In the last 24 hours I am urging Labour MPs to nominate me so that Labour Party members are given the democratic right to elect the next leader of the Party.
Year in year out we rely on Labour Party members to deliver our leaflets, knock on doors, and fund the party with their small subscriptions and yet they will be excluded from participating in this election unless Labour MPs nominate me in the next 24 hours.
This is an appeal to Labour MPs on behalf of Party members to give them a vote.
44 Comments:
This could be fatal to the party if John doesn't get on the paper. Internal democracy has been on life support for a few years now - this could be it.
Good luck John.
Good luck John, the only reason I still vote Labour is because I hate the tories more than New Labour and I want to have a GOOD, REAL reason to vote Labour in the next general election.
On recent televison interviews JM was giving the impression he had sufficient support from fellow MPs, so how come he is not enjoying that support? It might be suggested that some exaggeration has been afoot. Maybe better for JM to gracefully withdraw as it is extremely unlikely that he would win, let alone be nominated.
as a party member, i second this appeal. this is make or break time for our "democratic socialist party." i can understand why the New Labour hijackers want to destroy it, but cruddas, burgon, dismore, trickett - wtf are you all playing at? for goodness sake, do the right thing or it will be "name and shame" for a long time and your constituents are going be upset, confused and angry - and out for your scalps come election time.
good luck john!
Good luck, but it's going to be a coronation :(
John, I think you have to face the facts. The entryists from the Project have completely taken over Labour and the future for socialists who want more than a meaningless slog against an organisation that has given up on ordinary people is now outside the Party. It's sad, but it's the reality mate.
A McDonnell candidacy would save the Labour Party as it would give those of us with misgivings about the New Labour faction the chance to be heard for once. Brown would also benefit from a fair contest if he wins it as it will give him a democratic mandate to govern. Without a electoral contest, either within the party or in the country, Brown premiership would be the shortest in history. I don't understand the resistance to a leadership contest. Perhaps many MPs are too self-serving and unprincipled and have their eyes on a ministerial position, so don't want to upset a potential prime minister. In which case, we deserve to lose the next election - it would be good to cleanse the party of those NuLab MPs.
Just seen the new update. Is it still possible?
It's over guys... Brown just got another ten nominations from MP's. Unless John literally gets all 16 of the MP's left to nominate then Brown is the PM elect. Not one member of the public was allowed a say in who the next PM was - and I'm so glad that I delayed rejoining the Party until we got to this stage.
I'm so sorry for what's happened John, but I really do think the principled response now is to resign your own membership of the Labour Party, just as Clare Short did. The Labour Party clearly does not represent a left alternative in any sense of the word anyway... not when John's policies which were sensible and generally supported by most of the public were not even allowed a chance to be debated.
Good luck John.
John, please don't withdraw.
The contrast between the CLP nominations versus the PLP nominations will be something to think about.
Unless of course the other CLPs behave like sheep too.
(was new member)
Is it possible that any of GB's backers will also back John?
Clare Short's resignation strategies don't form the basis of a wise course of action for anyone.
Hey John, It looks like its over and it looks like the left cant retrieve the labour party :( I urge you to get the left to split from labour and join the Camapign for New Workers Party, www.cnwp.org.uk
Bye Bye Labour
John, we are proud of what you have done so far in this campaign. Stick with it.
Not possible sadly, Neil.
Can CLPs still continue to nominate candidates after Thursday if they haven't got 12.5%? Problem is it would be hard to convince comrades in the CLPs to back a candidate who isn't going forward...
it's just not right that no one is going to get to vote on who is the next leader.
I think if brown is coronated, then the calls should be strong to call a General Election.
Jon
by the way, does anyone know why john and hilary benn are the only two candidates who don't have a biography on the nominations website ( http://www.labour.org.uk/leadership/nominations_update_-_1pm_wednesday_16_may )? and they're also the only two not to have reached the 45 mark yet. i cry foul!
Gordon has got two years and then he will be out. No-one will want a PM unelected by the country or his Party.Today is a nadir for democracy and for socialists in the Party.No doubt about it. 48 hours ago it looked as though nwe were on our way but the PLP have betrayed the clear wishes of many CLPs and reade unions. I am writing a letter of protest to be read out at my CLP on Friday.I urge othersto do the same. Send resolutions to the NEC. And protest as loudly as you can. This was not democracy.It was a travesty. But we have to stay in the Party and fight. Any other course of action would be utter negation of this campaign. Well done to everyone. Don't mourn, organise!
Paul. I think you are joking. The CNWP is a million miles away from anything resembling an alternative to new labour.
So why , in the event of there being no election, should the argument about resigning LP membership and join cnwp, carry favour?
Ian
The CLP and Unions would have all voted for John, we are still left wing the arragonat paower-hungry scum, the 307 right-wingers who have nominated Gordon are worse than Tories,a s they are Tories in desguise.
