Labour has had a National Membership Scheme since 01/01/1989 and the data below covers that in detail. Below also is the pre-1989 membership data, which was collected locally and information sent to Party HQ.

This useful Parliament Research Report covers the whole period in summary form.

A current summary of all political party membership is here for current comparison with Labour.

A table covering  membership from 1928 to 2016 is just below. 

The data below covers membership prior to the National Membership Scheme of 1989 consistent national. It is sourced from the Longman Companion to the Labour Party 1900-1998.

It should be noted the data from 1957 to 1980 likely overstated the membership due to many CLP's affiliating on a higher conference vote number (around 900) than their local membership. One can use1950s/1960's cinema attendance & football match attendance as proxies to re-estimate the decline in public participation (eg Collectors actually going outdoors in the cold during winter and collecting the membership in pre-online days) during the "rise of the TV" era and it is likely as a result that Labour individual membership was higher than 600,000 between 1947 and 1962 - higher than it has been before or since - but dropped below that figure after. It's also likely the membership dropped to its 1980's/early 90's 300,000 figure by 1968 when the popularity of the Wilson Government was at its lowest and a lot of "collectors" who sustained the local figures dropped out of activity.

In the same era the Tories rose from 800k in 1946 to 2.8m members in 1950 (the Lord Woolton anti-Attlee Government "Mr Cube" anti-Nationalisation surge) and stayed at over 1m until the early 1990s (those younger late 1940's sign-ups likely lived a long time). However though Labour individual membership was lower than the Tories it could claim up to 3.5m+ affiliated membership through that period rising to 5.5m by late 1970's/early 1980's when TU membership as a whole reached its 13.2m zenith in 1979 and there were 300,000 shop stewards/reps compared to 100,000 nowadays.

 Ramsay Macdonald era

• 1928: 215,000

• 1929 - General Election victory

• 1929: 228,000 - Labour membership rises for 4 years as Labour forms its second Government

• 1930: 277,000

Arthur Henderson era

• 1931: 297,000 

• 1931 - General Election defeat

George Lansbury era

• 1932: 372,000 - 75,000 member increase after Labour split and big General Election defeat

• 1933: 366,000

• 1934: 381,000

• 1935: 419,000 

Clement Attlee era

• 1936: 431,000  - slight rise after General election defeat and new Leader

• 1937: 447,000 

• 1938: 429,000

• 1939: 409,000

• 1940: 304,000 - start of a period of wartime decline as a likely majority male membership  was enlisted

• 1941: 227,000

• 1942: 219,000

• 1943: 236,000

• 1944: 266,000

• 1945 - General Election Victory

• 1945: 487,000 - big rise after election as Lab & Cons, even more so (see above), put on lots of members for 5+ years

• 1946: 645,000

• 1947: 608,000

• 1948: 629,000

• 1949: 730,000

• 1950: 908,000

• 1951: 876,000

• 1951 - General Election Defeat

• 1952: 1,015,000 - Labour gains 139,000 members in opposition & reaches record membership

• 1953: 1,005,000

• 1954: 934,000

• 1955: 843,000

Hugh Gaitskell era

• 1956: 845,000 

• 1957: 913,000 - From 1957 to 1980 CLP affiliated at a minimum 800 figure so CLPs below that inflated

• 1958: 889,000

• 1959: 848,000

• 1960: 790,000

• 1961: 751,000

• 1962: 767,000

Harold Wilson era

• 1963: 830,000  - possible implication that Lab gained 63,000 members under Harold Wilson

• 1964 - General Election Victory

• 1964: 830,000 

• 1965: 817,000

• 1966: 776,000

• 1967: 734,000

• 1968: 701,000

• 1969: 681,000

• 1970 - General Election defeat

• 1970: 680,000

• 1971: 700,000 - slight increase in opposition and time of major local election wins

• 1972: 703,000

• 1973: 665,000

• 1974 - Two General Election Victories

• 1974: 692,000 - possible implication that Lab at perhaps 300,000 then added 30,000 members in the election year

• 1975: 675,000

• 1976: 659,000

James Callaghan era

• 1977: 660,000

• 1978: 676,000

• 1979 - General Election defeat

• 1979: 666,000 - last of the 800 minimum affiliation membership numbers

• 1980: 348,000 - From this point on CLPs affiliation was on the basis of recorded paid up membership so big drop in reported number

Michael Foot era

• 1981: 277,000 - Possibly more a drop due to honest reporting, but quite possible 10,000 or more joined the breakaway SDP which had 65,000 members by end of 1981.

• 1982: 274,000

• 1983: 295,000

Neil Kinnock era

• 1984: 323,000 - some rise after the 1983 General Election defeat

• 1985: 313,000

• 1986: 297,000

• 1987: 289,000

• 1988: 266,000

The data below covers the National Membership Scheme from 1989 onward when Labour adopted consistent national counting processes as opposed to previously locally collected membership subscriptions.

Note: Important to be aware Labour Membership comes in two numbers:

• Total Membership (which including arrears)

• Paid Up Membership (eligible to vote in internal elections).

Membership definition comes in the following forms

"Paid Up" Membership

• Accepted - eligible to take part and appear in the electorate for internal elections

"Total" Membership is:

• Accepted plus:

• Arrears - from 1 day up to 6 months

• Prelapse - last 2 weeks of the 6 months of arrears

Not counted in any of the totals:

• Lapsed - Not a member any more

The data below specifies what type of membership total it is. It should be added that Total Membership including arrears has mainly been used by the Party under all types of leadership and Paid Up membership and arrears levels have rarely been given except when it has been revealed by the electorate number (ie Paid Up membership). Where it has been given is stated below. My own view is it is best to give out both Total and Paid Up figures for transparency sake and all major parties should do this perhaps quarterly to kill the "politicking" of it. Maybe Electoral Commission regulation will cover this one day?

I have bolded below each occurrence of the "Total Membership" figure (which includes arrears) simply so it gives a consistent set of comparative data over a 30+ year period. I appreciate some will focus on one or other membership total depending on academic or political motivation.

The party is now putting more effort into membership retention. A November 2024 NEC report aimed for 70% of new joiners to stay after their first year as once they sign up for a direct debit they tend to stay for a number of years. In the last year making it more convenient to fill in an online form for a direct debit rather than making a phone call to renew an annual membership may encourage retention.

Labour has attempted developing Supporter Schemes on at least 3 occasions in late 1990's, late 2000s and mid 2010's. In overview they have have caused more administrative and resource problems than some realise and stripping out the occasional politics of it when various sides in the 1990s or mid 2010s have at different times both wielded it and opposed it , I have produced a short thread on just the administrative history of Supporter Schemes and Primaries. Nowadays Labour will have a big email mailing list that is used by HQ and can also be used by local CLPs to engage with non-member supporters so may have reached a sensible balance. In the end, looking at the history, the simple question to always ask is what is a Supporter List's purpose? Evidence from the Coop Party use of something similar to Labour may have best answered it by showing simple supporter mailing lists can be best used as its most effective recruitment tool rather than ever creating systems that incentivize people to stay just as supporters.

A useful academic study of earlier Labour membership is here: 

Labour Membership Data - 1989-2012

The 1989-2012 period will be "Total Membership" which is the number usually publicly given by the Party. That includes arrears.

I have added who was leader at the time the Annual Report membership data was published as Leaders and more importantly Leadership elections can have some impact on membership sign-up. Another thing that impacts on membership rises has been Labour losing a General Election to the Tories and people joining Labour in the aftermath. Important to also note under Leadership from all wings of the party have over the years been quite prepared to not report a significant membership decline until forced to under various reporting requirements.  

On the Labour Dashboard page, I have also, under the Deputy Leadership Election data, added some analysis of inflow and outflow of membership in relation to its affiliated levy payer vote at past Leadership elections. As the recent Deputy Leader election analysis illustrates (ie the changed likely politics of the recent TU vote within a party election) due to political events external to Labour how that flow operates now may be different to the past?

Details below:

Membership given from 1989 to 2012 is Total membership which includes arrears. 

Neil Kinnock era

• 1989: 293,723 - National Membership Scheme started which led to the phasing out of subs collectors

• 1990: 311,152 - the Poll Tax was a big recruiter for the party

• 1991: 261,233 

John Smith era

• 1992: 279,530 - A rise after the 1992 General Election

• 1993: 266,270 

Tony Blair era

• 1994: 305,189 

• 1995: 365,110 

• 1996: 400,465 

• 1997 General Election Victory

• 1997: 405,238 - for 19 years a peak after the 1997 General election win. It then declined by 133k in first term

• 1998: 387,776 

• 1999: 361,000 

• 2000: 311,000 

• 2001: 272,000 - an already declining membership starts a 90k drop over next 5 years with Iraq a big driver

• 2002: 248,294 

• 2003: 214,952 

• 2004: 201,374 

• 2005: 198,026 

• 2006: 182,370

Gordon Brown era

• 2007: 176,891 - no membership gain under change of leader. 

• 2008: 166,247 

• 2009: 156,205 - lowest recent membership number at the end of a 13 year Labour Government 

• 2010 General Election Defeat

Ed Miliband era

• 2010: 193,961 - an increase by 37k after the 2010 election defeat

• 2011: 193,300 

"Paid up" Membership from 2012 (ie eligible to vote in internal elections) courtesy of NEC Member Ann Black as well as some Total Membership (including arrears) data from Annual Reports

• 30/03/2012: 178,005 NEC election Paid Up membership excluding arrears (approx date)

• 31/12/2012: 187,537 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears 

• 31/12/2013: 189,531 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 26/06/2014: 181,932 NEC election Paid Up membership excluding arrears

• 31/12/2014: 193,754 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

Jeremy Corbyn era

• 12/08/2015: 294,035 Leadership election Paid Up membership excluding arrears - big rise after a general election defeat and a Leader election

• 31/12/2015: 388,262 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 12/01/2016: 373,443 Leadership/NEC election Paid Up membership excluding arrears (held summer 2016, early cut-off) big increase for a 2nd Leader election

• 31/12/2016 543,645 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 01/07/2017: 538,606 CAC election Paid Up membership excluding arrears (approx date) - big rise after a far better than expected general election result

• 16/11/2017: 525,779 NEC by-election Paid up membership excluding arrears

• 31/12/2017 564,443 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears. Highest ever declared membership under national scheme.

• 22/06/2018: 506,320 NEC election Paid Up membership excluding arrears

• 31/12/2018: 518,659 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 23/07/2019: 450,000 News report - plus 35,000 (7%) in arrears. Total membership 485,000

• 11/11/2019: 430,359 NEC by-election Paid Up membership excluding arrears (cutoff 10 weeks before leadership election). 

• Note: For all of 2019 membership was claimed to be over 500k and no figures were ever given to the NEC but data came out in July 2019 with a news report and later the Nov 2019 figures came out in April 2020 when the electorate for the NEC by-election was revealed. The 100k decline in paid up and total membership in 2018 and 2019 (most likely due to Labour Brexit ambiguity as Green's and LDs saw rises with some ex-members joining) was not reported much at the time, but it is quite relevant to party development now as the Greens with a perceived "more decisive leadership & anti-Brexit form of Corbynism" establish a more than 3-1 membership advantage over Your Party.

Keir Starmer era

• Important to note the only time that both Paid Up Membership and Arrears has been regularly given as well as Total Membership was at NECs from Jan 2021 to Jan 2025. This was not done under any period under any leader before or after. Before 2015 membership size had not been a particularly factional issue except from 1996-1998 when it was boasted as an improvement from the past for a short period.

• 31/12/2019: 532,046 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears (this likely includes a lot of Leadership election joiners). Note. I have classed this date under the Keir Starmer era (even though Jeremy Corbyn was outgoing leader because 110k joined Labour for the 2020 Leader election and around 90% voted Starmer or were Nandy 2nd transfers to him according to polling at the time & were clearly motivated for a different leader.

• 20/01/2020: 552,835 Leadership election Paid Up membership excluding arrears- big rise after a general election defeat and a Leadership election. Second highest declared membership under the national scheme.

• 24/08/2020: 495,961 NEC election - Paid up membership excluding arrears.

• 31/12/2020 523,332 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 31/01/2021: 455,737 NEC report - plus 56,799 in arrears (11%) Total membership 512,536

• 10/05/2021: 440,399 NEC report - plus 48,636 in arrears (10%) Total membership 489,035

• 05/07/2021: 430,926 NEC report - plus 35,200 in arrears (8%) Total membership 466,126

• 15/09/2021: 410,000 Approx total given at NEC - likely paid up members

• 31/12/2021: 432,213  Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 01/07/2022: 378,688 NEC election (approx date) - Paid up members excluding arrears.

• 31/12/2022: 407,405 Annual Report Total membership including arrears

• Jan 2023: 382,000 NEC report - plus 25,328 arrears (6%) Total membership 407,328

• 28/03/2023: 377,757 - NEC Report - plus 23,757 arrears (6%) Total membership 400,757

• 23/05/2023: 378,578 NEC report - plus 17,233 in arrears (4%) Total membership 395,811 Also reported that 48,295 joining in the last 12 months (eg 5/22 to 5/23), and 15,000 in 2023 so far 

• 25/07/2023: 385,324 NEC Report - plus 13,871 in arrears (3%) Total membership 399,195

• 26/09/2023: 367,783 NEC report - 11,760 in arrears (3%) Total membership 379,543

• 31/12/2023: 370,450 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 26/03/2024: 354,891 NEC Report - plus 11,713 in arrears (3%) Total membership 366,604

• 2024 General Election Victory

• 23/07/2024: 348,469 NEC Report - plus 9,611 in arrears (3%) Total members 358,080 

• 25/11/2024: 318,370 NEC report - plus 20,147 in arrears (6%) Total membership 338,517

• 31/12/2024: 333,235 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 28/01/2025: 308,783 NEC report - plus 21,174 in arrears (6%) Total membership 329,957

• 12/12/2025: Annual Accounts. Total Membership  264,754 Latest story from Labour List with their helpful chart added above. According to an early 2026 Times Report the figure was stated to be 250,000 however it was unclear whether Total or Paid Up membership. Later reports seemed to imply under 250,000 "paid up". I then assessed to mean Total membership including arrears could be as high as 265,000 which the accounts have confirmed. Important to also note Reform only give a single number which is likely to be Total Membership including arrears as do the Greens. The figure also confirms the 260,000 I used in Deputy Leader election was close as probably more 270,000 electorate then.

Note 1: Higher % arrears in 2021 (8%-11%) may reflect members leaving for political reasons after the Change of Leadership and the 3%-6% arrears in 2023-2025 may reflect a more natural level of arrears

Note 2: My own personal current estimate of total membership including arrears from a small basket of CLP trends (Revised  5 Aug 2026 & takes account of annual account number) is 240,000-250,000. I did use a 260,000 "paid up" figure for Deputy Leader result modelling based on the estimate in September assuming Total Membership was higher - see here.

Important: This is only my ongoing 15 year estimate and cannot be at all considered definitive compared to a specific given number as my trend basket may deviate from the overall score at times. 

Note 3: The change of Leadership to Andy Burnham in July 2026 has so far not led to a massive influx of new members and my current estimate is since Keir Starmer made his announcement to stand down, perhaps 2,800 members may have resigned but 4,000 look to have joined. At present I would assume under Andy Burnham membership will stabilise and we may see a small increase over the summer and possibly a slightly bigger rise around Labour Party Conference in September.

Note 4: Perhaps the best way to currently estimate looks to be through a monthly membership drop estimate. A 4,000 monthly decline indicated at the end of the most recent official figures above would give a current 285,000 total membership figure by end of 2025 so my estimate above is not a definitive statement on the issue. We can also look at the annual rate of decline in the last few years by comparative annual report count and that is the following:

• 2019-2020: -8,714 - around 110k had newly joined for the 2020 Leader election and that and the Covid period likely slowed down any resignations or removal of lapsed people from the list.

• 2020-2021: -91,119 - clearly the main exit period of Jeremy Corbyn supporting members after his PLP suspension

• 2021-2022: -24,808 - Labour likely gained some members at the end of this period after the Liz Truss chaos

• 2022-2023: -36,955

• 2023-2024: -37,215

As a result we can use the data above to look at the potential change for the following year which will be reported in 2026:

• 2024-2025: If we were to take the average of last 2 years drop it would actually lead to a figure of 296,000 for 31/12/2025 in the 2026 annual report. If we were to use the 18k decline in 1997-98 at the start of the previous Labour Government the 2026 Annual report would say 315,000 for the end of 2025. Thus these numbers are a useful baseline to measure the actual figure when it is reported in Sept 2026 in the Labour Party Annual Report. 

Note 5: If the 250,000-265,000 Times report figure above is confirmed in 2026 it will will show a faster drop in 2025 than the previous two years membership figures and also compared to the first years of the 1997 Blair Government. The monthly membership drop across 10 months in 2025 looks to be 6,496 which is a lot higher than in previous years and may reflect some member reaction to Labour's first year and half in Government.

Note 6: Below is annual membership by Leader period produced by Dave Levy. More on potential member motivational join date is in the next section.

Motivation to join is often driven by who is the party leader at the time, though there will also be local activity factors too. I joined under Jim Callaghan, but he did not "inspire" me to join, however fo others who is leader can be an important motivational driver. The data below is derived from a small basket of CLPs and likely to be less accurate than total membership number estimates due to varying local factors. However it does give a feel for the composition of the current membership. Useful notes below explain some context as not all these groups (eg 2015-19) may be uniform.

Kinnock/Smith/Blair/Brown eras - 13%

• Pre-1992 - 7% (Kinnock era. Membership join date only goes back to 1/1/89 when the national system was established)

• 1992-1994 - 1% (Smith era, but only 2 years long)

• 1994-2007 - 3% (Blair era. Perhaps surprisingly small, which may be because some resigned over Iraq & rejoined later)

• 2007-2010 - 2% (Brown era. National membership was at its lowest at 180k then)

Milliband era - 8%

• 2010-2015 - 8% (Miliband era. National Membership rose a bit to 200k in this era)

Corbyn era - 37%

• 2015-2019 - 37% (Corbyn era. This will include people who joined to support him but may now have a higher proportion within it of those who joined to oppose him in the two Leader elections who may have still retained membership since 2020, when many of his supporters will have left)

Starmer era - 42%

• 2020-to present - 42% (Starmer era. Around 13% of current members joined for the 2020 Leader election & around 90% voted Starmer or were Nandy 2nd transfers to him according to polling at the time whilst 29% have joined since Keir Starmer became leader)

The data below can be used to take the membership data above to calculate the Labour membership size in a given Nation/Region. Important to note Labour has a better distribution of members than both Tories and Lib Dems as this research or regional spread and other demographics shows:

• Lab: London/Southern England 46%, Northern England 29%, Scotland 5%

• Con: London/Southern England 54%, Northern England 17%, Scotland 10%

• LD: London/Southern England 60%, Northern England 18%, Scotland 6%

• Note important to remember Con and LD membership numbers are smaller than Labour so their Scottish % is from a much smaller base

Nations/Regional Distribution of the Labour Membership in CLPs 

Based on past research from 2010.

• London - 21%

• North West -12%

• South East - 10%

• Yorkshire/Humber - 9%

• West Midlands - 8%

• Eastern - 8%

• Scotland - 7%

• East Midlands - 7%

• Wales - 6%

• South West - 6%

• North - East - 6%

A more recent estimate based on incomplete data from a private source (but I can confirm is pretty accurate) had it as:

• London - 22% (+1)

• North West -12%

• South East - 12% (+2)

• Yorkshire/Humber - 9%

• West Midlands - 7% (-1)

• Eastern - 8%

• Scotland - 5% (-2)

• East Midlands - 7%

• Wales - 5% (-1)

• South West - 8% (+2)

• North - East - 5% (-1)

Northern Ireland

The Labour Party in Northern Ireland had the following membership numbers

• 2017: 2,000 (estimate) + 1,000 Registered Supporters at the time

• 26/11/2024: 700 - NEC Report

37,000 Trade Unionists opt into the Political Levy in Northern Ireland

A useful comparator with Labour is the is it's sister Party, the Cooperative Party. It's 2026 Nations/Regional breakdown is very similar pretty much confirming the most recent Labour breakdown: 

• London - 20%

• North West -13%

• South East - 12%

• Yorkshire/Humber - 8%

• East Midlands - 8%

• Eastern - 8%

• South West - 8%

• West Midlands - 7%

• Scotland - 6%

• Wales - 5%

• North - East & North Cumbria- 5%

By comparison with Labour, the Coop Party also had a big rise from 2015 to 2018, then a drop and a further rise up until 2021 when it reached record numbers for its history. Though there has been a small drop it is small compared to Labour's recent changes and recently seems to have risen again to over 13,000 members.

