A small adjustment to democracy

Why Andy Burnham cannot stand, Dave Nellist must not and everyone agrees this was handled very seriously.

There is a brisk trade on X in democratic outrage. On Sunday, demand was high. That outrage was inevitable. If I were an officer of the NEC, I would not have handled it in quite this way.

The latest scandal concerns the blocking Andy Burnham from standing in a by-election. This is being treated as a unique constitutional offence. A never-before-seen innovation in political wrongdoing. Democracy, we are told, has been rejected in favour of cowardice.

History, irritatingly, refuses to cooperate.

Because while Labour has been busy asking Andy to remain exactly where he is, Jeremy Corbyn’s new party has been doing something remarkably similar. Former Labour MP Dave Nellist has been barred from standing for the executive of Jeremy’s party, which for the avoidance of doubt is called Your Party.

This was done democratically. Centrally. With great seriousness.

Dave Nellist is not an unfamiliar figure. He is a veteran of the Militant Tendency. A Coventry councillor. A former MP. A man so steeped in revolutionary socialist authenticity that, if there were a Mount Rushmore of the genre, he would be chiselled in somewhere between Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky.

Nevertheless, unsuitable.

No vote. No argument. No tedious involvement of members. Just a decision. Taken by people who understand democracy very well and therefore know when to protect it from itself. This has prompted a remarkable silence.

John McDonnell has not intervened, as he has in Andy’s case. He has not warned of cowardice. He has not explained that denying members a say accelerates anyone’s political demise. He has not taken to the airwaves. On this particular outrage, he is observing a period of dignified silence.

Apparently, some stitch-ups are more equal than others. To be fair to John, he is not a member of Your Party. It is, however, generously populated by his political allies, which may help explain the sudden discovery that not every internal democracy crisis requires immediate commentary.

In left politics there appears to be a hierarchy of outrage. When Labour does it, it is authoritarianism. When Jeremy Corbyn’s party does it, it is administrative tidying.

Speaking of tidiness, Your Party’s branding deserves praise. It now appears to be branded with two subheads, The Many and For A People’s Party, with Jeremy’s trademark strategic clarity and decisiveness fully on display. Members voted for the name and then, in a spirit of inclusivity, kept the runners up on the second and third lines.

Jeremy himself has had a busy week. He appeared on Newsnight in solidarity with Venezuela, entirely in his happy place, before restricting socialists from standing for his own party’s executive, which, if you will forgive me, was a very Hugo Chávez way of doing things. Under Jeremy, the grassroots are always sovereign. Until, of course, they choose the wrong candidate.

Meanwhile, in the North West of England, flatbed trucks are being checked for roadworthiness. Placards are being laminated. Chants are being practised. Emergency resolutions are circulating by email. The operation to save Andy is in full swing. He will be sanguine about it all. After all, there is always another by-election down the road and they cannot say no forever.

Yet the decision, everyone agrees, is final. Until it isn’t. Because decisions in the Labour Party are always final, except when they change, which they often do, sometimes quietly, sometimes overnight and sometimes after someone notices that next week is beginning to look awkward.

If it were me, I wouldn’t have rushed this. I would have spoken to Andy first, established his intentions and secured some clarity about his ambitions. Perhaps even struck a deal. We owed him that much. Instead, we chose a public rebuke of one of our strongest, if occasionally tricksy, assets. Andy is a big boy. He knew exactly what he was doing. He applied for a role he could reasonably assume he was not going to get, which is not unknown in Labour politics. He can give as good as he gets. He will be an MP sooner rather than later. And it is rarely a mistake to pick up the phone.