Give me a left wing act that this gov't has passed, which was NOT a European initive, which we HAVE to pass as we're members of the EU!
These are the final few hours of British socialism, and John it was a pleasure serving with you - you are a credit to the left and if you were running for party leadership - at any other time in the partie's history you'd have definately won. I hope I have wrote this obitary too soon, I really do.
Max
To all take a step back and think before tearing up the membership cards. After all where do we go CNWP? de-politicise? we need to build on the effective work and re-energising that this campain has had across the country. Its hard to accept a veto from M.P.'s that stop those who have the right to vote from doing so. MMaybe its itme ot wor within our affiliates and CLP's to stop this disgrace happening again
Duncan, the best way to persuade CLPs is to advise that nominating JM is the only way they can express an opinion on this situation. If even this is denied us then Brown is REALLY scared about the swell of opinion against him. If the CLPs let us down, then I am definitely out!
Susan is right,
We must not start feeling sorry for ourselves and organise for the future.
This campaign has really caught the imagination of the grassroots. My heart goes out to the many people in my constituency who rejoined Labour with the intention of voting for a socialist candidate in the leadership election.
It also goes out to the 200,000 trade unions in ASLEF, BECTU and UNISON Scotland who are denied a choice after recommending John as Labour Leader.
It has been a pleasure getting to know John and his campaign team throughout this campaign. The meeting in Preston in January had twice as many attendees as Hazel Blears when she attended and more than George Galloway's recent appearence (a popular pull down here for some reason!!)
The campaign continues. The first thing that needs to be done is reducing this daft threshold of 12.5% too just get on the paper.
Despite a miracle Gordon Brown is now our new leader. The fact he has not faced a contest in his own party will give the Tories extra ammunition to attack the Labour Party. This is not a good thing for any Labour leader to face.
It's looking depressing but I still hope you can get the 16 votes needed.
Good luck John!
To davide simonetti,
Sorry, John can't. According to the BBC it appears Gordon has secured the 308 needed to become labour leader and prime minister once Tony Blair tenders his resignation to the queen.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6660565.stm
On a positive note, now it looks very unlikely John will get on the ballot, Brown is really going to have to reach out to the left, instead of dismiss it as he probably would have done in a contest, declaring John 'old labour'.
if Brown does not reach out to the left, then he can kiss the next election goodbye and look forward to the membership dwindling to a size where it could fit on a double decker bus.
And i want to thank John, if he would have stood for deputy he may have won but it wouldnt have captured the imagination of nearly as many people as his battle for the leadership has done, you are a true hero of the left.
I am truly heartbroken, i feel true disappointment and betrayal by many labour MP's, us lefties shall battle on to capture back the heart and soul of the party.
The bbc has just reported that browns got his 308, making it mathematically impossible, unless some mps change heart, for John to get on the ballot. This is a travesty for democracy and for the Labour party.
The left have tried for years to reclaim the Labour Party and this was the last chance. You say the members can assemble, but it is next to impossible as all democratic structures of the Labour Party have been destroyed and after this the left of the party will get a complete media blackout again.
The Campaign for a New Workers Party is the only way foreward for any left reformist group actually regain power and actually give the working class the clear voice in politics. The Labour Party is finished.
To John McDonnell
"What is defeat? Nothing but an education, nothing but the first step to something better."
Wendell Phillips
US abolitionist (1811 - 1884)
Just not in the NEW Labour party.
Media now calling it for Brown. It was always going to be hard to get 45, that is the reality and we knew it to start. Little point in shouting betrayal, as the numbers prepared to nominate are pretty much the same as those usually prepared to "rebel" when the PLP is doing something stupid.
The real point is that the arguments John and the rest of us have been making are no less valid when 308 MPs have nominated Brown, as we expected they might (in the finest "old Labour" tradition of voting for the candidate you think will win!) than when none of them had, before Monday.
Many members in the unions and in the Clps, and both of these include me, will now not be represented in a leadership election.
Further than that, the party actually needs to exercise its democratic organs in a way that the deputy leadership campaign will not address.
And it needs to show the public, especially our core voters, and our should-be core voters who dont actually vote, that we do still have socialist values. That's not just because they are right, or moral, but because we need to win - in the real world.
John was speaking to and for these voters whose support we need, the voters that I am afraid Blair, Brown and even the leftest of the dpeuty candidates have little connection with.
Raise your head comrade McDonnell, you have every right to be proud, as we are of your stand.
La luta continua.
On another site, on Davidosler.com's blog someone posted this, imo, its a superb description of where we are at
Benjamin said
'Brown will now go on a hustings in the manner of the Chinese Communist Party or the Soviet Union: as the single, only approved candidate, no meaningful opposition or debate, and if a vote is allowed there will only be one name on the ballot paper. Gordon Brown.