Current elections will be on the Home Page and the Labour Almanack Page

Past Results

• 2025 Nominations

• 2024 Labour Internal Elections: Here, here and here. 2024 Results and NEC CLP Breakdown

• 2022 Labour Internal Elections: Here and here. 2022 Results and Nominations and also more result info here and here and NEC CLP Breakdown 

• 2020 Labour Internal Elections: Here, here and here. 

• 2020 to Present

The above covers the Post-2020 politics of Labour. Older results will be added in due course.

Prior to post 2015 intensity it was quite possible 25%+ of membs split vote across slates rather than assumption of two solid slates as the remarkable stable 3-3 or 4-2 splits of NEC under FPTP from 1998 to 2015 showed

Pre2022 Elections:

Note: Below is a chart with information on the elections back to 2012 which I have added as a comparator to the data on this page and the Labour Almanack page. More information with links will be added here soon. covering:

• 2021 CAC Elections

• 2020 NEC Elections

• 2020 NEC by-elections 

• 2019 CAC Election

• 2018 NEC Elections

• 2018 NEC By-elections

• 2017 CAC Election

• 2016 NEC Election

• 2015 CAC Election

• 2014 NEC Elections

• 2012 NEC Elections

Labour Party Accounts

More data will be added here to cover a period of time

2024 Labour Accounts and Treasurer's Report - this was published before conference and ends up in the NEC Annual Report

Below is a useful chart of donations to Labour since 2015 recently produced in the Observer and also a chart by Tom Mills on Large Labour Donations over time.

2023 Scottish Labour Party Accounts - just to show that these are treated separately and it is not simply a subhead in the UK Labour accounts.

Rules, Standing Orders and NEC Guidance

One of the big issues of the 2015-19 era was a lot of new members were unaware of the long established rules of Labour Party many drawn from longstanding trade union practice and Citrine traditions. Whilst some were as a result of factional position most were simply based on practical experience. This list aims to ensure new members are better inducted and in future know of all the rules that exist.

Disclaimer: This site simply seeks to aggregate rules and should not itself be seen as a definitive source for the rules

Rules and Standing Orders

• Labour Rule Book 2026 - includes all current party Codes of Conduct. Note: the Chapters of the Rule Book are "Constitutional Rules" that require a majority vote at conference to change them.  All the Appendices are Guidance produced by the NEC and are amended by them. Historically the first Chapter was the original "Party Consitution" with other rules in separate booklets, but the Rule Book was brought together in one document in the 1990s.

• NEC Terms of Reference 2016 - this is a document that the NEC approves and determines its schedule of delegations to sub-committees and party officers.

• PLP Standing Orders 2000 - these are Standing Orders that are only amended by the PLP, through the NEC may have an approval role.

• PLP Code of Conduct - at back of this document - these are Standing Orders that are only amended by the PLP, through the NEC may have an approval role.

• Revised PLP Code of Conduct News Story

• Scottish Labour Rule Book 2025 - these can be amended by a majority card vote at Scottish Conference 

• Greater London Labour Regional Rules 2016 - may be a bit out of date now - these can be amended by the NEC

• Labour Conference Standing Orders 2019 - may be out of date in some places - these can be amended by the NEC

• Model Labour Group Standing Orders 2023 - these can be amended by the NEC

• Model Local Rules and Standing Orders - these can be amended by the NEC

Dave Levy has also produced a useful list of Rules and Guidance Notes here.

Reports that have recently impacted on Labour Rules

• The 2020 EHRC Report and Labour actions in response to the report.

• The2022 Forde Report and Labour actions in response to the report.

NEC and General Secretary Guidance

• Labour Social Media Policy and Code of Conduct

• Selection of Parliamentary Candidates 2022

• CLP Reorganisation Guide 2023

• CLP AGM Guide 2023

• Online Meeting Guidance 2020

• CLP and Branch Job Descriptions

• General Secretary Guidance to CLPs over Disciplinary Issue Motions - March 2019

• General Secretary Guidance over Panorama, IHRC and EHRC Motions - August 2020

• General Secretary Guidance on Gaza Protests and Motions - October 2023 Also more on it here Israel-Palestine: Have Labour CLPs been 'gagged' from debate or motions? - LabourList 

• Important to note that General Secretary Guidance to CLPs above (eg cancel meetings for elections or not debate things) has been sent under more than one Party Leadership.

Legal Cases

• Rothery v Evans legal case 2021 with links to other cases that made it clear that selections were a "quintessentially political decision" of parties. I may add in other important legal cases that have contributed to the development of Labour Rules but Rothery v Evans above is a useful summary of key past cases:

• Foster v McNichol here and here. The Party wins case

• Evangelou v McNichol here and here. The Party wins case on appeal.

Irrespective of the politics, the most consistent point to note is the Party generally wins its legal cases. Rules legal cases are also sometimes bundled in collectively with defamation legal cases where people may have more success but that is generally more about individuals saying things wrong rather than rules not being applied properly.

Issues those who may want to change any current rules may be focused on

• Election of Party Leader

• Parliamentary Selections

• Local Government Selections

• PLP Management/Pluralism

• Staff behaviour/neutrality

• OMOV/STV for internal party elections

An example of rule changes proposed by Momentum (likely similarly backed by CLPD is here.

Rule Breaches and Complaints Handling

• Labour Party Complaints Process

• Labour Complaints Policy Guide

• Labour Complaints Handling Handbook

• Disciplinary data for each quarter at bottom of this page

List of sanctions open to the Party

It is not only about suspensions and expulsions:

• No further action 

• Refer matter to the regional or national office, or another team for resolution 

• Issue a reminder of values to the member 

• Issue a reminder of conduct to the member  

• Issue a formal warning to the member  

• Require the member to undergo mandatory training 

• Suspend the member for a defined period  

• Restrict some or all of someone’s membership rights for a defined period (for example, the ability to be, or to seek, selection as an elected representative of the Labour Party  

• Expel someone from Labour Party membership  

• Excluded from membership  (Mainly for support for organisations/candidates not allowed by Labour)

• Membership termination (e.g. if the member has stood against a Labour Party candidate in an election).

I've recently posted some observations on the use of these processes and flagged ongoing induction uses as well as sanction and how the uses can generate unintended consequences if used in the wrong order but also when other processes such as PLP or Labour Group Standing orders apply to Labour public representatives too

Members excluded/expelled in 2020-2024 

Total = 1,228  (Broken down as: 2020-22 - 879; 2023 - 188; 2024 - 161 of which:

• Expelled - 260 (Majority for antisemitism but at least 20% for bullying and harrassment); 2020- 2022 - 198; 2023 - 48; 2024 - 14

• Excluded - 765 (Mainly for support for organisations/candidates not allowed by Labour); 2020-2022 - 596; 2023 - 106; 2024 - 63

• Terminated - 203 (Mainly standing against Labour or supporting such a campaign); 2020-2022 - 85; 2023 - 34; 2024 - 84

• There is little news coverage of this but Labour List did an article on the 2024 data

• Note there is older statitical data for the 2016-2019 period in both the "No place for antisemitism" programme statistical report and also in the redacted version of the leaked report, however it is set out differently from the post 2020 data above. Nevetheless, I will seek to add some comparable data in due course so it will be possible to have an overview of the entire period.

Members excluded/expelled in 2025 

Total =  109 of which:

• Expelled -  9 (Misconduct, antisemitism & bullying and harrassment were main issues); 

• Excluded -  80 (Mainly for support for organisations/candidates not allowed by Labour); 

• Terminated -  20 (Mainly standing against Labour or supporting such a campaign)

Members excluded/expelled in 2026 (so far) 

Total =  10 of which:

• Expelled -  0 (Bullying and harrassment, misconduct & antisemitism were main issues in cases); 

• Excluded -  6 (Mainly for support for organisations/candidates not allowed by Labour); 

• Terminated -  4 (Mainly standing against Labour or supporting such a campaign)

Commentary

Some may see the  possible 150-200 expelled specifically for antisemitism in 2020-2024 as confirmation that the issue was "overstated" and in simple number terms it is certainly possible to see why some might well say that, but important to also remember some others were actually expelled in the 2015-19 period under various different GLU regimes too as the "leaked report" descibes, that some in 2020-24 might have been expelled for supporting a proscribed organisations or candidates against Labour where expelling them for that was a simpler process (which seems to be what happened once a first tranche of proscriptions was approved) rather than on other expressed views over antisemitism and of course these numbers don't cover any within the 200,000 members who left Labour (the majority by 2022) some of whom might have later been expelled for antisemitism too? Also as I have pointed out many times both "understated" and "overstated" framings based on raw expulsion data need to be seen in a context of the exponential multiplier effects of the social media era where 200 people posting 10 tweets a day for a year would just on their own generate 730,000 tweets a year and then you also have to add in the exponential amplification of those 730,000 by others who follow them so as well as the data set out above. Thus one also needs to factor in community, voter and member perceptions of any substantial exponential amplification of any small numbers too for a fuller understanding of all sides of this issue in the era we have been for the last decade or so.

With Labour's current disciplinary rules put in place following the ERHC Report and comprising:

• NEC Complaints and Disciplinary Sub-Committee - running panels to consider disciplinary cases

• Independent Review Board - will review all disciplinary decisions involving complaints involving protected characteristics that are made by panels of the NEC Complaints and Disciplinary Sub-Committee.

• Independent Complaints Board - to hear complaints involving protected characteristics and to determine appeals brought against decisions taken by the NEC in respect of complaints involving protected characteristics.

• National Constitutional Committee - mainly running panels focused on appeals to decisions

and their reports also now published quarterly and also continuing to be summarised in the NEC's Labour Party Annual Report to conference (with statistics running July to June over a year) its unlikely this will be changed by anyone any time soon. 

With around 200 cases a year by 2025 of which 109 were excluded from membership under one of three types of exclusion, the numbers seem to be relatively small now compared to the recent past. However they may still be above the levels prior to 2015, due to far more people self-publishing online via social media and untrained/uninducted behaviours related to that, so numbers may be unlikely to drop further.

If I were guessing by now in 2025 and 2026 we may have less "internal issues" cases but seen  more members publicly backing Green Party candidates and that sort of action will inevitably lead to expulsion. 

Based on recent rows over expulsions/suspensions in both the Green Party and expulsions/suspensions/org proscriptions in Your Party it is possible many of the 1,300+ people expelled by Labour since 2020 may find those other parties not very welcoming either as they are operating as regulated (by Electoral Commission/EHRC/ICO etc) unitary institutions like most big parties do so discipline will be higher as any "disrepute" is for the Party itself to judge its own "reputation" over.  This video is a fascinating example of well known ex-Labour people expelled/suspended by Green Party and Your Party. Maybe the experience in the last decade of time both in Labour and other parties will be a learning experience for some? In the end a very organisationally loose "Socialist Federation" model proposed by some may also work better for "anti-witchhunt activists" as the federation can either tolerate a lot of behaviour and say "nothing to do with us, guv" or if they do expel a group it is just one group possibly "for political differences" (a eupemism a bit like a music band breaking up) rather than a "witchhunt" of individual activists?

Organisations Proscribed by Labour since 2020

2021

Report here

• Socialist Appeal - then 300 strong but now freed of claiming to be a merely Kautskyite Marxist org and its 29 years of secret entryism, it is now the fully open Revolutionary Communist Party RCI-RCP with around 1,000 members. Thus perhaps proving in the modern internet era it is actually far easier to be an open Leninist Group outside of an entered political party.

• Labour in Exile Network (LIEN) - merged with LAW to form SLN below. 

• Labour Against the Witchhunt (LAW) - had 400 members and an article on it is here. Merged with LIEN to form SLN below. 

• Resist - Led by ex-MP Chris Williamson it ended up part of George Galloway's Workers Party of Great Britain. 

2022

Report here

• Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL) - around 180 strong which even after expulsion as a group is still supporting some Labour Party adjacent small campaigns with one of them an occasional sub-faction of Momentum called Labour Left Internationalists focusing more on  supporting CLPD Rule changes nowadays. However AWL's other big focus nowadays is doing reconnaissance to entryism in the Greens too.

• Labour Left Alliance (LLA) - this seems to have ended as an active group

• Socialist Labour Network (SLN) - a merger of LAW and LIEN just above in 2022. They are now at war with the "clique around Corbyn" (ie people who ran the Labour Party in 2018-2020) in Your Party. 

Note 1: A remaining Leninist Group that claimed to be active in Labour that the NEC had not proscribed was Labour Party Marxists (LPM) (claimed to be a front for the CPGB-PCC/Weekly Worker formerly the Leninist "tankie" faction of the old CPGB) but this was so small (some have claimed between 3 and 10 members) and does not seem to have been active since 2024 judging by its website, that the NEC doing so now might be seen as the political equivalent of Royalists digging up Cromwell's skull and sticking it on a pike on Old London Bridge!

Note 2: Another Group not proscribed is Left Horizons and there may be a good reason for the NEC not ever considering it apart from very few knowing about it. It says it is "establishing a clear Marxist socialist tradition" and says "we are fighting inside the trade union movement and, where we can, inside the Labour Party". It is possible it is not an organised Leninist Democratic Centralist group with its own organisation and disciplinary process with adherence to a different political "International" and is perhaps more a a very small holding group for a range of mainly older people from the Grantite Militant tradition (now CWI-SPEW and RCI-RCP). A leading light is John Pickard who used to be an editor of Militant but may have gone to the RCI-RCP for a while? Another person involved is Roy Godspeed who was active in Leyton and Wanstead Labour until he was one of 21 members of the CLP who resigned in 2025 and may have joined Your Party. Thus it looks like there is no "disciplined line" on party involvement and likely most of its activity for such a small group is in trade unions. Thus the above would suggest it is more a standard Labour faction albeit a very small one as few will have heard of it.

Note 3: Another split off from the "tankie" wing of the CPGB with strong links still to the successor CPB was Socialist Correspondent which also had links to a number of people associated with 2015-19 LOTO with a strong Lexit/anti-imperialist view. However this seems to have been more like a Socialist Action (formerly IMG) "network" nowadays rather than a fully fledged actively recruiting members with gazebos and paper sellers on demos type Leninist organisation. In any case it too seems to have stopped publishing in 2024. Socialist Action itself had also had influence at various points in Labour but with a claimed 30 members tended to focus more on inserting skilled and experienced people in an advisory role at the top of an organisation. Arguably both are less like Leninist Groups and more "Left employment headhunter organisations" for which both have still carved an important role within the overall decline in Leninist groups from 37,000 in 1984/85 to perhaps 11,000 by the year 2000 & perhaps 8,000 today.

Note 4:  For a short overview of all the main Left of Parties over the last 100 years and key Leninist Groups with a link to a detailed spreadsheet of the membership of Trotskyite Leninist Groups the Structures page of the "Your Party Aggregator" institutional analysis website I also run is useful additional background to some of the above.

Commentary

With Labour's current disciplinary rules put in place following the ERHC Report and unlikely anyone will change them any time soon its likely formal "entryism" of the past will not exist in Labour as it did in various forms from the late 1940s to early 1990s and at a lower level until 2022. Entryism itself evolved between 1980s and 2020s due to the internet as Militant (now CWI-SPEW and RCI-RCP) in the 1980s misled people by claiming it was merely a paper with supporters when it was clearly a Leninist organisation. However by the 2000s the internet and its scope to research and record information meant misleading campaigns like that were untenable so Leninist organisations like CWI-SPEW became much more public parties, whilst those still practicing like the then 200-300 member RCI-RCP and 150-180 member AWL kept a relatively low profile in their Labour Party interventions party also due to small size. From 2015 both made the most of Labour's shift to the left and a degree of tolerance to become more visible with AWL active in Momentum standing in its elections and RCI-RCP focusing on running an old Clause Four "Labour4Clause4" campaign (more here) in 2018 as a bit of a front organisation for it. 

 In any case the development of the 230,000 member Greens and 42,000 Your Party to the left of Labour (not the case of such size groups before) may mean many ex-Labour members find they are now far more "comfortable" - see hypothesis here -  in their new party due to it far more overwhelmingly reflecting their political values. 

However as flagged above some small groups external to Labour may still naturally conduct political "interventions" within the Party when they can but more with:

• Labour adjacent campaigns - AWL approach

• "Left employment headhunter organisations" placing key people as advisors to people perhaps within unions or sometimes at Metro Mayor level - Socialist Action/Socialist Correspondent approach

As neither tactics and interventions are entryist in the 1930's French Turn style and are either actually outside the Labour Party or more traditional Labour factional "getting our person in a place of influence" its unlikely Labour's NEC will spend time on taking further formal action against what are very small organisations (maybe less than 250 in total in all groups and likely most are already not Labour members and AWL  of course is already proscribed?) possibly assuming "political response" is more appropriate than "organisational action".

Past Rule Change Reviews

Gordon Brown Era

• Extending and Renewing Party Democracy 2007

Ed Miliband Era

• Refounding Labour Consultation 2011

• Refounding Labour Initial Findings 2011

• News reports on the 2011 changes here, here, here, here, here, here and here

• Academic Study into the Miliband changes

• Collins Review 2014 and Interim Report

Jeremy Corbyn Era

• Royall Inquiry into Oxford Labour Club 2016

• Chakrabarti Inquiry Report 2016 and also for reference the Home Affairs Select Committee Report - Antisemitism in the UK 2016

• Labour Democracy Review 2018

Keir Starmer Era

• EHRC Review into Labour Party 2020 and pdf here plus Labour response

• Forde Report 2022 and Labour reponse which includes the 5 follow up work plans

The "institutional turn" in Labour since 2020 has actually increases the formal role of affiliates

Background documents prior to then

Labour Unions

Labour First

Labour Historic Rules and Objectives - Evolution

• 1918 Sidney Webb "Labour Leaflet Number 1" on the new Labour Constitution

• Labour Constitution of 1960 Equivalent to Chapter 1 Constitutional Rules of today as other Chapter rules were in separate booklets then.  Some additions to later sub-clauses of Clause IV too but not a full revision.

• 1960 Gaitskell Amplification to Clause Four - Not adopted as a Rule Change and instead the NEC recommended it to conference as a Statement after TU opposition

• 1918, 1960 additions and 1994 Clause Four Party Objectives side by side

Debates on the institutional role of Rules

• The Tyranny of Structurelessness 1972

• Legalism and Labyrinthine Rules  & The Procedural is Political two CPGB-PCC/Weekly Worker critiques of the "Parliamentarianism" of Rules 

Managing Meetings

A full Citrine Cheat Sheet is below so these are just reference links

• Citrine's ABC of Chairmanship - 1939 Edition

• Citrine's ABC of Chairmanship - Digitised version of the 1939 Edition

For information - other Labour Movement Meeting Guides

• Wal Hannington's Mr Chairman - came from a CPGB background

• Duncan Hallas - Hints on Chairmanship - came from a SWP background

Important Note: Robert's Rules of Order is a very detailed US Guide to running meetings and has some differences in the procedure from the UK trade unionist guides written above. There is also a US left & simplified version of it from the IWW called Rusty's Rules which can be read here and here with other US left critiques of it here.

Labour Party Online Meeting Guides

• AGM Guidance

• Online Meetings and Selection Guidance

• Zoom Guidance

• Disability Labour Online Meeting Guide

This is just a simple modern checklist for meetings based on Labour Party Standing Orders and Citrine's ABC of Chairmanship where some things are not covered. I have also added a few practical things based on my long experience of Chairing meetings too. The rules and guides used are below at the links. Some rules will apply differently to other organisations.

• Labour Rule Book 2026

• Local Rules and Standing Orders

• Citrine's ABC of Chairmanship - 1939 Edition

• Citrine's ABC of Chairmanship - Digitised version of the 1939 Edition

• The most recent 1982 edition can be purchased here as a hard copy from the Fabian Society

There are lots of US "Robert's Rules" cheat sheets but it seems none online for Citrine so this is a short and simplified sequential attempt:

Meeting Contents

Notice/Agenda/Meeting

• Length of meeting - 2 hours maximum unless Chair proposes and meeting agrees by two-thirds majority to suspend Standing Order Chapter 18, Clause I,C,i. on meeting length - see more below.

