Unite have decided to back Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader. This partly redeems the union from their disgraceful failure in 2007 to back John
McDonnell (or indeed anyone) against the unelectable Gordon Brown. (Incidentally it also means
dearunite.com and the union agree for once).
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John McDonnell MP - the best leader Labour never had |
Had they backed McDonnell in 2007, and so stopped Brown being appointed unopposed, McDonnell may not have won but his name would be familiar to the MPs, public and the party, ready for the inevitable 2010 leadership contest. Instead, in 2010, the only credible remotely Left candidate was the unelectable Ed Milliband.
One of the few good things Milliband did was to make the election of leader a democratic process. Now members votes count equally with MPs. Before that, one MP's vote was worth 1,230 ordinary members' or trade union members' votes (because the vote power was split evenly 3 ways between 262 MPs, 122,806 party members and 199,671 trade union members). Not to mention that each MP got another vote as as a Labour party member and another as a trade union member.
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Vote Corbyn |
It seems the Right wing of the Labour Party thought that this new-fangled democracy was safe enough because they had inserted an impossibly high hurdle, so as to exclude the Left: Candidates had to get 15% of the MPs to nominate them in order to appear on the ballot paper. No Marxist candidate could get 35 MPs, each on £1/4 million a year (£67K salary plus around
£200K in claimable expenses, free central London parking, subsidised meals, £56K golden goodbye, gold plated pension, etc... etc...).
Fortunately many of these grossly overpaid Labour MPs are out of touch with ordinary Party and trade union members and may have underestimated them. Those on the far Right of the party like Frank Field who must surely have nominated Corbyn for a laugh have actually shot themselves in the foot. He just might win...
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