It’s official: the word “Blairite” is now considered to be a term of abuse in the Labour Party and its use banned at meetings.
Falafel is not a banned word in the Labour Party. Not yet, anyway
“Blairite” was on the list of proscribed words, apparently provided by Labour HQ and which was read out to a meeting of party members in Croydon last week. And anyone found to have used it publicly could even find themselves banned from taking part in the forthcoming leadership election.
Labour officials have begun sending out lists of “registered supporters”, the people who have forked out 25 quid to take part in the party’s leadership election, in an effort to weed out anyone who is deemed not be a “genuine Labour supporter”.
And according to a senior figure in the Labour Party in Croydon, “This includes, for example, anyone who tweeted that they voted Green in the 2015 General Election.”
The lists have been sent to councillors, local party officers and MPs, including people such as Steve Reed OBE, for some time the vice-chair of Progress and Croydon North/Lambeth South [delete to taste] MP, who has been calling for his party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to resign.
With so many Blairites “embedded” into Labour’s party structures over the last 25 years, Corbyn’s backers fear that the process will be used to purge their support among grassroots members and those who have been drawn to the party in the past year.
“They are also trawling through social media accounts looking for anything incriminating, including the use of certain words about opponents,” the Labour Party figure said. “We must be on our guard and ready to defend people who are genuine supporters of Labour under Corbyn but who are blocked from voting.”
Corbyn supporters reckon that as many as 40,000 of the 25-quid supporters have already been disqualified, with another 10,000 having been referred to the party’s scrutiny committee. In total, 183,000 signed up as registered supporters in recent weeks – which means if nothing else, Jeremy Corbyn has helped to contribute more than £4 million to his party’s funds this summer alone.
But there are other ruses being used, seen by many as an effort to diminish the Corbyn support by Blairite incumbents. Following a controversial ruling by the party’s National Executive Committee, anyone who has filled the forms and paid a fee to become a party member since January this year is also denied a vote in the leadership election.
Before the 2015 leadership election, when the supporter’s fee was a mere £3, Labour received a number of “interesting” pledges of support, including one from Jason Cummings, a Croydon councillor and member of the council’s shadow cabinet for the Conservative Party.
It is not known whether anyone within the Croydon North Labour Party moved to “purge” Cummings 12 months ago. But they have managed to exclude, as members or supporters, trades union officials and the comedian, Mark Steel, because of their past dalliances with other political parties which they deemed to be more radical than the Iraq War-supporting, benefits-cutting, austerity-lite Labour Party of the Blairites.
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What about Blair-lite? Is that ok, do you think?
Will “trot”, “loony lefty” or “cultist” be appearing on that list by any chance? I won’t be holding my breath.
Corbynista.
How about “Blue Labour”, since they can’t use “Red Tory”?
Haven’t the Blairites already pushed that one?
They probably object to the word “red” 😀
Does that mean I won’t be allowed to vote given my email address is trotski_tgwu@hotmail.com?
It’s Old New Labour vs New Old Labour.
So I’m guessing looking at an MP’s voting record is a complete no-no?
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Don’t mention the war as Basil Fawlty would say…
I live in Porthcawl. a town in the Bridgend constuency. For some reason our CLP meetings have been suspended with the reason given that ‘they’ fear intimidation etc. Of course there will be some name calling, but you always get the nutters in any grouping. All MPs must get a certain amount of internet abuse; I imagine that it goes with the job. I fear that theses nationwide bans are to silence the will of the majority. It’s very disquieting. As for the banning of certain words, all of them seem to be those used by the democratic socialists among us. It’s just weird. The PLP seem so out of touch with the meaning of democracy.
One of the CLPs in Croydon have tried desperately to wriggle out of a nomination meeting. But we’re probably not allowed to say which one…
Nomination meetings are a pointless exercise anyway under OMOV.
Apparently this is a decision of the NEC, not the PLP, but no one can find any evidence for it.
The evidence is from among the 80-or-so attendees at the meeting, who had the list read to them, a patronising pre-emptive strike against any naughty school children.
did you speak to 80 people to confirm this?
No. Because that would plainly be ridiculous.
ok so how many did you speak to to confirm what was said?
Enough.
I was at the meeting. It was said. Is anyone who was there disputing this?
its the authors use of the word “apparently” that made me doubt it
Has socialism been banned? I mean the word. Socialist policies were buried along with Neil Kinnock. I’m not saying Neil Kinnock was buried, because he wasn’t, we all know that. Besides you could get banned for even thinking it. And I wasn’t thinking it, though it’s quite hard to get it out of your mind when you start travelling down that path. Neither, did I mean he should’ve been, as that could be interpreted as a threat. We all know what happens to people who do that.
“No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
Someone in Hull was banned years ago for organising a picnic in memory of Leon Trotsky
All this will serve to do is divide the Labour Party even further. Orwellian futures, indeed. But, if the party does split into, for example, Labour and Socialist Labour, I wonder which would be the most successful. PLP seriously needs to look at the ratings to date for Corbyn – v – Smith. If Smith were to be crowned leader of PLP, then it would undoubtedly be a rigged ballot. I suspect the people would just take to the streets to protest & rebel.
But it’s in the Oxford Dictionary and has been there since 2002! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2282572.stm
If you’re not allowed to use it in Scrabble, then you shouldn’t be allowed to use it at Labour Party meetings.
That, surely, is a workable rule.
Blair is such a pariah that to be said to be associated with him or his policies is akin to be called a c**t so fair enough!
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