clear without a lot of explanation the same cannot be said about supporting Angela Eagle for deputy leader.

    Most of the brief case made for Angela Eagle focusses on her gender. I would be none too pleased with that if I were her. Then we are told, seemingly as an afterthought, that having decided to support Jeremy C it was “therefore” decided to support Angela Eagle because if her “unique record…”. This should clearly be an “and” since ther is no “therefore” about it.

    I think we should be told the nature of her work for democracy in the Party and just how she contributed to taking policy making to the grass roots of the party. This is not how it looked when she chaired the NPF meeting of last July which determined the basis for the manifesto. And that is not how it appeared in the Left Futures reports of that SPAD-driven event.

    It should be noted that Angela Eagle not only supported the war in Iraq but also opposed holding an inquiry into it.

    I just watched her deputy leadership promotional video. It has zero political content. It is the sort of politics-lite discourse that assumes that people are complete idiots who can only grasp catch-phrases.

    So, just what is the case for supporting her as opposed to the other hopefuls? Perhaps she is the best of a pretty dismal bunch but a case needs to be made.

  2. Sue says:

    I’m not really into all women short lists or having to have a woman as deputy if a man is elected as leader etc. I want the best person for the job. JC for leader and to be honest I havent really looked at the candidates for deputy but I dont see it being Angela Eagle.

  3. peter willsman says:

    David,if you read Lewis Minkin’s latest book you will see that on several occasions Angela was the non Blairite candidate or office holder in several positions
    You may want perfection in your ivory tower but the Labour Party is rarely like that

    1. David Pavett says:

      Peter, my point was that a case needed to be made for supporting Angela Eagle since she has considerable baggage. That does not preclude supporting her. It just means that reasons need to be given with that baggage in mind.

      Your answer is to accuse me of wanting “perfection” and of living in an “ivorty tower”. To me that looks like abuse and not a response to my request for a case to be made. It real is a shame to get such a response from someone campaigning for Labour Party democracy because that cannot be achieved without reasoned debate.

  4. peter willsman says:

    David,if you think talk of ivory towers is “abuse”,then you have been in an ivory tower!!I have known Angela E for some 30 years and she has never been a Blairite or on the Right of the Party.Read Minkin and we will talk again.Yours in comradeship,PW.

    1. David Pavett says:

      Peter, That’s two replies and two accusations of ivory towerism but still no answer to my original question – apart from telling us that you have known Angela E for 30 years and believe her never to have been a Blairite or on the right (neither of which I had said). Finally, you say you will talk to me when I have read the book by Minkin. Thanks for the generous offer but I still think that answering my original question would be the best, and most comradely, way to reply. Without that all the rest is flim-flam.

  5. J.P. Craig-Weston says:

    Meanwhile back here on planet Earth; where no one, (not even someone such as myself with a lifelong interest in politics,) has ever heard of either Jeremy Corbyn or Angela Eagle much before last week, the Ivory tower jibe chimes very much in tune with my own previous assessment of a now all but completely defunct Labor party completely out of touch with the public at large and with broader opinion, and out to lunch.

    Although I did enjoy hearing the sound of all those doubtless equally , “out touch,” union people jeering Andy Burnham; non so deaf, as they say.

    1. Sue says:

      I am surprised you havent heard re Jeremy Corbyn? He is always involved in the various marches and is chairman I think of the Stop The War coalition. He always votes as he thinks and voted against the Iraq war and against the bombing of Libya. He also voted against the benefits cap. So he is controversial as far as new labour are concerned. I also believe that Tony Benn described Corbyn as his favourite MP.

      1. James Martin says:

        He’s not heard of them because the troll doesn’t even live in this country Sue…

  6. Andy Newman says:

    I am unconvinced about Eagle, as Tom Watson is such a strong candidate, there at least needs ti be an explanation from CLPD why they are nit supporting him.

