Steve Turner, assistant general secretary of Britain’s largest trade union Unite, introduces Jeremy Corbyn in Parliament Square at the end of yesterday’s 250,000 strong march against austerity:
I’m incredibly pleased he’s standing for Labour Leader and … I hope you all become affiliated supporters and I hope you vote for him.”
And judging from the reaction of the crowd, I think most of them will. I have never found it easier to distribute leaflets than yesterday. When Mark Serwotka, who is not a member of the Labour Party (or any other party) had earlier called for people to join Labour as affiliated or registered supporters, I passed bundles of leaflets in all directions and the crowd distributed them.
This leadership election campaign will result in the recruitment of tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of supporters. Not all of them will vote for Jeremy Corbyn, some may have been tempted by this:
Backing Liz? To vote, you need to be a Labour member or reg. supporter. To sign up, text ‘LABOUR’ to 78555 for £3 pic.twitter.com/K2TlrybgLs
— Liz Kendall (@LizforLeader) June 18, 2015
But if you want to help the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign at the same time, get everyone you know who is not a party member to register as a supporter for £3, as an affiliated supporter at no cost if they are a member of an affiliated union paying the political levy, or best of all as an individual member, then they can register as an individual member. And then they can vote Corbyn.
And if you want an absolutely excellent short version of this video to tweet, showing Jeremy as his passionate, committed best, try this one.
Yes, Jeremy had a great reaction from the crowd. Mark Steel said something like “this is my idea of a perfect world, where people greet the arrival of Jeremey Corbyn as if he was a rock star”.
I have heard through the grape vine and that when supporters sign up they are asked why. Those answering that they want to vote for Jeremy have been refused? One was told there was no record of him on the electoral role when he voted in May! When he replied with this he was told he would have to get written confirmation from his local council. So does anyone know what is going on? Are people in the “office” trying to stop Corbyn voters from registering? Is there anyway that we can find out?
Maybe you should contact our NEC reps – Ann Black or Peter Willsman. You can phone Pete on 01865244459. If you leave a message he will get back to you quite quickly.
Thanks Matty I may do that. Trouble is this is only stuff I’ve heard on facebook :0(
I will give my first vote to Jeremy Corbyn because Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper represent no essential change Liz Kendall is so far to the right that she has fallen off the scale.
Having said that I found the speech in this video pretty thin. It is the sort of thing that most of us would come up with if they were given 10 minutes to prepare a speech. I hope he is going to back this up with critique of austerity economics and with specifics about how an anti-austerity economic programme would work. Anyone offering themsekves as leader of a national political party should be able spell out such things.