After ten years in power, the Labour Party should really ask itself how it wound up with a Communist style hustings process for the next leader and PM, with the party and public completely and deliberately excluded, and the whole thing now completely stage managed.'
What a disgrace and shame on the PLP, how far they have fallen. This is a very bad day in a number of bad days for british democracy.
JM needs to consider his options now: there are thousands, perhaps now tens of thousands who have been energised by his campaign, his values and yes, his personal integrity, (something the PLP M.P's have none of.)He has raised the standard, he musn't withdraw from the wider battle for a decent humane society
I understand Gordon Brown has secured a 308th MP and is thus elected and John has conceded
The remaining MP's left to nominate are:
Charles Clarke
Andrew Dismore
Jim Dowd
Frank Field
Dai Havard
Kate Hoey
Piara Khabra
Peter Kilfoyle
Siobhan McDonagh
Andrew MacKinlay
Fiona Mactaggart
Alan Meale
Graham Stringer
David Winnick
Tony Wright (Gt Yarmouth)
At best John is likely to have got 2 of them. Even is John had secured all 16, Gordon Brown would already have 29% of the electoral college secured with John at best securing 4%. The two YouGov polls in March and April never put John above 9% of Labour Party members and 10% of trade unionists and they were just 1% out on two Tory Leadership elections. Even with the Meacher vote John was never going secure more than 15% of the electoral college and more likely about 10%.
I disagree with the above comments from anonymous. John Mcdonnell received that much support based on zero visibility and a media that ruled him out from the beginning. On those grounds, it was a most impressive level of support, and had he gone onto take Brown, I truly believe he would have generated a solid proportion of the members and trade unionists. He received strong applause for a lot of the issues he covered at the leadership debate, ranging from Iraq and public services, to democracy. The polls really were irrelevant when hardly anybody recognised Mcdonnell.
In any case, it truly is over now - Brown's over the threshold and John's conceded. A sad day indeed for democracy...
I think its an absolute travestity that there is going to be no election. The Labour Party has made a complete mess of this and i'd be shocked if they won the next election. The british people are no longer keen on the Queen, why should they be happy with this coronation!
I don't think anything is over.
John's bid for leader was in the minds of many people, including myself, just the opening salvos in a much bigger battle to reclaim Labour, and restore democracy.
It is time for the CLPs to replace 'New' Labour candidates with candidates that represent them.
Paul,
If Labour really is "withering on the vine" - which is what you've been pretending for almost 20 years now - how come it managed to snatch a council seat from you in Coventry. If you had stayed in the Party, then who knows...??? You may have been very useful, but look at you now!
By the way, you may as well admit that you wanted this campaign to be unsuccessful from the very start - you CNWPer always love scoring a few miserable debating points at the expense of the working-class!
In case you wonder, my post was directed at another Paul, not at Paul Smith - with whom I agree! :-)
You've been pissing in the wind all the time comrades.
This is Brown's party now, the Clunking Fist is going to carry on fisting us all.
The only consolation is that he'll be well beaten at the next General Election though that will probably mean at least 10 to 15 years of Tory Government while the Labour Party recovers from Bliar and Broon.
All this guff about giving the party a choice and yet Hilary Benn is 3 nominations short and John McDonnell hasn't bothered to nominate anyone.
Go on John, give us Bennites a chance to vote for Hilly.
maybe john's spoiling his ballot? another poster had it right - john4leader2009 is the slogan.
It's sad that John's not on the ballot. He deserved to be. He fought a good campaign and so did his supporters.
There should have been at least two candidates on the ballot paper and i think Gordon is making a mistake. He'll be open to criticism from the tories now over the lack of internal democracy in the Labour party.
Those CLPs who backed John but whose MPs didnt will now need to consider whether they still back their MP based on other issues or whether it's the straw that broke the camel's back and if its time to deselect and replace them with someone who represents their CLP's views. Thats a matter for each party member in each CLP though and will vary based on their MP's other positions.
As John's said we can still influence Brown's policies.
There's no point in labelling anyone a 'traitor' either. Many MPs believe Brown will change policy in a lot of areas.
I hope they're right but we need to maintain pressure for change just in case Brown's suggestions that he might withdraw troops from Iraq and bring in electoral reform are dropped - or even just an attempt to let those for and against both believe Brown's for whatever they hope he's for - all things to all men.
He's still not mentioned any change to PFI and 2 years is too long to keep British troops in Iraq.
He's suggested troops may be withdrawn before the next election and that the railways may be re-nationalised. Both of those and electoral reform would be very positive if he really carries them out.
So we shouldn't condemn all MPs who voted for Brown as 'traitors' - but those whose CLPs wanted them to back John may consider whether they want to deselect or not.
And we can be proud that we have influenced government policy.
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