• Quorum number as per agreed rules for organisation. Can wait for 30 mins to achieve it. If not achieved discussion can continue but any proposed decisions require approval at the next meeting when minutes are approved.

• Can be useful for Chair at the start to remind people to "address things through the Chair".

• Consider adding a "Code of Conduct" page after the agenda so people know the sort of conduct expected and the Chair can draw attention to it at the start - see below.

• AOB - Consider asking people to raise items at the start of the meeting so the Chair knows what these are. Some Chairs will say this is the only point AOB items can be raised, but there is no hard and fast rule and Chair's may best use their discretion.

Apologies

• These can be just one list or separately recorded as two groups "Sent to Secretary" and "Tabled at Meeting" if wished. 

Introductions

• Always good to welcome any new members and perhaps go round the room to get members to introduce yourself. Then the new member can intrdouce themselves and the meeting show appreciation of their attendance.

Minutes

• It is useful to number minute items so they are easy to refer to

• To improve the flow of the meeting, rather than get stuck on this item, a Chair might wish to minimise "Matters Arising from the Minutes" by flagging items there that will be covered under various officer reports

Speakers

• Chair's will always want to confirm subject, length of speech and time for questions in advance with a speaker

• It is generally good to schedule a speaker early in the meeting as that may help attract interest and improve attendance.

• It is generally good and efficient practice to take questions in "groups of three's" for the speaker to answer together

Motions and Amendments

• These are covered in the following Procedural Issues section - see below

Nominations

• Some organisations do not report all the likely candidates standing for external nomination so only those in the know may make a nomination. It's down to the organisation whether or not they make known all potential nominees as part of the notice and agenda for members to decide if they wish to nominate widely for a vote.

Reports

• It can help make a meeting more interesting if Officer, Delegate and Organisation reports are taken later in the meeting after speakers and motions. At the same time some organisations prefer to take reports earlier to help them more tightly manage the amount of time spent on motions, which could expand if taken earlier.

Secretary's Report/Correspondence

• The infromation received is best grouped if at all possible to make it more logical

Thank you's

• Votes of thanks can be formally moved and seconded as per any motion - see below

• A more informal approach can be for the meeting  from the Chair to "minute its thanks" 

Any Other Business

• The Chair can ask for items early in the meeting and not take any more but unless rules specify it is down to the Chair's discretion when AOB items are first raised.

Date of Next Meeting

• If a regular date (which saves a lot of discussion) these should be listed on the meeting agenda, but the Chair should also state them at the end of a meeting.

Procedural Issues

Identification

• Often people get up and start with a "Point of Order, Chair" or go straight into moving a motion. If the meeting is a delegate one like a Conference or a General Committee, the Chair will want to ensure the name of the person and who they represent is stated first. If it is an all member meeting then the name is still essential, but also if they do represent a party stakeholder organisation they chould be encouraged to state it

Motions

• Any first proposed motion is the "Original Motion"

• Motions should aim to be positive (ie propose something) not negative.

• Once proposed and seconded the motion is a "property of the meeting" and only with no opposition can it's text then be amended or it be withdrawn

• Seconder can reserve their right to speak later in the debate

• Alternate between "For" and Against" if possible

• People should speak only once

• A maximum of 5 minutes for a speech

• Mover of motion has right of reply which can be exercised once and in the Labour Party it is taken at end of debates on it and any amendments, whilst for other organisations it might be at end of any first amendment debate

• An approved motion then becomes a "Resolution" for the minutes and any follow-up action.

• Any rescinding of a motion/policy by another motion can only be done after 3 meetings have elapsed

Amendments

• Amendments should be taken one at a time. There are 5 types:

  • Add words

  • Delete words

  • Delete and substitute words

  • Delete almost all words and replace with another text - a "reasoned amendment"

  • Amend an amendment

• The mover of an amendment has a right of reply under Labour Party rules. This is not case elsewhere.

• Once proposed and seconded the amendment is a "property of the meeting" and only with no opposition can it's text then be amended or it be withdrawn

• An amended motion after any amendment has been passed is then called a "Substantive Motion".

Closure of Debate or Meeting - procedural motions

• Only someone who has not spoken on a motion can propose a closure motion

• There are 3 types of closure:

• a) Immediate closure of the debate - 1 option

  • Move: "That the question be now put". 

  • No discussion on this procedural motion

  • If passed  on a motion the mover of the motion has a right of reply before a vote

  • If passed on an amendment only the debate on amendment closes, the mover has a right of reply and it goes to a vote and then debate on the main motion continues

• b) Indefinitely Shelving the Debate - 2 options

  • b,i) Move: "Next Business"

  • Can be moved on a motion or amendment

  • If carried the motion is not voted on

  • If lost the debate continues

  • b,2) Move: "The Previous Question"

  • Can only be moved on a motion

  • If carried the motion is not voted on

  • If lost the motion must be put to an immediate vote

• c) Postpone the Decision indefinitely or for a period - 2 options

  • c,i) Move: "Adjourn Debate" 

  • If also proposed as "Sine Die" this is indefinitely postponed

  • If proposed with a date such as "to next meeting", this is when the debate resumes

  • Mover of Motion has a right or reply explaining their view on the adjournment

  • c,2) Move "Adjourn Meeting"

  • This will set out a date for when the meeting resumes

  • Mover of Motion has a right or reply explaining their view on the adjournment

Voting

• "Tellers" are appointed to count a "show of hands" and may be local party officers

• "Scrutineers" are appointed to count a paper or online ballot

• Record Abstentions as well as For and Against

• A result that is "Unanimous is one where everyone has voted for it

• A result that is "Nem Com" is one that there was only votes for and none against but it may have abstentions

• In the Labour Party, the Chair should not vote on motions and amendments with their own personal vote and should only use their "casting vote" in a tie. Other organisations may allow the Chair to also have their own personal vote too. 

• If the Chair declines to cast their casting vote the motion is minuted as "Not Carried", but the motion can be still brought back at a subsequent meeting and does not require a 3 meeting wait to be re-submitted.

Points of Order

• These must be immediately raised at the point they are relevant

• There are 5 types of Points of Order:

  • a) A speech is irreverent to the debate in hand

  • b) "Unparliamentary language" or a personal attack is being made on another member

  • c) Transgressing a Party Rule - need to name specific rule

  • d) Infringing Standing Orders - need to name a specific Standing Order

  • e) Acting unlawfully or advocating hate speech that may break the law

• Labour Standing Orders state: "Any breach of or question to the rules or standing orders may be raised by a member rising to a point of order. The member must point to the specific section or paragraph of the rules and standing orders they wish to make the point on". 

• Additional procedural Points raised in debate:

  • Points of Explanation - these can be allowed under the Chair's discretion

  • Points of Information - these can be allowed under the Chair's discretion

Chair's Ruling

• The chair’s ruling on any point arising from the rules or standing orders is final unless challenged by not less than four members; such a challenge shall be put to the meeting without discussion and shall only be carried with the support of two-thirds of the members present. 

Suspending Standing Orders

• The Standing Order being suspended needs to be stated

• It requires a two-thirds majority

• Chair can rule them out of order if considers unnecessary

• The most likely suspension of a Standing Order is over maximum time length of a meeting and the Standing Order to quote for the suspension is: "Chapter 18, Clause I,C,i"

Keeping Order - Code of Conduct & Law

• This from the Labour Party Model Standing Orders can be circulated with all agendas:

  • "Party meetings and events shall be conducted in a friendly and orderly manner and organised in such a way as to maximise participation from members. No member shall be precluded from attendance because they cannot gain access to the meeting place for any reason. Harassment or intimidation of any member is unacceptable as is any form of discrimination on the basis of gender, age, sexual orientation and gender identity, disability or race. Smoking is not permitted at any Party meeting". 

  • "Any member acting in an unruly or disruptive manner, in contravention of the standing orders, may be removed from the meeting by action of the chair. The chair shall put such a motion to the meeting, which to be carried shall require the support of two-thirds of those present and voting. Any member who has been removed from two meetings during a 12 month period shall, with the approval of the appropriate RD(GS), be ineligible to attend meetings of this body for the next 12 months". 

• The law relating to disorder at a public meeting or an organisation's meeting on private property was originally stated in Citrine as Section 5 of the 1936 Public Order Act. This was replaced by Section 4 of the 1986 Public Order Act which covers Fear or Provocation of Violence. Chair's will likely be classed as the senior responsible person making use of this law if the Police ever had to be called to a meeting.

Safeguarding

This was never covered by Citrine so a few points on this:

• Having a Code of Conduct on the Agenda can remind members of Safeguarding issues and the local party should make sure safeguarding information is drawn to members from time to time or include in any local CLP Handbook.

• Regularly circulate the safeguarding email address in case participants need to flag any concerns or issues: safeguarding@labour.org.uk 

Online Meetings

This was never covered by Citrine which was last revised in 1982 so here are some useful points based on Covid era Labour Guidance:

Pre-Meeting

• Type of Meeting. Be clear what sort of meeting you intend to have. For example is it a meeting where all will directly participate on all aspects or are you choosing a "webinar" option where there is a speaker and online chat and Q&A function are how people participate rather than directly speak.

• Accessibility. Not everyone has access to online video so always ensure people can dial in by phone.

• Security. Don’t share the link to the meeting on social media – send the link to eligible members only, and make it clear in the notification that the link should not be passed on to anyone else. 

• Set up early. If you’re hosting the meeting, log in a little earlier to make sure the technology is working and people can see and hear you. 

• Waiting Room. It is best to have this as it can be used to conduct eligibility checks or if you are doing candidate panel interviews 

• Eligibility Checks. Where eligibility checks are required, make sure there is someone whose sole job this is, who has read this guidance and is familiar with the technology.  You may also wish to have a designated contact for any members who have technical difficulties. 

• Co-hosts. if a meeting is large you may want the meeting to have a number of arranged co-hosts who then have same access to the system.

Meeting 

• Meeting Objectives. The person chairing the meeting should make it clear from the start exactly how long the meeting will last, what will be discussed and how any official business will be carried out.  

• Meeting Etiquette. Members should make sure their name is set up on screen. The Chair may request they initially speak or switch on their video to confirm their identity. There is no need to keep a video on, but Chairs would recommend members do so when they speak.

• Muting. The Chair should make  remind people that anyone who isn’t speaking should try to mute their microphone. It’s often sensible to set up meetings so that everyone is automatically muted on entry.  

• Hands Up. The Chair should ask people to use the hands up function to signal they want to speak and the Chair can take people in order of request.

• Chat Facilities. Make sure this is monitored during the meeting, unless you have a reason to disable it such as for a selection meeting. If that is the case only the Chair or a co-host can add items in the chat. Put links and key points into the chat so that if audio quality dips at any point, people can catch up

• Sharing Documents. This can be used to present information easily to the whole meeting such as the CLP accounts. 

• Break Out Rooms. These can be used for branches to meet new members or for workshops

• Polling. The Labour Party uses Anonyvoter for official ballots, but the Chair or co-host could use polling facilities to seek opinions.

Post-Meeting

• Review.  Online meetings are still relatively new and some still unfamiliar with them. Take some time to review what worked well, and what didn’t, to make future meetings even better. 

Current Policy

Labour 2024 Manifesto online and pdf version

The final Labour Party Policy Programme produced  in advance for the General Election was published in 2023 and is set out in summary here. A full version was published online here. Under Chapter 1, Clause V of Labour Party Rules the Party Programme is the document that the General Election Manifesto is then drawn from.

The Labour Party also in 2020-22 ran a two year Policy Review called “Stronger Together”. The 2022 Stronger Together Update Report is here.

A number of other policy reviews and policy documents contributed to the overall Party Programme:

• Labour Industrial Strategy Policy Document of 2022 is here.

• Labour’s New Deal for Workers developed between 2021 and 2023 is here and here.

• The Labour Green Economic Recovery Review of 2020 is here.

Other Key Keir Starmer era policy documents/narratives

• Labour Plan for Change - Foundations and Missions

• Mission Driven Government

• The Road Ahead Fabian Pamphlet 2021

Past Policy Reviews

Below for your information are a number of past policy reviews that contributed to previous Labour Manifestos:

• The Labour Regional Development Strategy review of 2019 is here.

• Towards a National Care Service Policy document of 2019 is here.

• Energy Networks Policy document of 2019 is here.

• Universal Basic Services Report of 2019 is here.

• The Labour International Development document of 2018 is here.

• The Alternative Models of Ownership Review of 2017 is here.

• The “One Nation” Policy Review completed during Ed Miliband’s time as Leader in 2014 is here.

Past National Policy

To help members and supporters think about the wide range of areas where debate is needed to decide future policies, below are recent national Labour Manifestos as well as links to Manifestos right back to the first one in 1900.

Labour National Manifesto 2019

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 2019. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifesto 2017

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 2017. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifesto 2015

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 2015. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifesto 2010

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 2010. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifesto 2005

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 2005. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifesto 2001

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 2001. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifesto 1997

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 1997. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifestos 1900 to 1992

The Manifestos Labour stood on from 1900 to 1992 can be accessed here.

The Labour Party has an annual Policy Development Programme. More details on that are on the Labour National Policy Forum (NPF) Website.

The 2023 Final NPF Report in the last 4 year cycle is here.

NPF Annual Reports

The 2022 National Policy Forum (NPF) Annual Report is here. 

Past NPF Reports available online are at the annual links here: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012.

Labour's Programme 1982

This was the last published Labour Programme and the Party Part Programme is in effect the final NPF report ina the NPF 4 year cycle.

This is online here.

Underlying our policy agenda are fundamental principles that the Labour Party subscribes to. Below are national and international principles we subscribe to:

Nationally

Clause IV.
Aims and values

1. The Labour Party is a democratic socialist Party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few; where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe and where we live together freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.

2. To these ends we work for:

A. A DYNAMIC ECONOMY, serving the public interest, in which the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition are joined with the forces of partnership and co-operation to produce the wealth the nation needs and the opportunity for all to work and prosper with a thriving private sector and high-quality public services where those undertakings essential to the common good are either owned by the public or accountable to them

B. A JUST SOCIETY, which judges its strength by the condition of the weak as much as the strong, provides security against fear, and
justice at work; which nurtures families, promotes equality of opportunity, and delivers people from the tyranny of poverty, prejudice
and the abuse of power

C. AN OPEN DEMOCRACY, in which government is held to account by the people, decisions are taken as far as practicable by the communities they affect and where fundamental human rights are guaranteed

D. A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT, which we protect, enhance and hold in trust for future generations.

3. Labour is committed to the defence and security of the British people and to co-operating in European institutions, the United Nations, the Commonwealth and other international bodies to secure peace, freedom, democracy, economic security and environmental protection for all.

4. Labour shall work in pursuit of these aims with trade unions and co-operative societies and also with voluntary organisations, consumer groups and other representative bodies.

5. On the basis of these principles, Labour seeks the trust of the people to govern.

Internationally 

The Labour Party is a member of or observer to a number of International Bodies. Their Declarations of Principles can be accessed below:

Organisations that the Labour Party is a member of:

Party of European Socialists (PES)

The Progressive International

Organisations that the Labour Party is an observer to:

The Socialist International (SI) The Labour Party has been an observer member since 2013. Labour or its predecessor organisations were members of the preceding Socialist International 1889-1916, Berne International 1919-1923, Labour & Socialist International 1923-1940 and Socialist International 1951-2013. 

Though the UK has left the EU there are post-Brexit issues that still require cross-border co-operation and policy discussion so these documents provide useful background information to both current and past debates. The Party of European Socialist comprises all of Labour’s sister parties across Europe so their policy agenda helps us understand current debates on the UK’s long-term relationship with it’s EU neighbour.

Party of European Socialists Manifesto 2024

The Party of European Socialist’s Manifesto for the 2024 European Parliament elections is here.

Labour European Elections Manifesto 2019

The 2019 Labour European Elections Manifesto is here.

The Party of European Socialists Manifesto 2019 is here.

Labour in for Britain Referendum Campaign 2016 – Archive 

There is also still an archive online of Briefing Notes we locally produced for the EU Referendum Campaign which we provide as a historical record of that time.

Labour European Elections Manifesto 2014

The 2014 Labour European Elections Manifesto is here.

The Party of European Socialists Manifesto 2014 is here.

Labour European Elections Manifesto 2009

The Party of European Socialists Manifesto 2009 is here.

Labour European Elections Manifesto 2004

The 2004 Labour European Elections Manifesto is here.

The 2004 Party of European Socialists Manifesto is here.

Labour European Elections Manifesto 1999

The 1999 Party of European Socialists Manifesto is here.

Labour Electoral History

The following is a useful collection of links that follows some of the elements of The Longman Companion to the Labour Party 1900-1998, which is still a very useful reference guide. It covers:

• History

• Useful Organisational Links to explain how its insitutional structures matter to its history

More links will be added. 

History

• UK Labour Party History

• Scottish Labour History

• Welsh Labour History

Parliamentary

• Labour Leaders

• Labour Deputy Leaders

• Labour Leadership Elections

• Labour Cabinets

• Labour Shadow Cabinets

• Chief Whip

• PLP Chair

• Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP)

• List of Labour MPs since 1900

Organisation, Committees and Conference

• Labour Party Website with social media links

• Chair of Labour Party (Campaigning Role)

• Labour General Secretaries

• Labour National Executive Committee (NEC)

• National Policy Forum (NPF)

• National Constitutional Committee (NCC)

• National Women's Committee

• Labour Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC) and Conference operation

• Labour Party Conference

Nations/English Regions

• Scottish Labour

• Welsh Labour

• Labour North - includes Cumbria usually in the North West government region

• North West - excluding Cumbria

• Yorkshire and Humber

• West Midlands

• East Midlands

• Labour East

• South West

• South East

• London

Affiliates

• Affiliated Unions

• Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation (TULO)

• Socialist Societies

Members

• Constituency Labour Party's (CLPs)

• Labour Students

• Young Labour 

Other Organisations

• Organisation, Groups and Factions connected to Labour

A range of other useful links will be added here

• LCC "After the Landslide" Statement of 1983

• Neil Kinnock 1985 Conference Speech

• Labour NEC Walkout 1986

• Labour NEC Digital Walkout 2020

This is a section that is just going to explore historic narratives within the Party from all its wings and a few interesting questions using data where possible and suggest perhaps many are more complex than advocates on various sides of various debates believe and where "key principles" are often more "short-term tactics". The focus is more on internal organisational aspects rather than policy debates

Often these narratives are frames used by one side or another to mobilise their side (especially now online), so better to understand the motivations behind the frames used. Those motivations will vary whether it is about winning the argument and being right and the other side totally wrong or taking the power for a purpose. 

During the strongly contested 2015-26 era within the Party (under two Leaders) some tried to explore some of the underlying narratives around the rise of various populisms on right and left across the 2010s and in particular differences on the left in areas such as Left Pluralism (see also my Soft Left Typology on the Labour Dashboard page) and Left Populism, A detailed example of this was Chris Clarke's Warring Fictions (later republished by Penguin as The Dark Knight and Puppet Master) that perhaps was not enough looked at when it was pubished during the Covid period. Whilst many will not agree with all its explicit 3 broad populist narratives around Manichean virtue/traitors, non-Marxist elite conception (remember Karl would always say "its not their fault its the system"), and declinism/Golden past, it was a worthwhile exercise to help to make people think. It was also prescient in the 2008-20 Anti-Politics era before perhaps post 2020 Hyperpolitics analysis suggested low institutional individualistic "Platform" "Expressive" politics in a period of greater party/faction/media fragmentation - see some questions below - could make some of the narratives it describes even more dominant online now?

I have no doubt people reading this all below from one side or another will take strong views on many of the questions posed here and this will vary depending on their motivation. An interesting question as more of these narratives become historic (its arguable that in a decade most of the contested 2015-2026 era will be?) will there be any self-reflection over them from advocates or are they all part of embedded mindsets? In many conflicts when some motivating events move into "history" there is often  as part of Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution a lot of engagement "across the trenches" which does require empathy, compassion, honesty and error acknowledgment. Some on various sides of debates will demand explicit inquiries and investigations but as the 2015-2026 becomes part of the past and many of its protagonists are not active in Labour its more likely we may see more of an informal "Truth Commission" process. My own view is I would love to see Compassion in Politics and the Jo Cox Foundation that were established during some of Labour's most conflicted periods (and who I think all sides would respect as impartial) to at some point in the future bring past and present protagonists together to see if there are any shared narratives? In many ways this is what Forde was actually recommending in one of the 11 out of 165 recommendations of his report not implemented. In the past some of this was resolved through debates hosted by the Labour History Group, but the number of social media era participants to arguments may mean a wider process is required? My questions below, in an imperfect way, try to explore this presenting some hard truths to all sides but I am sure more  with a wider range of frames could be added too and I myself will continue adding.