  7. Andy Newman says:

    Furthermore, the gender balance argument doesnt wash as even if he appears on the ballot, Jeremy is not going to win, and therefore the winning lesdership candidate could well be woman

    1. Jon Lansman says:

      The plan is to meet with him next week ( when nominations will have closed). The WV will then consider further recommendations on transfers ( or first preferences if someone is no longer in ballot).

      1. John P Reid says:

        This is a good idea, I think as 3 of the candidate are clearly going to make it, then the ones who are 6th 7th, should give their votes to 4th and fifth, presumably Ali, Bradshaw, Healey and Creasy, but not sure which ones will be in that order

    2. Jon Lansman says:

      There is no foolproof method of promoting gender balance in 2 parallel preferential vote elections. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

  8. peter willsman says:

    Andy,you are a member of CLPD’s EC and we will be discussing the Leadership issues at our June EC, as we did at the May EC, which you were unable to make.David,if you join you will be entitled to come to the EC and be part of the discussion.You will find that there will be little flim flam.If not,I will phone you after the EC and run through our thinking.Yours in comradeship,PW.

  9. SANDRA CRAWFORD says:

    I support Jeremy Corbyn, but have doubts about Angela Eagle after she told me that it was not progressive to run a deficit. I am sure she does not understand the first thing about this, or she would never have said it. A person of standing should never knowingly, or unknowingly talk about things unless they have researched them fully.
    I know that damns most politicians, but I would like to see some improvement in the Labour Party.
    I am very concerned that not enough nominations have been received by Jeremy. It just shows how right wing the Party has become (or maybe cowardly group thinkers?)

    1. John P Reid says:

      Isn’t that like when Joan Stalins granny ,proudly backed Foot for leader, then because of it lost her seat,which she would ha e kept had Healey become leader

    2. David Pavett says:

      Labour has always been a “pragmatic” party i.e. one that operates without any clear theory of society, without an economuc theory (it sometimes seems to favour half-digested Keynesian ideas but is always ready to abandon them under pressure), without a political theory and without any underlying systematic critique of the ideas on which it relies. On this basis Angela Eagle is a typical Labour politician.

      In one of her few written pieces (in the Guardian in 2011) she said “Labour has always recognised the value of dynamic free markets in creating a productive and prosperous economy. We will need this more than ever in a fast changing world. What we want to see is the creation of a market system that reflects the ethics of most decent people in this country…”. She went on to talk of a new “moral economy” in which capitalist would care for their workers. She did not get onto the issue of helping pigs to fly.

  10. James Martin says:

    No way am I voting for someone like Eagle. In any case wasn’t she an enthusiastic part of the Collins stitch-up conference? Bizarre and out of touch decision by CLPD, but I guess it’s what you end up with when you adopt identity politics as a method.

    1. Robert says:

      She was the minster who told me that if I spent as much time writing to her, looking for work I would be employed, sadly she of course told me again that I should be out looking for work not sitting at home, sadly for her I was in the local Charity writing to her because labour had asked for information the charity keeps.

      I love these careerist.

  11. chris gibson says:

    Corbyn has no chance of getting in without allies. So we need to go for this, it is called horse trading and it is necessary.

  12. David Pavett says:

    What I note about this discussion about the merits of Angela Eagle as deputy leader candidate is that several people have raised questions and no positive case has been made in support. All we have been told is that she wasn’t a Blairite. Is that all it takes to be deputy leader?

    I tried to do a little reasearch into Angela Eagle’s political views as expressed in speeches and writings. I drew a blank. A few anodyne speeches and no articles. And, as I said before, her deputy leader video is cringe-worthy and politics free.

    If any can make a positive for Angela Eagle based on her political views, judgements and achievements then I would be pleased to read it.

  13. Patrick says:

    Nominations have been moved to the end of July, why, we have already nominated for the NPF etc, at the 10th June deadline, who moved the goalposts?

    1. Matty says:

      The right moved back the noms date so they could put in new candidates. The reason was because Jon and Katy were miles in front (at least for the CAC).

      1. John P Reid says:

        Hardly advertised though in 2013 we were asked at our CLP to nominate someone, no one asked us this time

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