Conservative Conference

MarthaBeck, it could be quite a spectacle this week with virtual blood all over the conference centre. I expect the Tories on this forum will be doing everything possible to keep the attention on the Labour Party hoping no one will notice what's going on at the Tory Conference.

However, there could be some interesting debates with the problem of " entryism" becoming a significant problem for the Conservative party.

Not sure if anything in regard to the above is on the agenda for debate or in any resolutions or motions for the party organisation debate.

Grandad1943, Lost me there you're going to have to explain "entryism".

The Conservative Party hasn’t Momentum and the unions to organise the agenda of debate. Last year Brexit was not permitted to be mentioned at the Labour Conference

At least there will be no waving of Palestinian flags in the auditorium.??????????????

Diana54, with reference to your post @ 16:10 today (29/09/18), you enquired to what is being referred to as " entryism " in the Conservative party.

The above term is being used to describe the targeting of the party by extreme right-wing people who are organising into groups for the targeting of Conservative constituency parties. Many are former right-wing members of UKIP, but others are from organisations such as the English Defence League, National Action Group, Greater Britain Group and former National front members and others.

There is evidence of central organisation in the above but who is funding such an operation is unclear as far as I am aware. The core of the problem would be that the Conservative party now has a very low national membership making it vulnerable in its constituencies to such takeovers.

It is being reported that some constituency parties now have substantial numbers of such persons in membership and due to low attendance at meetings they have been elected into management positions in those constituencies.

The more active local Conservative parties are trying to organise to prevent such takeovers, but with often small ageing memberships that can often be difficult. Therefore it now has been raised as a national issue within the party and may be on the order paper for the party conference commencing tomorrow.

I have never been a supporter of the Conservative party, but I would be the first to concede that it is one of the two paramount political institutions of Great Britain. Therefore, I believe that it is in everyone interest to prevent this "entryism" into the party as some who are trying to gain entry and influence in the organisation are very obnoxious people.

Oh, right, you mean rather like all the far left activists and Momentum are doing in the LP then Grandad

I think GNers will be happily commenting on the Conservative Conference just as they did on the Labour Conference.Nobody is above criticism.

Here is a link to a Guardian report on entryism in the Concervative party.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/21/the-guardian-view-on-tory-party-entryism-a-real-and-present-rightwing-danger

No different to the Comunists and Labour Party

So it’s ok for the LP to be infiltrated by militant, communists and any other extreme far left people but wrong if the Conservatives allow it to happen?
Actually it’s as bad for both parties.

Grandad on other threads posters are saying you cannot believe what appears in the media regarding the Labour Party. Obviously if it's in the media, and negativity towards the Conservative party then it mus be true.

You have said that people getting involved in local constituencies is democratic, or does that just refer to the unions and momentum? Obviously Labour MP's being deselected and others parachuted in is ok?

They will struggle to get focus anywhere else this week, other than on the carnage that has been created by the different factions and personalities within the Tory party. Two years ago at conference May painted her Brexit red lines and boxed herself in before she had thought through how to approach negotiations. Are there going to be any delegates who are actually happy with her performance as PM? How blatant will Johnson and others be in their attempts to be her successor? And why on earth would they want to be? Will the set on stage stay intact? There has already been one major mess up - launching a Conference app that has allowed journalists to view details such as Johnson's phone number...

lemongrove, the change of polices brought about in the Labour Party was by way of large numbers of affiliate members becoming active in the party. That took half a million people to take the party to where it is now

However, much smaller number are required to take over very influential positions in Conservative constituency parties

By example to the above, if only twelve members on average attend a regular consistency party meeting, the entryism group only has to get seven new members to a meeting and then place a vote of no confidence in the Chairman and Secretary and they are home and dry.

When any democratic organisation has a low membership the above is as simple as that.

New labour members £3 a vote.

The LP has been well and truly shafted by the £3 vote.

Thanks Grandad1943 I'm well aware of extreme right wingers in the Tory ranks in my constituency. A very good friend of mine is amongst them she is very good company but politically far right, in fact I commented that her views were as bad as Attilla the Hun, her reply :- " yes I remember him well, one of my best students" and she meant it. Thankfully she's too extreme to get elected as a councillor but is an influence on the rest.
Just to be clear I'm soft left a Labour voter a dissappointed Blairite if you like and I will argue against hard right, or hard left.

lemongrove, anniebach, there is no point in just joining any political party, for if you wish to win influence, you also need organisation.

That organisation came from affiliate trade union activists by way of their branch structures which formed the basis of momentum. That combination changed the Labour Party in favour of its grassroots membership after years of being shafted by Blair and his cohorts in taking their affiliation subscriptions and giving them absolutely nothing.

Blairites now reap what for years they had sown, and I for one have absolutely no sympathy for them

If the unions had run the Labour Party when Blair was PM there certaintly would not have been three successive Labour Governments. One only has to think back to the damage to previous Labour Governments run by the unions . And the years that Labour were in the wilderness .

This cannot be rewritten or denied.

On a light note , did anyone watch Gogglebox this week?
Corbyn’s interview with Andrew Marr, so funny

It’s not been a very good start for them.
“The Conservative Party has accidentally revealed personal details of senior cabinet ministers, MPs and prominent journalists in a major security breach on its official conference app.
The data watchdog is investigating the system flaw which allowed anyone to access mobile numbers, email addresses and private data belonging to conference attendees, simply by logging in using someone’s email address”
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservative-party-conference-leak-personal-data-breach-mp-phone-numbers-email-addresses-a8561056.html

Doesn't improve confidence in them to find a technical solution to the Irish border.

It’s the tech guys that messed up, not the Ministers.

Interesting post JessM I think everyone wonders what Boris will do, he’s a loose cannon so it could be anything!
I think quite a few are happy with May, but obviously some are not and will be working to have their own way.
It would be hard to replace her before Brexit is complete, but even she won’t be thinking of fighting another GE.

As far as I understood what was happening, it's Conservative remainer MP's that are the 'target', it's Leave voters making sure people like Amber Rudd are held to account, as in making sure that constituencies who voted Leave are not represented by a remainer MP. It's not a right wing takeover per se comparable to the left wing Momentum takeover of the Labour party.

Well said Beau