The book Labour's Civil Wars by Patrick Diamond and Giles Radice quote Peter Clarke analysis of Labour internal conflict in A Question of Leadership which breaks it down into 4 types:

• Organisational eg Party Institutions such as its 3 main blocs of TUs, PLP and CLP & in particular the varying balance of forces and sometimes more dominant elements eg TUs (1900-1945) PLP (1945-1979, 1983-2015, 2020 to present), CLPs (1979-83, 2015-2019).

• Ideological eg Left v Right, but as my Typology of the Soft Left suggests there is also a big dynamic across the broad centre elements of the party between core left and right poles which may reflect a reaction  at specific times to a position or a radicalising/revisionist movement in one or other direction.

• Strategic eg Fundamentalists v Revisionists and Traditionalists v Modernisers or other terms to describe a strategic change dynamic in response to social and economic change which may cross-cut ideology too.

• Personality Oriented eg Gaitskelllites v Bevanites or Blairites v Brownites often reflects or develops ideological divides but sometimes Institutional base or strategic views too.

and my questions try to reflect that more complex reading of disputes with perhaps more of an emphasis on institutional differences in such a large federal party.

Just to say there are some disputes where from the news reporting or books on the history it is clear where "wrongdoing" happened, so I don't try to cover them all as I take many as read. What I am looking for are the complexities where the narrative may have more aspects than some partisans of them think? At present I more cover the 2015-2026 era under two leaders as there was a lot of factional conflict but also a rise of the social media era by 2025 generated far more narratives - some quite misinformed as to the institutional nature of Labour possibly because of a lot of inexperience on the part of some participants who may not have been members long but felt confident expounding on all the issues. Prior to 2015 a lot of disputes were conducted by smaller numbers without a vast hinterland of social media "outriders" on all wings instantly spreading stories and exponentially amplifying them which simply did not exist before and stories were often conducted by slower moving publication media. There are also a number of books covering various sides of those disputes too.  

Narrative frame questions for all wings of the Party chronologically set out to cover many issues over the last 60 years are here. For the highly contested 2015-2026 period under two leaders to ensure a range of sources from different political perspectives I have drawn from Pogrund & Maguire's two books Left Out and Get In, Owen Jones This Land, Oliver Eagleton's The Starmer Project and Paul Holden's The Fraud as well as many online sources I have collated over the years. There have been small attempts to encourage people to ask searching questions at various points (eg Owen Jones in 2016 here), but this is a much more detailed and long-term attempt.

One thing I hope you will find from the wide range of questions is that all side's competence levels are not as good as they may initially say, so the questions allow people to acknowledge this if wished? As will be seen below "cock-up" vies with "conspiracy" on some issues from all  wings of the Party, however I fully respect others may see this differently! There are some differences that the narratives explore. Some questions and added data have to respond to inaccurate information and constructed stories that may come from a mix of inexperience of the Party and low trust mindsets. Other narratives are ones where those responsible for the action right or wrong are practical instrumentalists who make quick decisions so the questions can often be shorter asking was it the right choice or judgment at the time?

What I have tried to do here is frame questions from the perspective of a non or very low factionally aligned but informed member asking people in factions questions designed to ask them to reflect on narratives they may promote but perhaps rarely self-reflect on.

Reading through it all as a single long narrative arc is worth it as it shows things in a different light. If I draw any overall, perhaps ironic, conclusion, one might observe that after 11 years we have actually in a very roundabout way ended up with Andy Burnham as Party Leader through a complex and contingent set of events involving 2 other leaders, 3 elections - of which 1  we won - and 1 referendum, and instead of him becoming Leader of the Opposition he has straightaway become Prime Minister. If I draw one completely new hypothesis on all those events it would be to suggest the 2019 and 2024 elections are seen together as two stages rather than the 2019 election lumped in with the 2017 election. That is because in many ways 2017 was a singular Jeremy Corbyn election when he was a left populist candidate with "novelty" (just like Zack Polanski was for around 9 months before as with any left populist leader in a continuous feedback loop with his activists  even more than his voters his own contradictions got exposed) and the 2019 election from what you read below was really the John McDonnell election which nailed down the Remain vote in Stage 1 with a +20 lead over the LDs  for Keir Starmer with the "crocodile spreadsheet" exploiting Tory collapse to win in Stage 2 in 2024. However both LOTOs/Downing Street also displayed different forms of dysfunction and leaders with different forms of limitation leading in effect to Andy Burnham to take up from where he left off in the end.

I hope this set of questions is of use to help us all reflect on many things and look at them in a different way:

General

• Have people ever thought about the impact of the different founding dates of the three main elements of Labour? The  affiliated Trade Unions were there at the beginning. The PLP was in effect set up in 1906 and the consituencies only existed from 1918 and mostly full coverage of the UK only achieved by 1929. The TU and PLP were long-standing forces before the Labour Consitution of 1918 created CLPs. Does this long embedded historic dynamic explain why the role of the PLP was strong in Labour from the begining and CLPs have in general always been third in terms of seniority and power within the Party?

• Does Labour only win with "right-wing" leaders and if so how does one define Harold Wilson from his political starting point/positioning? 

• What is more important in measuring Labour success, Labour seats, or Labour vote share and does the latter depend on the quantity of party competition at various points or the level of "binary politics" at the time?

• Are people aware the NEC has always had extensive delegated authority (no different to most affiliated union's NECs/ECs) which are covered in Chapter 1, Clause VIII, Chapter 1, Clause XII of the Labour Party Rules

• Why do some people think the General Secretary is only legitimate until after being elected by Conference? A General Secretary is chosen by the NEC under its customary delegated powers and is later ratified by Conference, but their role starts the moment they are appointed as set out under Chapter 4, Clause II.4.A of Labour Party Rules.

• Are people aware that until the 1990s the Labour Party Rule Book was made up of lots of separate booklets covering each Chapter and the Party Constitution (eg Labour's Constitutional Rules at Chapter 1) were in a separate document?

• Are people aware that all the appendices in the Labour Party Rule Book are guidance notes issued by the NEC and cannot be debated or amended by conference?

• Are people aware that Labour Conference essentially deals with the following  (note sure it has been set out as practically as this before) through a series of processes that have existed for many years under various leaderships and have not been introduced in just one factional maneuver:

  • Policy Motions - which are voted on but most are not card votes (as "Chair's ruling on Card votes being held is final" in the Conference Standing Orders adopted by the NEC) as a show of hands is in effect only "advisory" because for a policy item to go into Labour's Programme under its rules it actually needs a two-thirds majority on a card vote. Those who think passing a motion on a show of hands for it then to be ignored by the Leadership is "undemocratic" do not fully understand Labour's rules which ironically through a two-thirds majority  for the Party Programme to secure a "broad consensus" is not that different to systems in the Green Party trying to achieve wide "consensus" on a policy decision. Unions understand this as they seek to pass a motion that enables their General Secretary to claim after they have "won" a vote on a show of hands but that is far more to aid their negotiations with a Labour Government or Opposition. Quite naturally CLP delegates conditioned by the winning of simple majorities at CLP GC/AMMs as per Party rules, would see a vote won with 50%+1 on a show of hands as a "decision" (and of course that frame would be encouraged by advocates of that policy and also some party factions - some conditioned by their own operation with simple majorities, as well as unions aiding their own immediate political message but also aiding their negotiations), but that is not how Party Rules actually operate at conference level. This latter point illustrates how induction into party is an ongoing thing and many members find there is a lot to learn however long they are in the party. At the same time Party leaderships may want to promote a frame that they have "ignored" a decision or it is "only advisory" (no doubt riling CLP delegates and less informed members of TU delegations) when the far better frame would be an honest one that says: "policy making in Labour requires large two-third majorities on a card vote to secure a broad consensus". The fact all sides tend to promote constitutionally inaccurate frames on Labour policy making says a lot about "factionalism" in the party. The lesson of the history of all the above is if you want to win a definite policy change, ensure you have the NEC Chair, chairing the conference on side to grant a card vote at their discretion and also ensure you have enough votes for a two thirds majority on a card vote.

  • The NPF Report. This is adopted each year but organisations can move a reference back of a section so NPF Policy Commissions have to consider the issue again - a remarkably underused system by CLPs, but then only introduced in 2018. The final NPF report in a 4 year cycle will be put to a card vote for a two thirds majority as it is in effect the Party Programme as described in Party Rules and the Chapter 1, "Clause V" Meeting  draws from it to create a General Election Manifesto. Below I cover the history of the "Party Programme" which nowadays tends to be forgotten, as it now very much subsumed into the NPF process.

  • Constitutional Rules where NEC proposed ones have precedence and other ones from CLPs are subject to a years delay after submission where the moving organisation may sometimes wish to change its mind on that submission in the following year (sometimes after an internal factional battle overturning it), which is why you often find constitutional amendments from CLPs due for debate that year that are withdrawn. This process historically privileges' the NEC and was changed in 2018-2021, but was then changed back to the long-standing  position  described above. Another thing to note is a non-NEC rule change on a subject cannot be reintroduced for 3 conferences after it has been discussed/rejected. Important to also note Trade Unions generally don't submit constitutional amendments as they negotiate their view through their representation on the NEC so it feeds into NEC rule changes. The lesson of  the history of all the above is not about plucky CLPs winning a rule change against all the odds, but if you seriously want to change the rules, win a majority on the NEC.

  • Organisational Reports (eg the Annual Report) are simply approved after perhaps some questions posed at the conference and cannot be amended, reference backed or organisational motions moved at conference except by the NEC. In 2021 some Conference delegates were aiming to try to move a point of order or reference back the Annual Report but were not alert to the Chair moving the report very quickly. This is because organisational questions have always been reserved to the NEC under all leaderships. Another lesson of history is if you want to raise a lot of organisational issues then get elected to the NEC or ask an NEC rep to raise the issues for you.

1970 to 1994

• Did Tony Benn cost us the 1970 General Election or even some Jumbo Jets or was it the a few years of government unpopularity and the impact of Enoch Powell's speeches in the previous two years that shifted key marginals?

• Should Labour have called a General Election in Autumn 1978? From the limited polling and two by-elections it did look like Labour would have polled more than 37% it got in 1979.

• If Jim Callaghan had stood down as Labour Leader in late summer 1979 would it have been more likely Denis Healey would have been elected leader by MPs before all the rows at 1979 and 1980 conference when some of his previously assumed supporters switched for a more acceptable Leader to view within the party by late 1980? Would Healey as leader have undermined the Jenkinsite/Gang of Three unity and prevented an SDP breakaway in 1981? Did Healey's Deputy Leader win also stop more defections after that? Was the SDP doomed to failure because in the end only  a third of centre-right Manifesto Group of MPs and quarter of the MPs who voted for Healey left?

• Would Tony Benn have won the Deputy Leader election in 1981 with the current member voting system then? Based on small amount of OMOV data we have he might have polled 39% among members. In the affiliates a TGWU survey showed a big Healey majority, depsite their vote for Benn so possible he may have polled lower in a modern day affiliate supporter vote.

• How long was Labour fully "unilateralist" of nuclear defense policy (ie Frontbench, NEC and Conference levels?). It was not fully in 1960-1962. Arguably 1982 to 1988 only when it was part of the Labour programme - see below - and featured in 1983 and 1987 General Election manifestos? Labour has always been pro-NATO since it's formation in 1949 with 5 members of anti-NATO Labour Independent Group expelled and losing seats in 1950 General Election and its 1983, 2017 and 2019 Manifestos (the three where the issue might have come up) all being pro-NATO.

• Why do some claim the "vote was split to let Thatcher in" in 1983 when the polling data on second preferences showed more Lib/SDP Alliance  voters preferred the Tories to Labour and in 1983 in a two party only campaign (and also similar in 1987  too) the Tories would have won 59% to Lab 41% which interestingly also very similar to the result Reagan got against Mondale in the US in 1984 so may be there was a cross-Atlantic trend in the 1980s.

• Was the 1983 Manifesto the "longest suicide note in history" or were people really referring to the 1982 Labour Programme? Before that was Labour's 1973 Programme and one issued in 1976 which in those days were compiled by NEC policy sub-committees. Nowadays the final NPF report in the cycle is the de-facto Labour's Programme from which the Manifesto is drawn at the Clause V meeting, but the term is never used nowadays.

• How big in membership size was Militant in the 1980's  (1980: 1,850 to 1988 8,000 according to John Kelly's research) when Labour started what some might see as a now remarkably long 10 year process of expelling them and where are they now (CWI-SPEW: 2,000 RCI-RCP: 1,000)?

• Which organisations signed up to the Register of Non-Affiliated Organisations (eg LCC and CLPD) of the time and which did not? In the modern era of political decision lobbying transparancy would modern style new list be of use to understand all the groups that are active in doing this? The bottom of Labour Dashboard page has a basic attempt to list organisations active at Labour Conference.

• How much research has been done on the change in Labour to a pro-Common Market/EU party between 1983 and 1992?

• Would the Miners have been better organising to win a ballot for their strike (even with the 55% majority requirement) than individual Areas coming out of strike? The NUM balloted its members for national strikes in January 1982, October 1982 and March 1983 regarding pit closures and restrained wages and each time a minority voted in favour, well short of the required 55% majority. Could that have changed with more time? Ipsos MORI polls in 1984 suggested they would have won. For the first time in their history, the other union of colliary supervisors NACODS voted to strike in September 1984 by a vote of 81% (above their own two-thirds strike requirement), however, a deal negotiated by North Yorkshire NCB Director Michael Eaton persuaded NACODS leaders to call off the strike action in return to changes to the review procedures for threatened collieries. If that had not happened all mines would have shut due to health and safety requirements.

• Did Militant ever have much support in the party for their tactic of Liverpool Council sending out redundancy notices as part of ratecapping tactics, that Neil Kinnock referred to in his famous 1985 Conference speech?

• Was the main outcome of the 1987 General Election Labour "winning the campaign" by opening up a gap with the Lib/SDP Alliance after only 2% gap in 1983 the Alliance won the Greenwich and Truro by-elections in March 1987 and surged in the polls?

• Do many remember the Democratic Socialist Aims and Values published by the NEC and Shadow Cabinet in Feb 1988 as a precursor to the Policy Review of the time?

• How strong was Neil Kinnock's Leadership win in 1988 if we had used the current voting system & would be anywhere near the 89% he polled? Instead of only getting 11% in the College Tony Benn might have polled over 30% based on the small amount of OMOV data we have. 

• Was it the Sheffield Rally that cost Neil Kinnock the 1992 election or was it also the War of Jennifers Ear (which put Labour off going back to the NHS, energised Tory voters in my recall of the doorstep and also should remind campaign operatives never use a politically split family in a party broadcast) or the "Labour Tax Bombshell" which came from John Smith's budget proposals or the fact that opinion polling may have overstated Labour's neck and neck position all through the campaign?

• How many realise Nomination thresholds were 20% after the 1988 Leader election but were reduced to 12.5% to allow there to be a contest in 1992? How many are aware Ken Livingstone ran for Leader and Bernie Grant for Deputy for the SCG in 1992 but neither got enough nominations.

1994-2010

• Did the lack of member polling in early 1994 cost Gordon Brown the Leadership? There was no member polling then apart from a few academic studies, but it would have been quite possible he might have been ahead in Spring 1994 future leader member polling. Whatever the starting point should Blair and Brown have both contested the leadership in 1994 to resolve there and then later tensions? Would that have calmed those tensions for at least the first two terms of the 1997-2010 Government?

• Was "Bobby" in 1994 really a "Bobby narrative" character in the long-run? The "Bobby narrative" was not just "1952-63 political operative" but also "1963-1968 political journey". That never happened with 1994's Bobby. 

• Was Margaret Beckett the "left candidate" in the 1994 Leader election based on the 18 SCG MPs who nominated her (compared to 5 for john Prescott) and who was helping on her campaign and what does that say about her vote at 19% of the electoral college for Leader and 43% for Deputy Leader?

• Clause I and Clause IV both reflect key aspects of Labour's identity. Why does the Party not have an every 20-25 year planned review of its values rather than dramatic one-offs?

• How many are aware that Labour changed the old Clause IV to the current one at a special conference in March 1995 where the conference voted 58.3% to 41.6% in favour of the change.

• Why has Labour never used its 1996 "members ballot" to approve the draft manifesto since? In July 1996, when Tony Blair unveiled the Labour Party's five early pledges for the forthcoming general election, there was also a referendum of the 380,688 Labour Party members and 2,737,238 affiliated members (mostly levy-paying trade unionists) to endorse the 'pre-manifesto document' called "New Labour, New Life for Britain". This video was a VHS video cassette sent to party members as part of the ballot, and also to encourage them to get active in the campaign. The ballot result among members was Yes 218,023 (94.6%), No 11,286 (4.9%), spoiled 1,093 (0.5%), with a turnout of 60.5%. Among affiliates, the turnout was 24.2%, and there was a Yes vote of 92.2%. The reason is possibly because to secure the 57% support of all members they achieved it took up so staff/CLP officer time that no one ever wanted to do it again? Also subsequent online balloting using Civica which is more the norm now may mean it was harder to manage and may lead to only a 20%-30% member turnout and that might have been seen as politically embarrassing?

• Were the 1998 NEC elections campaign by some a massive miscalculation as it led to quite a strong member reaction? Vast resources to win all 6 seats and they only won 3 in the end.

• In the light of events over the subsequent 25 years was the 1998 "Enfield Southgate Experiment" of AMMs replacing GCs a success or is the insitutional turn in Labour since 2021 a rejection of significant parts of it? The full agenda of AMMs/OMOV/Primaries/Registered Supporters is set out here in detail in a Fabian pamphlet written at the height of Blairism.

• What sort of results would Rhodri Morgan in 1999 and Ken Livingstone in 2000 have secured with the more modern member voting systems in place these days? In Wales the result might have been Rhodri Morgan 50.15% Alun Michael 49.85%, whilst in London the result might have been Ken Livingstone 63%, Frank Dobson 31%, Glenda Jackson 6%.

• At the 2001 General Election it was claimed that some Labour voters in deindustrialised seats had "nowhere else to go". Based on events in the subsequent 25 years how accurate was that insight and would it perhaps suggest the author it was not as informed as some assumed them to be?

• Was the public services reform "choice" agenda promoted in the second term always going to be difficult to sustain because there was never enough capacity in the services to make that much choice meaningful? Was there also another issue that often "poorer peforming" localities (eg in health) often had the highest local satisfaction ratings so there was never the "demand" below to make "market solutions" work that well? Did that conflict make the personality differences between Blair and Brown more ideological (Brown SMF Speech in 2003) and also make the unions and their members (the latter including many ex members and people  not Labour members also later influenced by Iraq) to look for more radical leaders in future years? Other divides included  joining the Single Currency even if on Iraq both of them stuck together.

• How much did the handling of the Iraq War impact on levels of Trust not just be voters but also Labour members as well as trade unionists and ex-members meaning they would look for someone who could be "trusted more" on issues like that in future? Gordon Brown proposed the Executive giving up its use of Royal Prerogative on War Powers when he became PM but that was not enacted before he left office in 2010, so the issue remained up in the air and Ed Miliband benefitted in view of him not being in Parliament at the time of the start of the war and his expressed view during the leadership campaign. Is what happened subsequently some evidence that issues around that had not been resolved and would continue to be an issue for Labour until Brexit overtook it from 2016 onwards?

• How much did the Cash for Honours scandal also damage the reputation of Government and reduce trust by members, which again flared up when Freebiegate happened in 2024 - see below?

• Should Michael Meacher have tried to run against Gordon Brown in 2007 instead of John McDonnell bearing in mind a wider range of MPs were willing to back him?

• Should Labour have called a General Election in Autumn 2007? The polling and two by-elections showed Labour ahead but quite possible it would have lost seats so there was a risk?

• Was the Erith & Thamesmead 2009 selection that had to be rerun a massive miscalculation and were any lessons learned as similar seems to have occurred at least a few times in the 15 years since?  it is of course one of life's ironies that the successful candidate Teresa Pearce (who some were trying to stop because she was feared to be too left wing - something that I suspect related more to Pete Willsman of CLPD being a member of the CLP at the time?) nominated Ed Balls for Leader in 2010, Andy Burnham for Leader in 2015 and Owen Smith for Leader in 2016!!

