An Affront to Democracy
The Labour party is in the process of electing its new leader - via a cumbersome, three-way 'electoral college' - which will operate over the summer.
Now most modern political parties have a simple system for their internal elections - it's called one-member-one-vote (OMOV) - and it does what it says on the tin.
Each member has the same and equal vote - for deciding important issues - like who should be the new party leader.
But the Labour party has a rather different approach - which means that some members are much more equal than others.
The numbers in the different constituencies can vary - but broadly speaking the numbers stack up like this - 258 MPs = 200,000 Party Members = 4,000,000 Affiliated Trade Union Members.
How's that for equality? A better description would be car crash democracy.
Each of the three constituencies or colleges have the same weighted vote - so MPs have the greatest say, followed by individual members (200,000 is a generous guess).
At the coo's tail are 4 million trade union members - the majority of whom don't even support Labour - with many unaware that they are actually paying a political levy in their union contributions.
No wonder the Labour party doesn't wheel its electoral college out very often - it's a ridiculous, Heath Robinson contraption - an affront to democracy and common sense.
The results of the trade union ballots are never well publicised - because of the very low turn out which the unions don't like admitting - and because many returns are stuck out if union members admit they don't support the Labour party.
So, what's the point of balloting them in the first place - why not just let individual party members have their say - and dispense with all the other nonsense including the huge waste of union funds?
After all, who can defend a system that allows an MP three votes - if s/he is also a union member - all of which have wildly different values.
Under the present set up a single MP's vote is worth around the same as 15,000 union members (4 million divided by 258 = 15,500).
Crazy or what?
Now most modern political parties have a simple system for their internal elections - it's called one-member-one-vote (OMOV) - and it does what it says on the tin.
Each member has the same and equal vote - for deciding important issues - like who should be the new party leader.
But the Labour party has a rather different approach - which means that some members are much more equal than others.
The numbers in the different constituencies can vary - but broadly speaking the numbers stack up like this - 258 MPs = 200,000 Party Members = 4,000,000 Affiliated Trade Union Members.
How's that for equality? A better description would be car crash democracy.
Each of the three constituencies or colleges have the same weighted vote - so MPs have the greatest say, followed by individual members (200,000 is a generous guess).
At the coo's tail are 4 million trade union members - the majority of whom don't even support Labour - with many unaware that they are actually paying a political levy in their union contributions.
No wonder the Labour party doesn't wheel its electoral college out very often - it's a ridiculous, Heath Robinson contraption - an affront to democracy and common sense.
The results of the trade union ballots are never well publicised - because of the very low turn out which the unions don't like admitting - and because many returns are stuck out if union members admit they don't support the Labour party.
So, what's the point of balloting them in the first place - why not just let individual party members have their say - and dispense with all the other nonsense including the huge waste of union funds?
After all, who can defend a system that allows an MP three votes - if s/he is also a union member - all of which have wildly different values.
Under the present set up a single MP's vote is worth around the same as 15,000 union members (4 million divided by 258 = 15,500).
Crazy or what?
