This blog does not claim knowledge of Labour’s Rule Book nor the workings of the NEC. It takes an outsider’s view of the spat over who can vote in the current leadership election. It just seems peculiar that people who joined recently and have paid their membership fee on the expectation that they would get a vote, are denied one.
The claim from the Corbyn camp that these people have given their money to Labour only to have it used to deny them a vote has resonance, makes common sense and will stick. Moreover it plays to the whole conversation that something is wrong with the core of our democracy and that people in power ignore the interests and wishes of the people who have given it to them. So this decision will probably help Corbyn’s electoral chances, as it will drive more votes his way, than it will help Smith. But like everything else in these political times, we really do not know.
What we do know is that the original judge ruled in favour of the members, on the simple grounds the Law of Contract having supremacy over party rules. The Court of Appeal reversed that ruling. In the wider sense this blog finds that rather disquieting.