• Was the Parliamentary Expenses Scandal (at the time also of the 2008-09 financial crisis too) particularly damaging for Labour, because whilst voters and members expected Tories to behave badly they were shocked at the number of Labour MPs?  Did this further impact on member trust in their leadership for the coming years? Is if also a warning that more recent situations like Freebiegate are considered serious ethical issues by the big segment of "idealist" members?

• At what point beteen 1992 and the 2000s did left organisations like CLPD shift from strong opposition to wider application of OMOV in preference to only delegate democracy?

2010 -2015

• How did David Miliband lose a Leadership election he was favourite for? Three big campaigning  reasons are explained here but a fourth reason has been suggested that he did not work MPs hard enough and he only needed 11 more to win in the electoral college.

• What would the 2010 Leadership election result have been if just individual Lab and TU votes were counted: 1st Round Ed Miliband 37%, David Miliband 34%, Diane Abbott 10%, Ed Balls 10%, Andy Burnham 9%. Fouth Round Ed Miliband 54% David Miliband 46%.

• Why did so few flag Diane Abbott had come third in "raw vote" in 2010 (which in effect became the voting system in 2015) having come officially fifth in the electoral college? Would John McDonnell who put forward his name, have been the better left candidate in that election?

• Why was there no polling of Labour Members and relatively sparse polling of Labour Voters views specifically in the aftermath of the 2008 crash and the rise of anti-austerity after 2010 which built on anti-capitalism/alter-globalisation and anti Iraq War issues to explore in more details some of the big issues that would come to the fore later in the decade?

• How many "Community Organising" schemes have Labour tried to implement & how well did the schemes of 2010-15, 2016 and 2019 work? It is often said this was only done in the 2019 General Election, but Labour had been experimenting with schemes since 2010. There was Movement for Change in 2010 and Labour produced manuals and training courses in both 2012 and 2016 but these seem to be forgotten nowadays.

• How many "Labour Supporter" schemes have Labour tried & how well did 1998, 2007 and 2015 schemes work? Is recruiting more members more important than "half-way house" schemes nowadays and is induction/compliance of anyone with a connected relationship with Labour more important now that many people "self-publish" online since 2014 onward so these are not passive lists any more? Does the large "past/potential supporter" local data now on Labour Organise (often 2,000-10,000 names per CLP)  in effect locally replace old national schemes as it can now be used for local recruitment?

• Was the 2013 Falkirk selection row the last time the TU link was seriously queried? 

• Whilst Community Wealth Building and "The Preston Model" are associated with the 2015-19 period, how many realise it was actually first launched in 2013 during the Ed Miliband era?

• Over the years there has been demands from one side or another for the proscription of Progress (2010s), Momentum (2010s and 2020s) and Labour Together(Now Labour Thinks - 2020s) but are people aware, the NEC whatever its politics at the time has actually been remarkably quite consistent in not seeing such groups as breaching Labour rules over allegiance to an outside International, running a separate disciplinary process and nowadays non compliance with Labour Safeguarding Rules) that Leninist Groups tend to get proscribed for?

• Who supported or opposed the Collins Review in 2014 and why did most wings of the Party "reverse ferret" on support or opposition in less than two years? Why does no one advocate for "primaries" these days compared to the advocacy from the late 1990s to 2015?

• What was the chain of decision-making that led to the "Ed Stone", which may have similar to how the Poll Tax was agreed with little opposition by the Tories? What lessons can be learned from that? 

2015-2020

• How contingent were events of 2015-19 being down to the errors/complacency (piling on top of each other) of other factions (painful awareness of which might have added to their subsequent "this should not have happened" anger) around the following: 

  • a) A increasingly wrong assumption created in the 1980s/90s but increasingly wrong by the 2010s that OMOV/Primaries benefited the right in all elections: 

  • b) David Miliband's 2010 nomination of Diane Abbott leading to an Ed Miliband election and subsequent legitimacy issue; 

  • c) A fight in  a Commons Bar leading to the Falkirk selection row adding to the Ed Miliband legitimacy issue leading to the Collins Review; 

  • d) A general "widen the debate" culture among some of the soft left in the 2010-2020 period; 

  • e) Low appreciation of the importance of the adoption of the 2011 Unite Political Strategy ironically written by a Gramscian Eurocommunist, but later in the decade made the most of by those on the opposite side of 1980s CPGB debates!! 

  • f) A likely quite unique situation where as a result of that political stategy Unite had signed up 115,000 Affiliated Supporters out of the 148,000 (ie 78% of them) with a vote. 

• How much from looking at the above points might an interesting question arise that, not to justify bad behaviour but more to understand mindsets, is this: "If a bunch of people have run an organisation for many years but through a series of cock-up of their own making or inaction, how are they going to feel if as a result of those mistakes new people come in and take over? Will they take it lightly or will in they in their own recognition that they themselves screwed up, seek to change things back?" Conversely another question  that arises is: "If you are new people coming in to an organisation due to the cock-up and mistakes or others and its likely they are going to try to change things back are you really going to be surprised at that?" Other questions also include: "If you are long-standing people and new people come in who are naturally quite excited about this, but understandably may not understand the complexity of the party what are you doing to explain things and more effectively induct them into it, rather than rejecting them as interlopers?" Also: "if you are new people, being more aware of the other questions above, what are you doing to make the longstanding people feel less threatened?" Naturally because there were existing factions with ready made agendas around "change this" or "change this back" slotting straight into one or other would inevitably mean many questions might not be posed, so the people who get involved and query their "own side"  saying "why are we doing it this way, may most recognise the questions above and based on all the polling on these pages more than one in three members would likely feel this, but tend to be drowned out by the "default" positions of others? Obviously if you hold a clear "take a side" and frame my views through the lens of that side then of course your questions may be very different? The fact that Labour at all times in the period had at least 38% opposition to change rather than the small 15% opposition to the Green party's Leadership change meant, this period was always likely to be fractious and these sort of questions not considered by many people who might have been more focused on one side of a binary choice?

• Is anyone aware that the action of Graeme Morris MP nominating Andy Burnham in 2015 which was withdrawn to then support Jeremy Corbyn would not be allowed now under NEC Labour Leader Election procedural rules as once a MP nomination is submitted it can only be changed if the candidate withdraws or is disqualified?

• Are people aware that in 2015 Jeremy Corbyn was at 18 nominations (18 away from target) with 48 hours to go. With an hour to go he was at 27 (9 away from target) and London Mayoral selection candidates (possibly looking for Diane Abbott transfer to them) nominated him so with 15 minutes to go he was at 34 (2 away from target) and in the end made it minutes to go? His 36 nominations (the number he needed) included 16 London MPs and 12 members of the Socialist Campaign Group.

• Would Jeremy Corbyn have won the Leadership in 2015 if the old electoral college system of 2010 was still in force? The data suggests he would have lost to Andy Burnham with a  possible 1st round of Corbyn 42%, Burnham 27%, Cooper 21%, Kendall 10%, 2nd Round of Corbyn 43%, Burnham 32%, Cooper 25% and a final round of Burnham 54%, Corbyn 46%.

• Polling on Jeremy Corbyn gave him perhaps 9% in May and his numbers only took off after he got on the ballot paper. Perhaps an underestimated driver for a big burst of support were the 200,000+ anti-austerity demos across the UK on June 20 2015 which networked many up and gave them a post demo purpose in supporting his campaign?

• How much was the big rise in support for Jeremy Corbyn driven by wanting to express a view on the handling of the Iraq War? Was that strong view (having been expressed in the 2025 Leadership result) dissipated somewhat in the subsequent 5 years by the rise of Brexit as a big interantionalist public policy issue for members?

• Were the Leadership of Unite were more in favour of Andy Burnham at first but only switched to Jeremy Corbyn when their own EC demanded the Leadership support him?

• How many are aware that quite uniquely compared to low activity by other unions, Unite had signed up 115,000 of the 148,000 affiliated supporters so had 78% of the affiliate vote to recommend to once they had decided who to support? The 148,000 figure can be calculated from the 48.5% turnout by 71,596 affiliated voters here. Since 2021 the rules have changed and the ballot is now open to all political levy payers again but with 6 months membership too, so it is now quite likely no union will ever dominate the affiliate vote as Unite did from 2015 to 2020.

• How many people were prevented from voting in the 2015 and 2016 Leader elections due to checks on them by national staff and local party officers? News coverage gave some of the stranger examples. According to NEC member Ann Black it was around 2,000 people each time not 100,000 claimed by some. Many were actually Tories and UKIP people who were spotted, but some would have been people who had recently publicly backed parties like the Greens by signing their nomination papers. Some will confuse this due diligence point about the 120,000+ members supposedly excluded in the 2016 by the NEC under the 6 month rule (see Evangelou v McNichol court cases) , but almost all obtained a vote as a registered supporter which can be seen from that sections result.  What is also forgotten is making new members register in such a way earned the Party £3.125m from around £25 payments which was added to claims the party was doing well financially after the Leader Election. 

• How many remember that Unite funded Tom Watson's Deputy Leader campaign and he was sold as the left candidate in that election (which the results and polling data suggested was the case) and duly won?

• How many Leninist Group members joined the party then compared to early 1980s bearing in mind then AWL was 180 members, IMT 300 members & LPM less than 50? Has Labour Conference ever voted to admit Leninist Groups in the last century since it refused CPGB affiliation in the early 1920s?

• Was there any serious plan that 3 candidates would withdraw to delay and the rerun the 2015 election?

• Not many comment that in the same ballot period that Jeremy Corbyn won 50% of members, 84% of Registered Supporters and 58% of Affiliated Supporters for a 59.5% result, that at the same time Diane Abbott in the London Mayoral selection won 13% of members, 24% of Registered Supporters and 17% of Affiliated Supporters for a 17% result? Does that tell us anything about the composition of Jeremy Corbyn's vote in that election and subsequent votes? What can be noted is Diane won as a % of Jeremy's vote: 26% of his members, 29% of his registered supporters and 29% of his registered affiliates.

• How much was Corbynism as Owen Jones describes "an unstable coalition of older political activists and younger activists radicalised by student, anti-austerity, climate and tax justice movements & the latter much more resistant to heirarchy and discipline" and how much is this difference now reflected by where many have ended up in a new more confortable place in the Green party and Your Party? How much did the "lack of experienced strategists, communicators and managers" that Jones refers to impact on decisions, some of which are set out below? How much does Jones' point:  "But there was also a failure in strategy. compounded by hubris after the 2027 election and ultimately divisions in the Leadership paralysed Corbynism from the top down" explain some of the following issues set out below? It does speak of a big difference between the optimism of 2015-17 and bigger problems in 2018-19. Exploring some of the practical implications, Chapter Four of Owen Jones This Land sets out a story of organisational dysfunction, narrowing advice sources, indecision, stubbornness and begrudging delay referring to some of the issues in this Vice Magazine video documentary which caused a lot of issues in his office when it was agreed.  He talks of no strategy with it subordinated to comms and a campaign grid that was more a diary. It should be noted Jones was critical as early as 2016 with a whole series of questions (though he did qualify it a bit later) on polling, vision, strategy, comms, but still strongly advocated for Jeremy Corbyn in the 2017 and 2019 General elections and during his suspension in 2020. Taking all this together would people now seeing what has happened with with the launch and crisis in Your Party's CEC be surprised at any of what is stated?

• Did Iain McNichol offer to resign as General Secretary to Jeremy Corbyn the day he was elected but was turned down as Max Shanley claims here? If this story is correct did the "Corbyn Project" totally doom itself from the start? As a result from what we now know would a better "tactical" approach in a party that always had 40% levels of opposition have been for McDonnell/Lansman to have been given the main role to nudge the Party a bit leftwards to the sort of politics of Mainstream in Labour today and consider that the project's long-term legacy, rather than going for broke with an updated 1980s Bennism that other questions below explore as being hard to deliver in view of the politics of the time?

• Was it true that senior people in Unite wanted Owen Smith to be Shadow Chancellor rather than John McDonnell, which is somewhat ironic in the light of subsequent events?

• In  November 2015 the Party Leadership conducted a poll of members  (more also here) over the Bombing of Syria. The party said a random sample of full individual Labour party members showed 75% were against UK bombing in Syria, 13% were in favour and 11% were undecided. The figures showed the party had received 107,875 responses in a consultation, of which 64,771 were confirmed to be from full individual members (this would have been around 17% turnout of the 388,262 members at the time). The remainder included affiliated supporters and registered supporters. It is thus interesting that despite this innovation (first such member poll since one in 1996 - see above for it and possible reasons it was never continued) no other such member poll was ever done in the next 4 years? Was this because the leadership realised any further such polls would lead to a demand for a poll on Brexit which could lead to very explicit support for Remain and the People's Vote - see other member polling data below?

• Do many remember before the "chicken coup" that there was an attempt to remove Hilary Benn and Rosie Winterton from the Cabinet which was retreated from after PLP reaction?

• Is not bringing back Shadow Cabinet elections by the PLP (which operated from 1922 to 2011) during 2015-19 regretted at all by anyone now as a "point of principle" for the future or was not doing it seen as a "good tactic" at the time?

• Was it wise to have a 7,000 member single unit Brighton Labour Party with an executive of 7 or was it better to have 3 CLPs as an NEC member suggested & implemented?

• Was it wise for Momentum/CLPD to remove Ann Black from the left NEC slate because of the Brighton issue above?

• Why is it that those who attack political poll bias tend to forget political polling is a sideline for pollsters main polling with private/public sectors and the political polls are good marketing to get them attention? It also means they need their polls to be accurate & not biased to avoid commercial reputational damage with their own markets but also in the eyes of British Polling Council, Market Research Society and academics who write up reports on polling.

• Why was the Chakrabarti Inquiry recommendations not fully implemented quickly by Leadership/HQ and seen as a top priority?

• Was the two "Remain" and  Remain and Reform" messages promoted by various bits of Labour confusing to voters in the EU referendum? The latter position may have led to Jeremy Corbyn's EU gets "7.0 or 7.5 out of 10 mesage on a TV show"? Based on the need to mobilise voters - especially young voters - did a less than solid endorsement approach have an impact? Bearing in mind the higher turnout of young voters - some angry over missing out on the EU vote looking at 2017 seats where turnout rose most compared to 2015 and 2016 - would the sort of "10 out of 10" message applied to the 2017 Labour manifesto and message have got more young voters out in 2016? Was there also a perception at the top that whatever the outcome would not matter that much and the focus would go back to domestic economic policy divides? Was this a miscalculation over how big the issue did become in 2018 and especially 2019?

• Are people aware that Momentum balloted their members (strong Jeremy Corbyn supporters) and voted 66.5% (with around 10% against) for Remain in the EU Referendum (more here)? What may be forgotten though is this strong view likely stayed the same after the party moved to a Brexit ambiguity position after the referendum as that was confirmed by later member polling below?

• If the Brexit Referendum had voted 52% Remain would the political situation been such that the losing Leave side like the SNP in Scotland would have not given up and thus split the Tory Party with such a small majority and would as a result Labour focusing on a domestic agenda with Brexit simply not a dividing line within a 90% Remain voting party would have been better positioned from 2016 onward to exploit what would have been a Tory civil war. From all that is stated here the existence of Brexit happening had the most impact on labour in 2015-19. It it had never happened the debate would have been far more on the economics of Labour's domestic agenda where Labour were on stronger ground.

• How significant was the change of views of Labour members (90%Remain to 9% Leave voting) towards Jeremy Corbyn after the Brexit referendum when his ratings fell from 72%-27% positive to a far narrower 51%-48%? Compared to Gordon Brown 68%-20% and Alan Johnson 52%-30% who had positive ratings for the referendum campaign from members his referendum campaign rating was narrowly negative at a perhaps ironic 47%-52% score. How much was this polling a driver in encouraing MPs to challenge him to a Leadership contest? In a hypothetical leadership election he was scored as beating Angela Eagle 56% to 44% (excluding Don't Know and Not Voting) which would suggest when he was actually challenged his own campaign raised his vote share by +6% in the actual summer leadership campaign

• Was the call for an immediate Article 50 vote setting a 2 year deadline a mistake? 

• Is the 2016 Leadership election also now considered a big tactical error by those who initiated it? Was Owen Smith running on a second referendum position far too early just a few months after the first referendum a big tactical mistake in 2016 for what did become an issue for members by 2018 when actual Brexit became far more real?

• What is the difference between a "coup" and a "legitimate challenge" for a role when people disagree or is there no real difference and is it simply a "framing" used by one side or other not liking a challenge whether in the 2010s or in the 2020s?

• Was the 172-40 MP vote of no confidence, whilst having no formal constitutional role under Labour Rules, except for flagging a formal leadership challenge to come (and being far less salient anyway in an era when a Leader drew support from members rather than MPs), nevertheless a potential early signifier of what the PLP might do in future in the post 2026 era when MPs are more likely to draw their support from MPs?

• How significant is it according to Owen Jones (This Land page 82) that Len McCluskey of Unite proposed in a deal with the Labour PLP officers that Jeremy Corbyn be put on "two years probation" as Leader before a decision was made on his future?

• Did Cat Smith MP suggest Jeremy Corbyn resign in 2016? Did Seamus Milne call Clive Lewis MP to tell him to prepare to run for Leader in 2016 (presumably if Jeremy Corbyn did not get on the ballot?)? Both points are in Owen Jones This Land book.

• Whatever happened to the claim that Portland Communications were at the centre of plots to depose the Leader? No book has ever been written about their claimed role at the time, so presumably it was pretty minimal?

• How significant was the change in senior LOTO staff in early 2017? Did it improve the previous dysfunction? Was there a perception of a concentration of power, narrowing of circle and less delegation? Owen Jones This Land

• By March 2017 was Unite leaning towards Emily Thornberry as next Leader? Was Clive Lewis being talked about too? Owen Jones This Land

• How many remember at the start of the 2017 General Election Labour was 24% behind in the polls? How would different people react to that situation based on levels of optimism and pessimism towards the party?

• Do people remember that the May 2017 local elections held during the General Election campaign were better than the initial polling average of 24% behind and the result was Con 38%, Lab 27%, LD 18% Oth 17%, so Labour were 11% behind? However, compared to 2016 which was a pre-Brexit election, on vote share Con +8%,  Lab -4%, LDs +3; whilst Councils: Con +11. Lab -7,  LDs No change; Councillors Con +559, Lab -386, LDs -42; so whilst Lab had narrowed the gap the Tories had achieved their best local election result for a decade and were still heading for an increased majority at the time, This may have impacted on strategic and tactical decisions of all involved.

• Who leaked the 2017 manifesto early? The Manifesto author claims it was from within Scottish Labour. The irony is that the leak completely backfired in its intent of causing political damage to the Labour leadership as it led to a normally dry manifesto launch getting far more coverage for days on end helping Labour to rise in the polls. It also may have meant the claimed source of the leak not only was in the Labour Leadership's bad books but also was probably not that popular with their own side too after its unintended impact. Do any subsequent changes in Scottish Labour not long after give a clue to narrow things down further?

• Since the leaked version of the 2017 Manifesto was a draft what were the differences between it and the final version agreed after the Clause V meeting?

• Whilst the 2017 Manifesto title "For the many, not the few" may be seen by some as coming from verse XXXVIII of the Masque of Anarchy Percy Bysshe Shelley poem which said "Ye are many - they are few", ironically the actual idea for using it came from the revised 1995 Tony Blair era version of Clause Four which says: "a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few"!

• How much an impact on Labour's 2017 election campaign did "Project Ergon" have when Unite the Union's evidence to the Forde Inquiry said it was 1.6% of Labour election spend and 0.3% of its 2017 expenditure (my original estimate was 0.6% when the issue came out in 2020 but subsequent reports to Forde have suggested around £225,000 which would have been 2.0% of spend was either spent or not spent) whilst at the same time Momentum were running a "My Nearest marginal" website heavily promoted online by the left media as well as Momentum's own website advice on the General Election and emailed/texted to more than  200,000 pro-Leadership members, who we know heeded the call as the author of the 2017 manifesto said they did ? Momentum themselves claimed they has mobilised over 90,000 people. Ironically during the 2017 campaign the Tories caused mischief by pointing out Momentum was not listing marginals in the north of England, but I suspect like a lot of the Labour Party on all wings at the time the first 3 weeks of the campaign was defensive due to the poll numbers, but became more offensive after the manifesto launch and the final 3 weeks. However narratives on the 2017 General election often miss the "game of two halves" aspect of the 2017 General which any party election agent (and I was one in 2017) could explain and often only some elements of those two halves get picked out to justify an argument rather than be seen in context.

