Deselection issue in Labour Party with respect to Luciana Berger

BTW, trisher, if I had expressed my query in terms you approved of, what would your answer be?

Or anyone else?

There are, as someone said up thread, plenty of disputes within Parties. Anyone'd think there was a certain paranoia in the political air of Gransnet.

Why are you so up in arms about criticism of the Labour Party, trisher? Why can't someone who wants Labour to be successful criticise what they see as shortcomings? Nothing's perfect.

And why do people seem to think this has anything to do with the Conservative Party? Can't one talk about Labour without reference to Tories?

You don't have to like a person to think they'd be a good political representative. And one could think someone a good political representative whom one didn't much like on a personsl level.

Just btw.

BTW, there are a lot of councillors in my region who stand as independents. I think it suits local government rather well. Not sure it would work with national govt, but perhaps it would. Has it ever been tried?

Those are certainly possibilities, jen and GG, as to why people voted for Berger. I don't think there's any dispute about that.

I don't know the answer to that question, jen, but I suspect it might have something to do with political clout. Parties are more likely to have that than individuals, I think. What do you think?

Because I don't always form my ideas perfectly, trisher, when I'm mulling something over. Sometimes I post something in order for it to become better formed or better to understand the idea in question myself by reading the response it gets from others.

If that's what people do, why are there not more independent MPs?

Umm, presuming they voted for her because of who she was and not because of her party is rather like thinking all those who voted for Labour in a General Election wanted Brexit.

Four fifths voted for her because they didn't want to vote for the opposition, not necessarily because they wanted to vote for her.

So why did you choose to post your question in the terms you did Baggs? Easy enough to ask "Should an elected MP be deselected even if she has a huge majority, and if he/she is, is this truly democratic, or is it disenfranchising voters?" Not too hard. Of course it doesn't present the same opportunity to criticise Labour.
As far as Corbyn's history goes, he was always a back-bencher. Back benchers in parliament have a history of voting with their principles and sometimes against their party Members of the cabinet or shadow cabinet generally vote with the leader and if they are proposing to vote against him they remove themselves to the back bench first.

Ah! I think I see where some misunderstanding may be occurring about what I said in the OP. My feeling is that if four fifths of the consituency's electorate vote for a candidate, however selected, to be their MP, then to deselect (that is, by my understanding, remove) then that is undemocratic.

I know PLPs normally select candidates. I've been involved in that process in the past. But what I argued here is that if the electorate want a particular person as their MP, as their representative in parliament, then that is a more powerful and more pure use of democracy.

While I am not expecting many people to agree with this viewpoint, it would be nice to think it was understood, at least by some, even if they disagree.

I'm arguing, as usual, about an idea, not a person. I don't care what Berger is like. If the electorate wants her to represent them, then I think that, democratically, they should have her represent them.

The actions of whoever got her to be the candidate for Liverpool Wavertree would seem to suggest that they thought that too.

I agree vampirequeen

vq i can second that with my children and their friends. In fact some of their friends have never been remotely interested in politics.

It is largely the right wing press. They are doing whst the right wing press do. Inuendo, lies and spin to trash the opposition.

Something Corbyn has never done

JC never undermined the leader of the Party. He never gave disparaging interviews (on or off the record) about the Party leader. He may not have agreed with the Party leader and/or Party policies but he didn't do anything to damage the leader or the Party.

Like him or not JC was elected by the members of the Labour Party and he had a massive majority over the other contender (twice). Since becoming the leader, Labour Party membership has increased dramatically. Not all these people can have been 'sleeping' hard lefties. My DD1 had no interest in politics until JC came along. Now she's a Party member. She's not a leftie. She's a young mother who wants to ensure that the NHS remains intact and not privatised, her children can receive good quality education up to degree level without having the millstone of debt around their necks like she and her partner have and the vulnerable are cared for. I don't think wanting those things makes her hard left.

www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/news/2017/7/5/save-our-democracy-rally-from-a-volunteers-perspective-guest-blog-by-natalia-waring

I wish you would be bothered to evidentially refute all of the OP.

Why should anyone waste their time BAGS. There is no proof or evidence that anyone has done anything wrong, or that they are thinking of doing anything that has not been done in the Conservative party when it suited those at the top - far worse in my opinion than the members voting for someone they feel they can get behind. That is how parties work.

You obviously want them to work differently. Are you suggesting some sort of primary in each constituency. Even then only those who are registered with a party get to vote but that would certainly make the Tory party more democratic.

Conservative HQ sends local parties a shortlist. They are not allowed to choose their own candidates. It's causing quite a fuss in this bumbling and leafy constituency with a 25,000 Conservative majority, because the local party didn't want anybody on the list. One was implicated in referendum fraud, another was just hopeless and the one we've got couldn't give a stuff about the constituency and has no intention of living here, although the place is full of London commuters. Her CV has been...er...enhanced, she doesn't answer emails and isn't going to have a surgery.

Apparently, a lot of hard Brexit candidates were parachuted into safe seats. The most generous description of the candidate we have is that she's lobby fodder.

She's pro-fox hunting and grammar schools, so people are quit relieved they've been kicked into the long grass (even the Conservatives).

I think her deselection, based on the opinions of these nine people, would be completely anti-democratic: an assault on the principles of representative democracy. Berger was chosen by her constituents to represent them. It is to them that she is accountable.

If you are objecting to something you merely suspect Bags, join the party and have your say. It has always been the parties, not the electorate that has chosen the person to represent them. Are you arguing for a change in this?

It's not about deselection. It's about the PLPs right to select their candidate. It wasn't this time because May did not give them enough time to select, except for places like mine where the previous MP was standing down.

Why do people who are not members of the Labour party feel the need to know what goes on in selection meetings?
Join if you want to know.

So perhaps we should look at the way Tories are selected and potentially deselected and compare it to Labour -if we can be bothered of course

There seems to be an assumption that only people who are not Labour people will criticise the Labour Party, or parts of it that they think might be going in the wrong direction. Why is that? Surely people who do like what they believe the Labour Party stands for will criticise what they think is wrong with it too, possibly more so than those who don't care if it goes to the dogs and becomes ineffective.

ww, I've no idea how the Tory candidates are chosen and deselected. Why would I unless I were a Tory Party member? And why is that relevant to this discussion?

I think there has always been something of a disconnect between grassroots Labour members and what might loosely be called the leadership. Certainly I felt there was when I was an active member (in three different constituencies over the years). I didn't think it unhealthy; it was rather something to be expected because of the differences between grassroots idealism and those in parliament who were up against all sorts of practical obstacles to that idealism. What there appears to be now is a much bigger gulf than I have seen before. That is worrying and a reason to find out what is really happening as it was when Militant Tendency were making themselves felt in a way some thought detrimental to the Party.

I never heard Corbyn wasn't liked, he was viewed by some as being in the wrong party, suppose bit potty by some, he had no loyalty to the party yet he had no loyalty to the second Mrs Corbyn did he

Is that why Corbyn was never popular then.....because he constantly undermined his own Leader and Party.

How do Tory candidates get chosen and deselected?