Labour party

On paper, Labour’s conference has managed to unite around the Brexit position set out by the leadership. Delegates this afternoon overwhelmingly approved the NEC statement endorsing Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to decide how the party will campaign in a referendum at a special conference after a general election. They then voted down the rebel composite motion which called for the party to campaign unequivocally for Remain from now on. But what happened in the conference hall was chaotic and means the issue is unlikely to feel resolved for a lot of party members. The NEC vote was overwhelming, but the vote on composite 13 was much closer. So close, in fact,

This year’s Labour conference is proving to be a rather sedated affair after a difficult few days for Jeremy Corbyn. Rather than Corbyn-mania taking hold of attendees, attendees report of a flat atmosphere following the high drama of John Lansman’s botched attempt to oust Tom Watson as deputy leader. After the first vote failed on Friday night, Jeremy Corbyn intervened to stop plans for a second vote. However, that hasn’t stopped internal rows – with infighting becoming the main story of conference so far and rumours growing over Corbyn’s exit. There is one politician, however, who is clearly enjoying conference and that’s Watson. Watson allies are delighted with how this

This evening, Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee has started to discuss a motion which would oust Tom Watson as deputy leader. There is expected to be a vote on this plan, which abolishes the role altogether, tomorrow, and there is a strong chance that it will pass. It was tabled by Momentum founder Jon Lansman, and was narrowly ruled out of order because Watson wasn’t present at tonight’s meeting. Tomorrow it will be in order. Why is Labour having this battle on the eve of its autumn conference? It is potentially weeks away from an election, and instead of facing outwards to voters, it is engaged in an internecine battle

Labour has yet again shown it doesn’t care about its Jewish members. Jeremy Corbyn said earlier this year that “there is no place for anti-Semitism or any form of racism in the Labour party”. But not for the first time – and not for the last – Jews who still belong to the party have been sidelined.  The latest cause for disquiet is the decision yesterday by the party’s National Executive Committee. Not content with scrapping the party’s student wing ahead of next week’s gathering in Brighton, the NEC has now agreed new rules concerning the handling of allegations of anti-Semitism and disciplinary procedures for expelling members. Yet it has done so

Ahead of the looming general election, moderate Labour MPs are understandably upset by an instruction they say the party has given to suspend the selection of new candidates in seats where the serving MP is retiring or has defected. They’ve been told the reason is to ‘concentrate on the trigger ballot processes’ – or the deselection of usually moderate MPs who have alienated activists. See the below email by a Labour official for detail. What moderate MPs fear is that there is tacit support from Labour’s leadership for a purge of MPs from the right of the party. They are worried that the suspension of the selection process in seats where there

Why has Tom Watson given a speech about what his party leadership should do on Brexit? The party’s deputy leader has urged Labour to ‘unambiguously and unequivocally back Remain’ and to campaign for a referendum ahead of an election. This is contrary to the current frontbench position that a referendum should contain a ‘credible Leave option’. So why, given Watson sits with Jeremy Corbyn in private shadow cabinet meetings each week, has he gone public with this? The speech is a symptom of how bad relations are between Watson and the leader’s office. As I wrote in the Spectator recently, the two men at the top of the party have

Very important breaking news. Which is that trade unions, in their TULO meeting with Jeremy Corbyn, have tonight endorsed the Labour leader’s position that in a general election Labour should campaign for a referendum that would have a “credible leave option and remain” on the ballot paper. The reason this matters is that those senior members of the shadow cabinet, such as Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry, John McDonnell and Tom Watson, who want Labour to adopt an unambiguous remain position have been defeated. “It is important that voters who want to leave as well as those who want to remain can vote Labour. What we’ve rejected is the Trumpian no-deal

There’s an assumption in Westminster that the Labour Party would have to back a snap general election if Boris Johnson called one this week. Jeremy Corbyn has said that ‘an election is the democratic way forward’, while his Shadow Brexit minister Jenny Chapman said Labour would vote against one that came after 31 October, adding that ‘having a general election becomes one of the few ways that we are able to prevent no deal’. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Labour will provide the numbers to approve an election motion in the Commons. I have been speaking to MPs in the upper echelons of the party and on the backbenches

We know that the Conservatives are gearing up for an election in the next few months. Their official line is that they don’t want one, largely because it will appear better if they are apparently pushed into a poll, but that doesn’t mean that preparations aren’t well underway. One of the main benefits of proroguing parliament is that it allows the Tories to produce an election manifesto before there is an election, using the Queen’s Speech. In today’s Guardian, I’ve written about what’s going to be in that manifesto/Queen’s Speech: the focus will be on education and crime. The latter is largely there because Team Boris feel Theresa May left

Gordon Brown has broken his silence again. The former prime minister told the Edinburgh International Book Festival that the Scottish Parliament had ‘failed to deliver a fairer and more prosperous Scotland’ and had instead become a ‘battering ram for constitutional warfare’. What’s that, Lassie? Timmy’s trapped down the well? And creating a Scottish parliament to run almost all of Scotland’s affairs separately from the rest of the UK helped rather than hurt the campaign for independence? Jeepers. The battering ram that Brown laments exists only because the party and government in which he played a somewhat senior role insisted on fashioning it. At the time of the Scottish devolution referendum