• How much was the "Enfield North template" (see Page 36 of Pogrund and Maguire "Get In") used by Project Ergon applied to the seats it targeted.

• If Owen Jones (page 136-37 This Land) is right and the Leadership knew that HQ were being too defensive or "helping their friends", during the 2017 General Election why did they not take more action (eg summoning an emergency NEC to actually vote on specific requests to instruct the General Secretary with a mechanism to confirm actions had been taken or authorising the Party Treasurer as an NEC Officer who was a Unite senior person to take greater charge of the campaign) in order to get the campaign they wanted? It may be claimed there was not enough bandwidth because of team inexperience, but Unite and a few of the left unions could have seconded extra officers for the 6 weeks of the campaign to ensure certain actions were done?   

• Whilst Project Ergon was going on, Momentum was also doing work preparing for a Labour Leader election it assumed might come from a big defeat. Owen Jones This Land

• Labour and Momentum's digital campaign wiped the floor with the Tories in 2017 when one in four voters saw a digital ad on Facebook by Momentum. It had much less impact in 2019 as by then the Tories had imported the 2016 Leave digital team to repeat their work that helped them win in the referendum with over 7,000 far more targeted Facebook ads to small segments. One hypothesis that may come from this change is it is possible that Left Populism (as well as populism more generally) does best when it is "first time around" and "novel" and may not do so well repeating the original experience?

• Whilst much focus was on the Tories self-defeating "Dementia Tax" which likely did help Labour, the Tories also wanted to means test the Winter Fuel Allowance and abandon the existing pensioner "triple lock", which again benefitted Labour. it may also have been a warning that Labour ignored in 2024 when it too went for the Winter Fuel Allowance which strongly impacted on tis early popularity in government. How much did, what even the Tories admit was their worst general election campaign up until 2024, also help Labour fight back with an effective campaign? Labour secured a 9.6% vote increase - its best since 1945, but what is also forgotten that the Tories increased their vote share by 5.4% the best increase for an incumbent government - even with a poor campaign - all the way back to 1832. Whilst many focus on one of these two scores only, looking at both together tells us that if you are focused on energising your own vote base, looking at what your actions are also doing to your opponents' vote base is worth doing too.

• How much did the 8% higher differential turnout of Remain voters over Leave voters compared to 2016 help Labour in 2017?

• How much did the 5-7 period up until 2017 where social media algorithms favoured politics content and also more left of centre content help the campaign. How much did social media shifts in algorithms and in the case of some a very explicit shift to the right lead to a lower level of engagement from 2018 onward?

• Another reason Labour's message cut through more in what was still early days of the Brexit negotiation period (so little Brexit "jeopardy" in that intervening period and according to Labour spokespeople little Brexit questioning by the media for something that was vaguely agreed would happen but still a few years away) was, as this Joseph Rowntree Trust report flagged, economics cut through more in a way it did not during the Referendum itself or the 2019 Election which became a de-facto second (or third if you include the 2019 EU Elections) Referendum. That economic dominance played to Labour's strengths that had been highlighted by the extra coverage of the leaked manifesto.

• Did Labour really miss forming a Government in 2017 by 2,227 votes (a narrative based on a newspaper headline in the Independent) or was such a shift in votes simply going to lead to the Lib Dems under Tim Farron holding the balance of power, which we know from the late 2019 Brexit crisis politics was not favourable to the formation of a Labour Government? On top of that the Head of the Royal Statistical Society claims of such closeness like that are misleading.

• Should there have been a "unity reshuffle" of the Shadow Cabinet after the 2017 General election to reduce opposition to the leadership?

• Would Jeremy Corbyn announcing a strong "we accept the referendum/no second referendum position" rather than Brexit ambiguity in late 2017 when he was most popular have worked? Other options at the time would have been a fully worked up "Lexit" (never done) and a variant based on Jon Trickett's "Global South Trade Alliance" (Eagleton, The Starmer Project) . It certainly might have won over some members but the 6 million Revoke Article 50 petition and the rise of Lib Dems and Greens in the 2019 EU elections suggests it would not have stopped the 2019 Brexit crisis that overwhelmed both main parties in summer 2019. In any case the Leadership at the time thought Brexit ambiguity had just won 40% in a general election and was more going to split the Tories so why change it and also based on the ending of official members polls it was clear the leadership did not want to generate a potential row with the majority of the membership. The only problem was having pulled off a 52% surprise victory the "winning" was always going to unite the Tories/right to "finish the job" and not let the opportunity go. Only if they had lost by 48% would the Tories/right have had an ongoing civil war. 

• After the 2017 General Election and prior to the expanding Brexit crisis of 2018-19 what was Labour's position? Jeremy Corbyn set out the Labour Brexit position in February 2018 in Coventry where he made the case for the UK to be in a customs union and to stay a member of many Europe-wide bodies. It was less clear on "the benefits of the single market" so in the end was not a full "Lexit" policy and reflected splits between the "Left populists" and "Brexit is a very bad thing" elements in the Leadership, Whilst a customs union was very practical and was likely to have been the one aspect the House of Commons probably would have voted for if MPs had been enabled to vote on minimalist positions as well as maximalist positions by a differently designed indicative vote system, the speech was inevitably framed by the media as a step back towards the EU just showing how much the Brexit Overton Window had shifted since 2016 when what was the most broadly acceptable to MPs type of Brexit was seen in that way. The fact that any movement in any direction was framed as either more Leave or Remain showed how much nuance had gone and any Brexit centre ground was declining illustrating the crisis that happened was unlikely to have been prevented once the UK was in such a process. It was no surprise that Labour's Brexit ambiguity increased as a defensive response to attack from either side of the issue. As well as the Tory Government struggling to achieve its own Brexit deal from April 2018 the People's Vote campaign had launched and reinvigorated all the previous Stronger In/Open Britain local groups that many did not realise mainly still existed and with a half million email mailing list was a significant organisation right from its launch. As Brexit dragged out it was hard to see this would not be the case and along with a strongly pro-Remain Labour membership much of the subsequent debate was pretty inevitable. 

• Would a scenario of Jeremy Corbyn taking on a new role of Party President and John McDonnell becoming Leader in late 2017 had led to a very different 2018-19 period?

• How well were #MeToo Sexual harassment complaints within LOTO dealt with in 2017/18?

• How many are aware that in the 2017 Scottish Leadership election the outcome was likely impacted by Unite signing up 2,700 affiliates supporters in one weekend in Sept 2017 for the campaign? Under the "6 month rule" adopted in 2021 for both members and affiliates, such an action would not be allowed now. It is quite possible Richard Leonard would still have won with his 52% majority among members, but the size of this majority might well have been a lot smaller.

• How significant was the Formby v Lansman General Secretary outcome in 2018 for subsequent events? How would things have gone if Jon Lansman had been backed by the NEC?

• In the light of subsequent events (eg Russian invasion of Ukraine and its clear willingness to sustain a far more conflicted relationship with Europe) was the handling of the Salisbury poisoning issue a mistake especially bearing in mind Andrew Murray's comments over the handling and the fact Labour later accepted Russian culpability? Did a tendency for Jeremy Corbyn/Seamus Milne to align with singular Stop The War positions on international issues widen political divides with John McDonnell? It's interesting to note that by 2023 Andrew Fisher who wrote the 2017 Manifesto and was close to John McDonnell called on Stop The war to disband over its Ukraine policy.

• How much money did Labour Live cost and was it worth the spend in view of the coverage it got?

• Was the split between Leadership and local left in the Lewisham East selection a signal of divisions, which saw similar defeats in other parliamentary selections in the period? Was the failure of both left candidates to address Brexit a big factor in them both losing?

• Was there some agreement from most sides that there was an antisemitism issue (eg Royall Report, Chakrabarti Report, No Place for Antisemitism programme, Leaked Report  assumptions, EHRC Report, Forde Report & high profile suspensions/expulsions in 2015-19 and then others after - see data above), but on top of the strong arguments on either side over th e actual handling of the process was there also a further significant issue by the end as to whether the issue was "overstated/understated"? Should both "understated" and "overstated" framings based on raw expulsion data be seen in a context of the exponential multiplier effects of the social media era where 200 people posting 10 tweets a day for a year would just on their own generate 730,000 tweets a year and then you also have to add in the exponential amplification of those 730,000 by others who follow them so as well as the any raw data on individual cases? And thus does one also need to factor in community, voter and member perceptions of any substantial exponential amplification of any small numbers too for a fuller understanding of all sides of this issue in the era we have been for the last decade or so? Whilst various polls were quoted years ago showing the public perceptions of the behaviour of Labour members were "overstated" compared to small percentage of investigations/expulsions it is worth looking at the data from 2018 here, here, here and here but also look at data from 2024 here and 2026 here and here. However the media may frame some cases, small numbers can still help generate a lot of ongoing public perception over more than a decade.

• Were the significant activities of Labour Against the Witchhunt during 2018 and 2019 against the then Leadership an indication there were some issues over the behaviour of some members during that period?

• Why did the NEC decision over the IHRA definition take so long across three months as well as dividing leadership senior MPs bearing in mind there was always a likely majority on the NEC for its full adoption (and rejection of any "clarification" document) so it became an issue far longer than it might have done? Were there other opportunities to engage with various communities that were missed out on?

• Why was the Margaret Hodge argument case first referred to the General Secretary under standard party disciplinary rules when it was clear right from the start it was a "work related matter" that could have first been dealt with by the Chief Whip under PLP Standing Orders which may well have resolved them quickly with the better practice that only later could any wider disciplinary issues be a consideration? Was the possible wrong order this all happened down to inexperience or down to wider issues?

• What does the existence of a long standing Jewish Labour affiliate (Jewish Labour Movement JLM - which rose to 4,000 members) and then the setting up of another non-affiliated group (Jewish Voice for Labour JVL now mostly outside Labour and renamed - which rose to 1,200 members) representing those who did not have a similar view over Israel/Palestine tell us about the potentially widely differing views within that community and  also that the strong majority view is represented on the Jewish community's UK representative bodies but not the minority view? Data on the balance of views of that whole community is tracked here from 2015, 2024, 2025, 2025, 2025 to simply explain what common terms/views used are and the size of each view? A question that then arises is, if the size of the gap in views and its potentially big difference on future Israel/Palestine governance arrangements - see also above - mean that if the two strongly held views cannot co-exist even within the community's own representative bodies could it also be hard for them to co-exist within the same political party in the end? Whilst it does not apply to the 2015-19 era, now looking at how strong views on both sides in that community may have hardened much more since all the tragic events since October 7 2023 would the issues referred to above be even more challenging to encompass within one political party and are they as a result now more likely to be spread between Labour, Greens, Your Party and other smaller political groups?

• In debates over Israel/Palestine why did people not use more neutral "Peacebuildling"/conflict resolution approaches (used very effectively in Northern Ireland and South Africa) on use of terminology/framing around broad future governance issues such as "Two State supporter" and "One State supporter" rather than terminologies more used to "gather/acknowledge support for one's own side's position" which one or other side might see as pejorative or threatening? Using "conflict" terms/framings instead of ones contributing to peacebuilding are hardly going to achieve peaceful outcomes in the Middle East, but may also reflect how far off we are from getting to that stage yet. Was this due to issues around  those in the centre of debates using "two/one state ambiguity" (an example of this approach is: "A durable political solution that ensures security and equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians" from the 2024 Green Party Manifesto) where there is an avoidance of taking a specific broad view on future governance which can then get mixed into arguments over being perceived to more support one side or the other? It may also reflect those who might actually wish to advocate a "one state" outcome perhaps not feeling as confident articulating that proposal in view of potential implications of how it is actually achieved or the actual current balance of forces in the Middle East which may have shifted further away from that position since the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria meaning in effect from the perspective of at least one narrative framing there are now no actual "frontline states" (an old South African conflict term relating to a state actively seeking to change the situation in an adjoining country) in the vicinity of Israel/Palestine?

• What should people think about the Leader/staff management issues in LOTO in 2018-19 documented by Pogrund and Maguire in the light of subsequent issues in Your Party in 2026?

• How many MPs were thinking of defecting to Change UK beyond the ones that actually did? What roles did Tom Watson and John McDonnell play in preventing more MPs leaving Labour? Did Labour Together attempting to win Labour to its position in effect prevent Tony Blair form moving forward with a French-style Macronite "En Marche" style party? Has both the failure of the SDP and Change UK meant that is any future internal political battle even if a few MPs breakway as Independents, most Labour MPs would in future stand and fight for their view knowing they have successfully won both in 1981-83 and 2018-20 now?

• Who were members of Tom Watson's Future Britain Group of MPs? The 150 parliamentarians seemed to be 70 peers and 80 MPs not 150 MPs as some assumed at the time. Did it fizzling out reflect Tom's journey towards standing down as Deputy Leader and not running as an MP in 2019?

• Why did Labour barely increase the percentage of candidates standing in local elections in weaker areas despite having a gain of 300,000 members?

• How did some in the Party propose a second Deputy Leader role and then the same side end up voting against it? Was the quite possible subsequent election at the time of pro-Remain/People's Vote Emily Thornberry as Second Deputy Leader the main factor here?

• Why did the Party press release its rebuttal on the Panorama programme when the usual comms approach might have been to state disagreement through an unnamed Labour Senior Source? What impact would this tactic have on the subsequent cost of legal challenges?

• Did, as Owen Jones and Andrew Murray suggest, the position of both Labour and Tories on Brexit by 2018 open up a very wide political space for a classical "Centrist" (eg Blair/Cameron 1990s-2010s politics) as shown by the rise of the People's Vote campaign which had 100s of groups/networks left over from the Stronger In Referendum campaign reactivated and expanded, a half million email mailing list and organised three of the largest demonstrations in UK political history? Did that campaign also fail because it was divided by good faith actors purely concerned with Brexit but also bad faith actors more concerned with creating an En Marche Macronite party which Change UK tried to be? The implosion of People's Vote which only happened after its last big march and during the 2019 general election campaign proper is set out here and here. By then that implosion made little difference to Labour which was well behind the Tories in the polls. However it is possible the unsatiated post General Election anger concern of Remain/People's Vote activists might after the collapse of People's Vote have transferred to strong support for Keir Starmer from the 90% pro-Remain Labour members and the 110,000 new members who joined Labour in Jan 2020 to vote in the Leadership election. What is also forgotten is that on January 31 2020 the data shows the emotional mindset of 2019 Labour voters was 61%-19% negative to Brexit and Labour members voting in the Leadership election would have likely had an even higher negative view. 

• How was the 2016-19 Brexit ambiguity handled by all wings of Labour when 90% of Labour members were Remain and 86% supported a People's Vote whilst Unite Members were 61% Remain and 57% People's Vote, Unison members were 68% Remain and 66% People's Vote, and GMB members were 55% Remain and 56% People's Vote .  In Lavery and John Trickett in rejecting the views of Labour Remain members, claimed that rank and file trade unionists lean towards Leave "should be respected", but there was no evidence from polling that this was really the case. Unite stuck to a anti-second referendum position , despite their members favouring it, until 2019 conference when they eventually went along with the NEC statement on it. As Owen Jones points out there was a much wider constituency for a "compromise position" in 2017 but this had declined by 2019 and was Labour too slow to react to it? Both the People's Vote Campaign and Another Europe is Possible both saw Keir Starmer as still in favour of a negotiated pro-soft Brexit and not People's Vote in mid 2018, so how did the post 2019 revisionist narrative of him always being a Remainer develop? Did Leadership indecision and Brexit ambiguity in the end create a large political void within the strongly pro-Remain party  where others with a more pro-Remain/People's Vote position could fill? As the polling above shows the assumption by some in the Leadership that the unions would hold the line was way off the mark as Unison, GMB and TSSA led a widening pro-EU position. The submission of 100s of motions on Brexit for 2018 and 2019 conference organised by the perhaps underesitmated left pro-Corbyn/pro People's Vote Another Europe is Possible did signal a hardening view of members towards a People's Vote with 2018's "support all options remaining on the table, including a public vote" a clear direction of travel even if it meant Labour stayed ambiguous on Brexit for another year. The Leadership held their line due to compositing consensus rules, but the fact they were reliant on a small left TU like the Bakers and the 85% of those in the compositing meeting were pro People's Vote showed where member opinion really was heading (Eagleton, The Starmer Project)  It also led to the 2018 conference row as to whether the agreed composite calling for a "public vote" implied "Remain as an option" after John McDonnell looked to have made a mistake over how the motion was interpreted which Starmer responded to. The fact Eagleton talks about the room being organised to "be filled with pro-EU delegates", as if you can swap a set of delegates over showed the reality was those delegates were as pro-EU as the big % in the compositing meeting! Taking a position on it then did define Keir Starmer at 2018 conference setting him up to benefit from 110k pro-EU people who  in early 2020 joined the existing 430k members of late 2019 for the Leadership election in 2020 along with the alreeady existing pro-Remain/People's Vote lean of Lab and TU members - see polling below.

• Why did the Leadership not build on the Feb 2018 Coventry speech as to what any form of Lexit would fully look like? With the Tories having their withdrawal agreement rejected the political space was filled even more by People's Vote by as the UK moved into 2019. Whilst the Leadership saw rejecting the Tory deal as a "tactic" to force a General Election and they would deal with any second vote after without any detail. But member and public pressure continued to increase and the debate was then on a) General Election or public vote - which is first? b) Would Labour remain neutral promote their leave deal or support Remain in a public vote? By 2019 John McDonnell conscious of a Change UK or even bigger MP split, but also anticipating the rise  of Lib Dems and Greens as Lab ambiguity lost votes to them focused on keeping Labour MPs, Labour members and Labour voters together with a less ambiguous position. That long-termism would increasingly gather more support within Labour than Brexit ambiguity

• Could a deal on Soft Brexit had been done in late 2017 onward or was dealing with the Tories just too difficult? Was the Andrew Murray view that a Brexit deal with the Tories was never possible in view of the Remain lean of Labour members and voters? Was a lean towards the TSSA/McDonnell People's Vote always more likely in view of the polling numbers and subsequent EU election result? Could any deal have been struck when serious negotiations occurred in April 2019 when any "centreground" over a soft Brexit deal was evaporating and perhaps had around 20% support, the EU elections were seeing both Lab and Con votes rapidly eroded and both were going to shortly shift further along their wing to respond to the rise of other parties? Was the more radical half of LOTO /Unite really going to "strike a deal with the Tories" when so many in the Party would be opposed?

• Why did LOTO/NEC not respond to the May 2019 call for a Member Ballot on Labour's Brexit position a bit like the Member ballot held on Syria Bombing in 2015? 

• Why is there little discussion on the 2019 EU elections in view of the level of dynamism it showed? Labour's campaign started in the 2019 EU elections neck and neck in the polls with 26% to the Brexit Party's 28% but Labour and its ambiguous policy message faded by -12% to get 14% to Brexit Party's 32% whilst Lib Dems rose +8% from 12% to 20% and Greens rose from +6% from 6% to 12% both mainly at the expense of Labour (and even the Change UK breakaway polled 3% too to add to the numbers even though it collapsed shortly after) so is it at all a surprise that the Brexit ambiguity position was going to come under pressure by 2019 Conference? The votes Labour lost in that election were all Remain votes simply because Labour had already lost many "Leave" votes to UKIP in increasing numbers in the EU elections of 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014 so the nature of where Labour lost its votes in the 2019 election was pretty clear. But if that evidence is not enough it's mainly forgotten that in the 2019 EU elections Labour members who had in the previous 4 years had voted Jeremy Corbyn twice in 2015 and 2016 had in 2019 voted: Lab 45%, Green 19%, LD 15%, Other parties (Inc Change UK) 7%. whilst 10% did not vote and 3% would not say/cannot recall. In other words 41% of 2019 Labour members voted for other parties who were mostly strong People's vote which clearly influenced Labour Conference to adjust Labour policy to a stronger People's Vote position. Also from that pre-existing base and the 110,000 who joined in Jan 2020 it is even less surprise that Keir Starmer won the Leadership in 2020.

• It is any surprise with a 6 million Revoke Article 50 petition having 27,000 signatures in Islington North, (and Jeremy Corbyn also received over 8,000 pro-Remain emails from his contituents) that books like Pogrund and Maguire's report of its impact on Jeremy Corbyn and on the existing Brexit ambiguity position, which would shift by 2019 Conference?

