Election Issues

Two Slates have been formed, Grassroots Left endorsed by Zarah Sultana and The Many, endorsed by Jeremy Corbyn.

Both of these slates were assembled in closed processes that independent candidates could not access. The candidates have subsequently been promoted by massive social media platforms and mailing lists.

• They have been promoted by Zarah and Jeremy on X to ~400,000 and ~2,500,000 followers respectively.

• They have professional websites (with no transparency around funding) that were launched early in the campaign.

• Dedicated creative asset production including posters + video.

• Dedicate social media management amplifying their messaging.

• Appearances in left-wing media such as Novara.

The appeals officer for the election is a Peace and Justice Project director and the PJP social channels have been directly used to promote “The Many” slate.

Slate candidates encouraged members to continue to endorse them long after surpassing the 75-nomination requirement, reducing the amount of independents that could have been on the ballot.

Andrew Jordan was the chair of the Standing Order Committee at the founding Conference - a group that decided 349/350 popular motions would not be heard on the conference floor and rejected an immensely popular motion regarding capping party official’s wages at a median workers wage would not be heard due to a spelling mistake.

He is closely aligned with interim party leadership who are closely aligned with JC and is not a neutral party to this process.

There’s an analysis of issues in this article: 

Your Party’s Interim Leadership Broke Founding Commitments for the CEC Elections

Ordinary members require 75 endorsements to appear on the ballot. Given that the Party has provided absolutely no means of member coordination or communication, this will be difficult for any independent to obtain. Additionally, candidates in certain less populous regions will find this significantly more difficult to achieve.

Independent candidate Deborah W.A. Foulkes has challenged this with the YP office based on established legal precedent:

Conflict: The arbitrary fixed threshold may prevent eligible members from standing, violating their constitutional rights to participate in governance. Arbitrary thresholds restrict the candidate pool and furthermore undermine the collective intelligence of the CEC.

Legal Basis for Challenge: UK case law supports enforcement of internal constitutions over arbitrary rules. In Evangelou & Ors v McNicol [2016] EWHC 2058 (QB)* the court struck down Labour Party internal rules that imposed voting restrictions not authorized by the rulebook. By analogy, the 75-endorsement requirement could be challenged as ultra vires.

The gender balance system required a submission of ID documents, which was unprecedented as far as we can tell. As non-binary is currently not a recognised gender marker in the UK, this effectively meant ‘outing’ non-binary comrades, and had had a chilling effect on other queer comrades standing. Though this requirement was removed its initial presence was deeply troubling. Additionally, the choice to have a women’s only and open seat significantly disadvantages enbies by forcing them into competition primarily with men.

Read more on this issue: January Murphyism Report - Google Docs

Despite having only recently voted for 16 seats at conference (being one of the options we were ‘presented with’), there was an online vote carried out between Christmas and New Year to overturn the conference and instead run a different number of seats.

Regardless of the merits, this was an undemocratic way to run a vote. There was no time for branches to meet and consider it, and no case against presented. Ordinary members don't have an equal opportunity to overturn conference with an online vote.

Despite clear mandate from conference to avoid a ban on dual membership, and rather than let members decide, Your Party has emphasised a rule banning members of all other national parties from standing for CEC election. They did not respond to requests for clarification from smaller parties.

Concerns that in Wales and Scotland it was left ambiguous whether to have two gender-balanced candidates, or just one. Overwhelming preference for two candidates.