Michael Meacher MP

As the race (amble?) for the Labour Party leadership gets under way, the composition of the new PLP is beginning to come into focus.   The PLP accounts for a third of the electoral college and any intending candidate must secure public signatures from at least an eighth of all its members (therefore 32 in the present case) in order to be officially confirmed as a candidate.   This matters when last time round the Left was unable to challenge Gordon Brown for the leadership because the selection system for parliamentary candidates had been so bent and manipulated to favour the preferred candidates for the Establishment for the 1997, 2001 and 2005 elections that there weren’t even 45 PLP members (the relevant number then) who were willing to sign up to a Left candidate.

This time round the figures are slightly (but not much) more favourable for a Left challenge.    Preliminary analysis of the PLP suggests there are some 40 Left-leaning MPs (out of the total of 251), about 160 Right-wing (Blairite, Brownite or simply loyalist), plus a further 50 new Labour MPs whose affiliations are not yet precisely known.   At the last election a week ago about 80 Centre-Right members either stood down or lost their seats, plus about 10 Left members.   What this analysis indicates is that a Left challenger, even if one did emerge, would only get a low percentage of PLP votes, but could get a much higher tally of CLP and union votes. (more…)