• How much did the Tories resolve their Brexit crisis of a poor result in the EU elections with a change of Leader? That was not going to happen with Labour after 2 Leader elections so the Tories, a bit like how Andy Burnham replaced Kair Starmer in 2026, had the advantage of a clear political reboot and all the "novelty" in the election that Labour had in 2017.

• Why was Labour's adoption of a watered down pro People's Vote statement in September 2019 (essentially simply allowing free votes and taking no position in a Referendum as opposed to the other motion making it clear Labour backed Remain), after avoiding mandate breaking card votes on a stronger position, now a forgotten part of what Labour did in some post 2019 General Election Revisionism? Indeed the position at the time was backed by strongly pro-Lexit advocates. Since it involved the Leadership taking a position of them being neutral when most of the Party would campaign against the deal they negotiated, it was clear the strength of feeling meant Brexit ambiguity had run out of runway and had despite all the claims that various iterations back to 2017 could have "won over the members", all the data suggests the pro-Remain view of members and unions stayed solid throughout so the direction of travel was always quite likely whatever the claimed policy/narrative they could have come up with

• Why was no communications plan or polling done on a potential general election (Pogrund and Maguire Get In 228-229) when Boris Johnson was elected Labour Leader? If 2017 had Project Ergon then 2019 seemed to be lack of preparation? Like the EU elections a 2019 Election with a decision imminently required was going to be far more an inevitable Brexit election than 2017 when voters were still digesting a decision still a few years off.

• Why did Labour Students not reform its internal balloting system earlier, before its disaffiliation?

• Do people now think trying to abolish the Deputy Leader role in 2019 then withdrawing the proposal was not a good idea in view of all the splits it caused in the Leadership? There are various claims as to who thought it up, but in the end it was perhaps more clear who was pushing it as a proposal. Whatever happened to the Deputy Leader Review proposed instead when abolition was withdrawn after bad media coverage?

• What does Andrew Fisher's " A Blizzard of Lies and Excuses" resignation from LOTO tell us about the level of dysfunction in LOTO his resignation letter described plus his accurate prediction Labour would not win a General Election, which an election agent like me at the time, knowing his thoughtful view on things like this took serious note of? - see my point below that if were going to lose then better we secured our Remain flank and establish a 20% lead over the Lib Dems to set us up for a subsequent election. What does that dysfunction now tell us in the light of the subsequent events and CEC crisis in Your Party? Was the earlier anonymous 25 staff letter in a similar vein also an indicator of where things had got by 2019?

• Why did Labour keep reporting it had over 500,000 members all through 2019 when summer news reports said it was 450,000 paid up and 485,000 in total and the NEC by-election data showed it was 430,000 paid up in October 2019? See more on membership above. There are various opinions expressed on membership transparancy, but all sides have been both transparanet when it seemed tactically good and secretive when not. It is clearly not a principle for any side so the full data I list above above may help help shift people from tactics to principle!

• Was it wise to go along with an early General Election in 2019? Should it have been resisted to the end arguing Boris Johnson was far too risk taking and there was a need for Brexit clarity to be sure of No Deal rather than simply having an EU extension to accommodate and election as the only option? Was attempting a referendum first always a better strategy? Did LOTO indecision as the larger main opposition mean the LDs and SNP filled the vacuum with their strategy? Why did LOTO of late 2019 not adopt a "Melanchon NUPES 2024 strategy of nominating someone other than him for Prime Minister" in the UK Brexit crisis of late 2019? For example Margaret Beckett as suggested by Barry Gardiner or Harriet Harman/Ken Clark suggested by Jo Swinson. Especially even more so now we know the Covid Pandemic would have likely seen any early General Election delayed until May 2021 so given a lot more time? In the end did LOTO through its actions built around Brexit ambiguity and indecision hasten its own demise?

• Is it a good strategy for Labour to avoid winter elections if it's actions can from a campaigning perspective of a better ground game in warmer months?

• Why was Mike Hill MP allowed to stand again in 2019 in view of the issues in his case?

• Did the withdrawal of half the Brexit Party candidates which Labour were warned of according to Private Eye but did not factor in early another likely reason why it was hard for the Tories to lose in 2019?

• Was the Party told its precarious position clearly (which came true) at the start of the 2019 General Election which (Progrund and Maguire Left Out pages 300-302)? Did John McDonnell's pro People's Vote position in response inadvertently save Labour from a tough fight for second with the Lib Dems? After the very bad polling through the summer of 2019 after the EU elections was Labour tactically wise to take a position or pro People's Vote to secure a 20% gap over the Lib Dems in 2019 General Election with the Tories already so far ahead in that election to help in subsequent elections rather than a wider gap with the Tories and a potential narrower gap over the Lib Dems with a more ambiguous Brexit policy? The polling Labour was advised of at the time was that it would lose 17 seats with an anti-Brexit policy and 45 with a pro-Brexit policy.

• Was a big problem for the 2019 General Election campaign that there was a big lack of communication at the top (Progrund and Maguire Left Out pages 310-312)?

• For all the talk of 2017's Project Ergon why does nobody talk about "Project Two Sets of Polling Operations" in the 2019 General Election where there was pro-People's vote and pro-Brexit polling teams by different parts of the LOTO operation (see Pogrund and Maguire Left Out pages 325-326)? Surely this could have been seen in the same light as Project Ergon not being part of a united team? 

• Was the "99% per cent strategy" of going everywhere the complete antithesis of the first 3 weeks of the 2017 campaign and Project Ergon? Did it work at all? There were a number of high profile MP seats eg Boris Johnson and Iain Duncan-Smith where lots of activists were piled into when other seats needed more help. Was the last two week switch to defensive seats strategy adopted by the Election Campaign team in 2019 also no different to the defensive elements of the first 3 weeks of Project Ergon in 2017 even if the issues with Project Ergon is more their last 3 weeks behaviour? Was the "election grid" more like a visits diary rather than a campaign grid combining visits with relevent messaging and other activity?

• Did the 2019 Manifesto have two many policies compared to the simplicity of 2017? Was the Free Broadband and £58 billion WASPI policy (with no explanation how it would be paid for) poorly received by the public?

• Is a lesson of the 2015-17 era compared to 2018-19 that there is a "novelty element" to "left populism" (ie weaknesses now exposed as much as strengths) so does it then only get "one shot" (ie 2017 but not 2019) rather than two shots? Does the decline in Zack Polanski's poll rating in less than 12 months even shorter now than the 24 months it achieved in 2015-17?

• What were the early takes on the General Election (here and here) and how much do they differ to views expressed later? The Labour List and labour Together Polling done by Datapraxis is here. Opiniums On the Day poll survey said "Labour defectors selected leadership (37%) as the main reason they did not vote for Labour. A further 21% said it was Labour’s Brexit stance that stopped that from voting Labour"

• Many will be aware of Gordon Brown's "A New Britain: Report of the Commission on the UK’s Future" on Nations/Regional Government commissioned by Keir Starmer in 2022, but is anyone now aware that the outgoing Jeremy Corbyn LOTO commissioned a detailed report in Feb 2020 called "Remaking the British State: For the Many, Not the Few" with some similar recommendations, but possibly an even more federal structure to the UK? It's impact was likely lost by coming out at the start of Covid and also at the end of the 2015-19 LOTO so not followed up in any way. There was also a later paper following it produced by left Red Paper Collective called Scotland United 1971—2021 The Fight  For a Radical Scottish Parliament that argued for a third Referendum Question on more Powers. 

• Current "Hyperpolitics" debates suggest the "Anti-Politics" of 2010's Left Populism reflected by Jeremy Corbyn (but also Bernie Sanders, Syriza, Podemos etc) was quite likely to struggle as it was a weak institutional form and would not be able to sustain a low commitment, low cost, low value politics for long which is what the evidence of energy in 2015-17 and decline in 2018-19 from the data above suggests. Looking at the points above and the new debate, how much was this underlying structural issue going to make many of the constested points above a bit less important in the longer term historic narrative of the era?

2020-2026

• If Lisa Nandy had represented a southern seat and been involved in the People's Vote campaign, would it have been more likely she would have been backed in 2020 by some centre-right groups in the party and become Leader instead of Keir Starmer? Was Keir Starmer's ambition to do the role so strong he would have secured the backing any way?

• How many members were actually "misled" in the 2020 Leadership election by the Keir Starmer "10 Pledges" bearing in mind lots (30%+) had voted for Owen Smith in 2016 & 27% for Rebecca Long-Bailey in 2020? The estimate of this website is around 12% of members may have felt misled. A key indicator was the size of the swing in the Scottish Deputy Leader election announced the day before the Labour Leadership result where Jackie Baillie not running on "10 pledges" secured a 15% swing (and and even bigger 30% swing in the affiliated section made up of a third of Unite members recommended to vote for Matt Kerr who they nominated) compared to the 2017 Scottish Leadership election.

• Is the use of "pledges" in an internal election wise when later "pledges" to the voters are far more important? Will pledges ever be used in an internal election again after 2020? Is "shadowing" (sticking close to an opponent's position to prevent a "dividing line" emerging) fine in general expression of view terms but very risky when "pledges" are applied as it leads to hostages to fortune later?

• Was the Rebecca-Long Bailey campaign undermined early by some sections preferring first Ian Lavery and then Barry Gardiner as a left candidate?

• Was Labour Together more focused on a wide range of projects initially looking at Lisa Nandy as a candidate and Keir Starmer a later decision to support?

• How much of a key role did Carolyn Harris, Jenny Chapman and Tom Kibasi play in encouraging Keir Starmer to run compared to other names associated with his campaign from March 2019? Did Labour Together come on board later in July 2019?

• How many remember that the no doubt pretty politically aware Islington North CLP's members nominated Keir Starmer?

• How many remember that Momentum in a ballot on a 18.4% member turnout supported Rebecca Long-Bailey by 70% (who did 30% prefer?) and Angela Rayner by 52% (presumably a significant minority preferred Richard Burgon?)

• It has been claimed the Labour Together 2019 General Election Review was used as a data harvesting exercise for the Keir Starmer campaign but the claim rests on the data being provided to senior people in mid March 2020 when ballots went out from 24 February. As the ballot flow models on this website show, around 70% of members who were voting would have already voted by then so if it was some sort of clever plan it was then a pretty incompetent one to leave it so late, thus suggesting the data collection claim was not the case. In any case the early results of their survey were published to the media for all candidates to read. On top of that the material in the report on member views was from the perspective of those who aggregate Labour member polling pretty unsurprising and remarkably pretty similar to the private polling of the Rebecca Long-Bailey campaign which might then suggest the report was a pretty fairly collated study, notwithstanding the other issues around the organisation's pre-2020 work/donations and its subsequent 2023 hubristic bragging of its role which then led to far more media scrutiny and its subsequent crisis over commissioned research into journalists.

• How significant is it that quite a few books on Labour in the 2020-22 period what ever their politics quote from the Labour Together 2019 General Election Review and none seem to query its election analysis or it's recommendation that Labour should invest more in Community Organising?

• Would Keir Starmer have been better off from a transparency perspective releasing his list of donors in mid to late -March 2020 bearing in mind more than 80% of those who would vote, would have voted by then, so it would have made little difference to the very clear result? Donor data from early March 2020 here and here and mid April here shows that Keir Starmer had £536,000 (£455,000 from large donors, £81,400 from Unison, USDAW, Community) Rebecca Long-Bailey had £391,200 (£271,200 from Unite and CWU, £120,000 from Momentum), whilst Lisa Nandy had £200,000 (From donors and GMB).

• Now that there is public Labour member polling by YouGov, Survation and Find Out Now, which was still quite rare before 2020 and minimal before 2015, is it possible that future candidates for Leader won't need to spend much on "secret polling" (two of the three candidates in 2020 commissioned polling) and the aggregation of member views on websites like this can help establish more of a "shared narrative" on member opinion?

• Why was the 800 page leaked document leaked to many sources and online outriders all at once on the same day in April 2020 rather than just one or two key media outlets as per normal comms practice? (notice people had got better at "single media site leaking" by the time of the Al Jazeera TV programmes) What impact would this tactic have on the subsequent cost of legal challenges?

• Irrespective of the political motivators, is one lesson for the future that if people leak a report with lots of personal data in it, it could cost the Party a large amount in legal fees and payouts a few year down the line? Whether leakers consider that at the time is another story?

• How did the left manage to run in effect three slates in the 2020 NEC by-election contributing to a loss in an election they could have won and weakened their position on the NEC? See some of the story here.

• Why did CLPD oppose STV being introduced for the NEC CLP seat elections but now supports it's extension within the party now? How much is this a principle or a tactic? Could STV be used for parts of elections to some other sections of some Committees (eg National Women's Committee CLP section?) especially now online systems make it easy to count the results? Having now reached 4 CLP NEC elections by STV do people now think its encouragement of diversity (eg we now seem to have 4 factions standing plus independents) is a positive thing as it gives all sides a stake in the outcome and recognises "take the power" politics is not the only way of doing things?

• Does anyone believe the Party could have ignored the EHRC Report once it was initiated and once a statutory body like it publicly reported using the term "Unlawful Acts" and also served the Labour Party with an Unlawful Act Notice served under section 21 of the Equality Act 2006?  What various reports of LOTO/GLU actions under various leaderships indicate was that until the EHRC report was completed (and later Forde reinforced) was there was a longstanding blurring of roles even before 2015 and no separation of powers, which a combination of the social media era, GDPR, complaints and disputes made unsustainable in the modern era. Labour rules may have in the past stated any "national officer" could "act", but in reality no one was ever expecting the Leadership to actually lead or drive such a process (as it already had a GS and GLU for that purpose) and was it a good use of their time and role anyway? As a result a blurred boundaries/halfway house existed where Leaderships were inconsistently consulted over cases and that was not likely sustainable when the system came under what was statutory external legal scrutiny.

• Moving beyond all the battle lines over what it said, what are the wider implications of the EHRC report after their investigations of both the BNP and Labour for managing equalities issues? What should all political parties learn from the 2015-2020 era?

  • This duty applies to all political parties, across England, Scotland and Wales, that have more than 25 members and regulate their admission to membership by rules and a selection process, so small parties registered with the Electoral Commission do not have an excuse of size or relevance. The EHRC has produced a 2010 Equality Act Guide for Political Parties which I imagine all the larger ones have used to confirm their rules and processes are in line with it.

  • Zero tolerance is fully permissible as an objective and encouraged

  • Trust and confidence in complaint handling with a clear set of processes

  • Independence and separation of powers to end political interference with Leadership roles not involved

  • Investigation of likes, retweets and shares on social media is allowed as part of a zero tolerance approach

  • Clear, fair and proportionate sanctions

  • Education and Training which can include good induction for all members

  • Monitoring and evaluation to spot early where things are going wrong or an unexpected rise in numbers of cases that requires review

  • Members who  did not hold any office or role, means the Party could not be held directly responsible for their conduct under the Equality Act 2010.  

  • Under the Equality Act 2010, the Labour Party is legally responsible for unlawful conduct carried out by its agents in the course of their authorised functions or duties. For a person to act as an agent of the Labour Party, they must:  a) be carrying out authorised functions, and b) have some authority to represent the Labour Party in relation to third parties. In other words those with a role do make the Party responsible and that likely means "due diligence" (which was on the rise already since 2015 due to the social media era) is now an inescapable part of a Political Party's operation. 

  • The report says"Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) protect freedom of expression and freedom of association. The Human Rights Act 1998 brought the ECHR directly into UK law.  Article 10 will protect Labour Party members who, for example, make legitimate criticisms of the Israeli government, or express their opinions on internal Party matters, such as the scale of antisemitism within the Party, based on their own experience and within the law. It does not protect criticism of Israel that is antisemitic." This is important as it can be interpreted in a number of ways because of other aspects of party operation such as its reputation. It is clear that such expressions described are protected so a member , who is also a member of the public too, should not, for example, be taken to court over them. However a party also has a right to decide its own reputation and whether actions by members aid that as that is a "quintessentially political decision" as allowed for under Rothery v Evans legal case 2021. In other words a party can decide a member's action is not helping the Party's reputation in the fight for objectives such as equalities. As a result the party itself is its own arbiter not the courts as the courts accept only the party can be the judge of its own reputation. Thus a member has free speech without any fear they could face a court case, but the party as a membership organisation could still decide their actions imply they are not helping the party over its reputation and bringing it into "disrepute" and can discipline them up to expulsion. This is why Article 10 is unlikely to protect a member from expulsion if the Party is applying a "disrepute" judgment on them. This is why crowdfunded legal cases seeking to fight a case under Article 10 and 11 may not get anywhere if the party is quite likely applying a reputational judgement, not a freedom of speech judgement over their actions.

• Could the Jeremy Corbyn EHRC suspension have been avoided if he had just said the same as his LOTO Chief of Staff who commented at the time and which did not generate any similar controversy? The public polling at the time showed voters agreed with the suspension decision 58%-13% but more significantly Labour voters supported suspension by 41%-26%. 

• This was an important point for the Party and it was fortunate significant member polling by Survation was conducted with a big 5,000 sample survey which showed:  

  • 48% of members thought Keir Starmer was wrong not to restore the Whip and 46% throught he was right

  • 58% of members had a negative view of Jeremy Corbyn's statement on the EHRC report and 31% a positive view

  • 63% did not trust the then (2018-2020) disciplinary process and 18% did trust it

  • 55% said Labour was moving in the right direction and 40% the wrong direction

  • 49% were optimistic about Labour's direction and 41% pessimistic 

  • 60% saw Keir Starmer favourably and 34% unfavourably

  • 68% saw Angela Rayner favourably and 16% unfavourably

  • 58% saw Keir Starmer performance as Leader favourably and 34% unfavourably 

  • 48% saw Jeremy Corbyn performance as Leader favourably and 46% unfavourably 

  • 63% saw Labour divided under Keir Starmer and 26% united

  • 83% saw Labour divided under Jeremy Corbyn and 13% united

  • 59% saw Ed Miliband performance as Leader favourably and 19% unfavourably 

  • 66% saw Gordon Brown performance as Leader favourably and 17% unfavourably 

  • 45% saw Tony Blair performance as Leader favourably and 45% unfavourably 

  • 74% said the 2019 Manifesto policies were broadly correct and 14% broadly incorrect

  • From the above one might characterise the results as Right views 45%, Centre/Soft Left views 25%, Hard Left views 31% with members in general more left on policy and a little less left on people perhaps reflecting strong views on left policies but more electable people seen in the 2020 Leadership election

• Was Jeremy Corbyn in October 2020 issued with a "reminder of values" or  a "reminder of conduct" sanction under Labour disciplinary rules - see complaints guide above - and also asked to remove a Facebook posting when at the same time the panel also unanimously ended his membership suspension? According to the book Left Out and other reports too it was  a "reminder of conduct" and Oliver Eagleton The Starmer Project says this was a step up in sanction from the originally negotiated "Reminder of Values". John Trickett's (a Jeremy Corbyn supporter) commentary on getting agreement from him is significant about the difficulties resolving the issue (Pogrund & Maguire Get In pages 138-143). The whip suspension was under PLP Standing Orders - see above. A copy of the Whip's letter is here which explained about the "reminder of conduct" warning sanction as well as removal of the contested post and also set out 3 questions: 1. Apology for comments on 29 Oct 2020?, 2. Removal of Facebook post or edit it?, 3. Support recommendations of EHRC report. A left barrister (he was a former member of SWP and left over the "Comrade Delta" case which he has written a book about here and joined the RS21 Group which split from the SWP over the case) wrote about the Jeremy Corbyn suspension here and said the Corbyn legal team may have had an arguable case over natural justice, where the the subject matter  was investigated by the Party not the PLP and not being disciplined twice. A contrary view might be that Parliamentary Whip decisions are by parliamentary convention given immunity from the Courts and protected by the Exclusive Cognisance element of Parliamentary Privilege and though not tested in courts recently it was clearly legally explored by the 21 Tory MPs who lost the whip under Boris Johnson who did not take it further after that. However the left barrister also said that instead of his suggested better legal strategy the Jeremy Corbyn legal team made a tactical error and went to court in January 2021 applying for a preliminary argument about the early release of documents (‘disclosure’) to enable him to bring a case and "Corbyn instead fought the decision not to restore the whip on the grounds that he had reached an agreement with the leadership for his full reinstatement. The judge did ‘not accept pre-action disclosure is desirable’. ‘Mr Corbyn,’ he said, ‘has sufficient material to make a decision on the merits of his case and to plead to both arms of the case he wishes to advance.’ (If his case depended on an agreement with the Labour Party, in other words, a record of that agreement should be in his possession, and Corbyn should already have all the documents he needed to describe it.) Defeated on that preliminary issue, Corbyn dropped any plans to sue for his readmission." Its an interesting legal point, potentially applying in other TU negotiation cases, that if you are making a claim over an "agreement" but saying you need more information on that agreement, the judge may pose the question: don't you already have all the agreement documents for you to have agreed it? Oliver Eagleton in The Starmer project suggests the Corbyn Legal team went for the weaker option because (as I suggest under the Exclusive Cognisance point above) they knew they could not win a case and were merely making a tactical move to expose "text messages, emails and minutes" to make their own point that an assumed deal had been reneged on and perhaps expose inconsistencies in disciplinary processes even after the EHRC report? Interestingly at no point did Jeremy Corbyn (nor all other suspended MPs) exercise his right to appeal under the PLP Standing Orders to the 25 strong PLP parliamentary Committee, which because it exists as an appellate body for Leader/Chief Whip actions further protects the legal status of the already Privelged PLP processes from any challenge. The way this all happened may be less surprising to people now people have observed the planning, launch and operation of Your Party and its CEC. Probably the bigger lesson for what was then the less experienced Starmer team is they learned from the incident that using Parliamentary Privilege protected whip suspension processes and was possibly a better and quicker thing than official Labour Party processes as the latter could always catch up any decision made by Leader/Chief Whip. This final point is also another example of what the 2018 Leadership/Gen Sec also failed to spot (perhaps also through inexperience?) with the Hodge case -see above - going for membership suspension too rather than starting with Chief Whip. Both these two examples above from different wings of the party also illustrate that "institutional tacit knowledge" matters and the high turnover of people at the top in the 2015-2020 period rather than its evolution can see  "the careful use of PLP Standing Orders/Party rule book etc" decline in quality as a result.

• Some issues are not just a political dispute about their subject matter, but also their level of "prevalence" becomes an issue with various sides claiming, whether positive of not, the issue has been either "overstated" or "understated". I give an example in the disciplinary data above. More generally, how does either side in such a debate rationalise such an issue in the modern social media era since 2010, when as I describe above there can be exponential amplification when just 200 people tweeting 10 items a day on a subject for a year would generate 730,000 tweets even before they get exponentially amplified further through all those people's followers likes and retweets? Does that sometimes potentially substantial exponential amplification - which can influence how a community reacts to a perception of a threat - get factored into "overstated" and "understated" debates or is the issue argued over just about the original small number of people and not the exponential amplification?

• Was guidance sent to CLPs over what they could debate and when they could meet by three General Secretaries before the current one? Yes. All three whatever their politics issued such guidance  and in the disciplinary section above there are some examples.

• Was it tactically wise for so many CLP officers to agree for their CLPs to pass motions of protest specifically breaking General Secretary Guidance which led to many being suspended and many losing their posts in the meantime, when if they wanted to hold their role is was more sensible either not to pass a motion or to engage with their regional party and test what worded motions they could get away with which quite a few CLPs did?

• How many court cases over its rules have Labour lost and how many has it won and how much do members understand that under the Rothery v Evans court case courts made it clear parties could make "quintessentially political decisions"? Labour does tend to win most court cases including the well known Evangelou v McNichol case.

• Why do almost no factions, MPs' or senior Labour sources criticise the principle of  the Trade union link nowadays compared to the 1990s and 2000s?

• Why do almost no  factions, MPs' or senior Labour sources advocate for abolition of General Committees (GC)s nowadays compared to the advocacy of the late 1990s "Enfield Southgate Experiment?

• Why do almost no factions, MPs' or senior Labour sources argue for primaries these days? Indeed the only case I have seen made for it for a Leader election and parliamentary selections (with mechanisms to stop "entryism) in the last decade is in the conclusions of the book Labour's Civil Wars by Patrick Diamond and Giles Radice, who were politically rooted in the Blair era or earlier and their suggestions perhaps sounds like that is when they were formed? They also made other suggestions too regarding participatory  and digital engagement with members on policy and vague suggestions on "building up community organisations", the Party name, a two day only less formal conference, a review of the 2021 Leadership process with no suggestion of direction of travel, more Cllr reps on the NEC and a reduction of  TU representation on the NEC and at Conference. However no MPs, TUs or any other organisations  has taken any of it further at all. Interestingly they do talk about more plurality and tolerance of views to encourage "intellectual innovation" and admit the New Labour era was weak at that, however, based on their organisational proposals, that seems to be more along the lines of people can express their view but the direction of the party is still set, so whether that will be a motivator for some members is another question? Looking at its expectations, when written in 2022/2023 it sounded like a reassertion  of the Blair era narrative of "the left was split between Labour and Liberals and we need to bring it all together", along with its lack of any reference to electoral reform too, which may have been influenced when Lab was polling 40%-47% most of that time. However after 2024 with political and electoral fragmentation leading to a rise of values driven parties like Reform  from 15% in 2024 to over 25% and the rise of the Greens from their 7% record score in 2024 to 10%-15% scores and increasing debates across parties on electoral reform, is that Blair era Lib/Lab narrative now outdated in the light of big political changes?

• What was the NEC Digital Walk Out? A row over election of NEC Chair where 13 NEC members withdrew from the meeting over the ending  of a longstanding tradition of seniority  (ie length of NEC service) also known in trade union parlance as "Buggins Turn" was overturned to elect a Chair more politically sympathetic to the Leader. Since then the NEC has agreed new protocols for electing its chair.

• Did Richard Leonard as Scottish Leader survive a no-confidence motion that was withdrawn because it did not have the numbers, but fell a few months later when a Coop party rep on the Scottish Executive Committee (SEC) had passed away and been replaced by another and his own union the GMB (and possibly USDAW too) withdrew support meaning he was likely to lose by around 18-13 at the SEC?

• In retrospect do all sides now admit the first choice of 3 candidates to support for the Liverpool mayoral selection was a bit of disaster in the light of subsequent events? The Liverpool Parking fines scandal impacted on all 3 original candidates and particualarly on one of them who with the support of her union legally challenged the result who then defected to Liverpool Community Independents and was then removed as a candidate by her new party due to the issue.

• Was the call for an emergency party conference in early 2021 ever backed by a significant number of unions or raised at the NEC?

• There was a YouGov poll of members in April 2021 which further showed the state of members views at an important period of internal conflict:

  • 74% of members were favourable to Keir Starmer and 24% unfavourable

  • 81% saw Gordon Brown favourably

  • 78% saw Ed Miliband favourably

  • 74% saw Clement Attlee favourably

  • 69% saw Neil Kinnock favourably

  • 55% saw Jeremy Corbyn favourably

  • 54% saw Tony Blair favourably

  • 61% of members felt Keir Starmer was doing a better job than Jeremy Corbyn and 39% thought he was doing worse 

  • 6% of members identified as Centrist, 29% slightly left of centre, 46% fairly left wing and 18% identifed as very left wing

  • 80% of members thought the Tories would win in April 2021 and 12% thought Labour

  • 43% of members thought Labour could win by May 2024 and 40% the Tories more likely

  • 59% wanted the party to campaign to rejoin the EU

• Why was the due diligence on the 2021 Hartlepool by-election candidate done so badly?

• Did the Covid social distancing era, transition in staff and a degree of inexperience mean Labour HQ totally misread Hartlepool as a potential hold when it was clear Brexit deal and early vaccine boost as well as a very weak Reform candidate was going to see the Tories easily win the by-election bybringing together the combined 55% Con/Brexit Party vote for a 52% win over Labour's 29%?

• Did Tony Blair still have a preference for a Macron style "En Marche" party as better option when he wrote about Labour in May 2021?

• How much chance was there a potential Leadership challenge in May and July 2021 at the time of key parliamentary by-elections? Was the perception at that point from both right and left of the Party that Keir Starmer was a sort-term leader and an election winning one would take over at some point?

• Was the start of the Batley and Spen by-election as disorganised as was reported by some?

• How much did Labour holding Batley and Spen by-election by 323 votes save Keir Starmer's leadership?

• How many members were actually expelled in the 2020-2024 period based on the Party published complaints data and how many resigned? Based on the complaints data of the Labour Party the figure for removals from membership  for 2020-2024 is 1,228 whilst over 200,000 members resigned. The 1,228 figure can be broken down into 3 sub-sections: Expelled - 260 (majority for antisemitism but at least 20% for bullying and harassment); Excluded - 765 (Mainly for support for organisations/candidates not allowed by Labour); Terminated - 203 (Mainly standing against Labour or supporting such a campaign).

• How long did Bob Kerslake's Organise to Win Review go on for? It was launched in 2020 and by 2021 had identified roles would disappear, but continued into late 2022. How many voluntary redundancies did the Labour Party make in late 2021? Labour employed 421 staff in December 2019 - with 367 of them in full-time roles.  In total, 99 staff volunteered to take a payout and leave, but some applications were rejected as their role was seen as crucial to the running of a restructured party machine.  Labour accepted 81 applications for voluntary redundancy in order to drastically cut costs due to  pay-outs in legal cases relating to antisemitism, as well as the cost of fighting three general elections since 2015.. Labour were hoping to at least make at least 90 people redundant as a way to save millions of pounds and negotiated an agreement with Unite and GMB for no compulsory redundancies so this was likely achieved. As a result it looks like  at least a quarter of staff left at that time. More on the recomposition of staff here.

• Was it much noticed at the time that Keir Starmer's The Road Ahead Fabian pamphlet in September 2021 outlined "10 Principles for a Contribution Society" and did few comment on whether this designed as a replacement for his original 10 pledges?

• Is it correct one of the earlier proposals to change the MP Leader nomination threshold put to the NEC  was 25% not 20%?

• Is the 20% Leader nomination threshold going to have far more impact on Labour Right behaviour in future (ie less Blears, Kendall, Flint, Murray type candidates) than it will have on Labour Left behaviour, bearing in mind even a 2018-21 10% threshold (ie currently 41 MPs) the SCG would be 10 -15 MPs short and with a popular broad based candidate like Andy Burnham more than 25 MPs short?

• Presumably the 2021 proposal to look at an Electoral College "next year" with a working party report was dropped as we have now had 1 Labour Leader, 1 Deputy Leader election since?

• Are people aware that as a result of all the modern crowdsourced legal challenges that Labour faced it had to introduce a rule for the worst sort so that there is now automatic termination of membership for those "Instituting legal proceedings against the Party that are certified as being vexatious, totally without merit or wholly without merit by a Court or Tribunal in the United Kingdom".? Before anyone thinks this is somehow unfair there is a very clear Courts definition of what and who vexatious litigants are. 

• Did avoiding a by-election in Leicester East after the non-custodial sentence for expelled after a legal case Labour MP Claudia Webbe  come at a moment when Keir Starmer was still in the aftermath of May election results so took the pressure off him?

• Was the defection of Christian Wakeford MP a bit of a risky operation that could have backfired?

• Is the problem with Anonyvoter (which was given free to Labour) not the system which works like other balloting systems, but the age old computing issue of "Garbage In, Garbage Out? In other words if the data supplied has issues, then the outcome will be questioned? Is the management of a system more an issue than the system?

• In December 2021 Jeremy Gilbert set out the "institutionalist case" for staying in Labour in a Momentum newsletter here. In view of the continued exit of Labour members after does that further help confirm the Hyperpolitics hypothesis of individualised low institutionalism?

• In 2022 Labour Whips ordered 11 Labour MPs to withdraw their names from this Stop the War Statement on both NATO and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. All 11 Labour MPs (Diane Abbott, Tahir Ali, Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Ian Lavery, John McDonnell, Ian Mearns, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Mick Whitley, Beth Winter) complied, but two other MPs refused. No surprise from Claudia Webbe refusing  to do so as she had been expelled by Labour after her court case, However Jeremy Corbyn as a suspended MP refused to do so too, however under PLP Standing Orders, suspended MPs are not considered "independent" and still have to follow the whip. This meant for an MP seeking readmittance to the PLP at the time (he was still a member but we have Member rules and PLP rules which can separately lead to suspension from either part of the organisation) he was in conflict with the whips from 2022 through to 2024. Has anyone ever explained what happened here? Important to note here in the Ukraine/Russia conflict Labour voters prefer Ukraine by 88% to Russia 1% and as of April 2026 Labour voters support NATO membership by 83% for to 3% against.

• Bearing in mind "Beergate" was investigated twice by the Police and no case found to answer, how long an issue did it last? The public in two polls 58%-36% and 46%-32% said Keir Starmer should resign if fined. Was it the right decision for him (and Angela Rayner) to offer to resign if fined? Did him saying he would resign when Tories did not equally do that secure the moral/ethical high ground over Tory Ministers who did not? How well known is it that John Healey was in the frame to become acting Leader if Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner resigned (Pogrund and Maguire Get In page  261). If Keir had resigned was a potential Leadership Election/Coronation between Rachel Reeves as then favourite of the Shadow Cabinet, Wes Streeting, Lisa Nandy and was Rosena Allin Khan pitching for Leader or Deputy? (Pogrund and Maguire Get In page  262-266). Was that. Boris Johnson's and Liz Truss resignations a key turning point in making it likely Labour would win the General election?

• How important to its success at the 2024 General Election was the later stages of Bob Kerslake's Organise to Win review which shifted staff and resources from LOTO to Labour HQ?

• Of the 11 out of 165 Forde Report recommendations not implemented, there will be more focus on the issues of discipline (relatively minor issues), staff neutrality (a Northcote-Trevelyan big point) and recruitment policy, but did the NEC get it wrong is assuming Forde was only suggesting "Compassion Training" for staff and would the work of the organisation that actually exists Compassion in Politics be better rolled out as part of general training opportunities for members too? It was never going to happen because of the need to be seen to take action, but I have more recently suggested that, from an accountability perspective of its Terms of Reference, Forde might have been able to give an overview if it had reported after at least 4 big legal cases had concluded in mid 2024 so it could given an overview. Because  it did not and reported earlier, Forde's main value was it was a review of disciplinary/complaints processes and because much dovetailed with EHRC recommendations (no surprise really as any Barrister would have studied them carefully) it means Labour's processes have been externally reviewed twice. That is why they are unlikely to change much in future and are a settled part of how Labour deals with them now.

• Has anyone ever written an article about whatever happened to the leak of 500GB of Labour disciplinary data and other material from 1998-2022 that the Al Jazeera Labour Files claims was the basis of its story bearing in mind that would include a lot of personal data about complex disciplinary cases that were not at all about the political conflicts of post-2015? For example has material from that data or the data shown in the 2020 leaked report ever been used for other stories/books?  And where did the data that led to the later Paul Ovenden resignation in 2025 come from?

• How much have the 2022 Our Bloc hypotheses of former Jeremy Corbyn era LOTO staffer James Schneider been borne out by events? The book was based on a 6 part series of articles in 2021 at Novara Media here. Perhaps the article on the Labour Party is of most interest for this website as it proposed a "formal alliance" between Socialist Campaign Group MPs, the left-led trade unions and Momentum. It also proposed to "replace the failed backroom bargaining model of the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance for determining candidates for internal party elections and replace it with a democratic primary system." Another proposal in the book was the creation of a Left Bloc "Secretariat" - essentially a recreation of 2015-19 LOTO perhaps with less dysfunction - running a Left Comms Grid. None of these proposals have happened so far, which  is perhaps no surprise as each group was an established separate institution in their own right and there is no actual real pressure on them  from above or below to change. On top of that the Union's relationship with the Labour Party is more seeking to influence its Leadership, whoever they are, over policy in opposition and especially in government. Thus why would they fund an oppositionalist secretariat when they are at the same time lobbying others on policy both for value for money and political grounds? Perhaps the failure of the "Enough is Enough" campaign is an example of where these challenges to any Left Bloc formation is best shown, but Enogh is Enough was also an early warning of the challenges Your Party would face when driven with a top down perspective? James Schneider's book's "four futures" scenarios for the 2020s of the left influencing Governments, a left Labour, a Lab split to create a big left party and a bottom-up movement changing the constitution do not seem to be coming to pass and most significantly the book assumes a broad progressive shift and makes no reference to the potential rise of a UKIP/Reform since 2024 (which surely BNP rises under Lab in 2006-10 might suggest was possible?) or a large right media/social media ecology which surely Brexit's 52% might well have suggested in 2021/2? It also refers to General Strikes without explaining why since the 1926 General Strike this has not really been a strategy/tactic that a big majority on the TUC or its main unions have ever seriously considered since? It should be said that since 2024 some of the more external to Labour issues  (with the rise of Green's, Left Indys and Your Party with a combined membership of over 270,000 close to the left activist 300,000 number he suggests exists) that he raises are now maybe more important such as community organising?  However so far there is no evidence from Your Party or even the much bigger Greens that this is being developed in any significant way that he hopes for. Now that the current "Hyperpolitics" debates provides an explanation about long-term political institution decline and current weakness leading to a very disparate range of responses to political events, does that landscape that it describes make "Our Bloc" politics much harder than though before?

• How much have the 2022 "optimistic fightback" hypotheses of Mike Phipps "Don't Stop Thinking about Tomorrow" book been borne out by subsequent events. It seemed to reflect still strong left positions in NEC/CAC results, Conference votes, CLP's, Young Labour and Regions in 2020-21. It even flagged an early 2021 rise of Unite local affiliations (was this some political messaging in advance of the Unite Gen Sec elections?), but this seems to have dissipated from mid 2022 onward and results in some of the above cited places showed a direction of travel to the right by late 2022 and in 2023 when members had continued to leave, Jeremy Corbyn was removed by the NEC as a future Labour candidate and CLPs and their officers were reconstituted in advance of boundary changes.

• Why is Labour often so late selecting candidates for local elections compared to other parties bearing in mind its impact of campaign effectiveness?

• How significant is it that between 2021 and 2022 over 400 out of 651 CLPs and 8 out of 11 affiliated TUs (representing approx 61% of CLP vote and 75% of affiliate vote so approx 68% of the overall conference vote) voted to support electoral reform?

• 20 Years after the Iraq War, what is public opinion on it? Some data here. That was a significant issue for new or returning Labour members in 2015 aand 2016. An interesting segmentation question that some could have asked would have been to ask Labour members the following: "If you could choose just one of these two, what was the biggest foreign policy disaster of the last 25 years: Iraq War or Brexit?"

• What did the motion passed at the NEC by 22 votes to 12 to prevent Jeremy Corbyn standing as a Labour candidate actually say?  It said the party's “standing with the electorate in the country, and its electoral prospects in seats it is required to win in order to secure a parliamentary majority and/or win the next general election, are both significantly diminished should Mr Corbyn be endorsed”. The motion saw the NEC agree that the “Labour Party’s interests, and its political interests at the next general election, are not well served by Mr Corbyn running as a Labour Party candidate”.  The above text is important as, whatever the various views on any individual, it is in legal terms not about a "disciplinary" issue but in effect a "reputational" decision  as the Rothery v Evans legal case made it clear decisions over candidates were a "quintessentially political decision" so that regarding a party's "reputation" only the party could decide if a member had bought it into "dis-repute"

• Bearing in mind London ULEZ has been a success in both smooth implementation and impact was the Party in error in running against it in the Uxbridge and south By-election bearing in mind Uxbridge along with Orpington and Romford were the only 3 bits of London to vote against having a Mayor of London in the 1998 referendum for the Mayor and GLA so whether it was ULEZ or some other issue there would have always been an anti-Mayor issue in the seat?

• Are people aware of the YouGov polling of Labour members in April 2023 and Oct 2023 which showed evidence of membership recomposition where Keir Starmer had an April 75%-23% and October 81%-17% positive rating and a Leadership rerun would have in April 2023 been Starmer 55% Long-Bailey 17%, Nandy 16% and in October 2023 Starmer 61%, Nandy 17%, Long Bailey 13%? 

• Was the appointment of Sue Gray a mistake as many Permanent Secretaries prophesized (Pogrund and Maguire Get In page 300)? Did the delay in appointing her due to Civil Service rules also not help the preparation for Government issues that became a big issue later? How much was the LOTO team a "Boys Club" in its mindset, that made her job difficult or was the use of that framing counterproductive in internal disputes? Was her Feb 2024 Leak Inquiry over the £28 Billion figure being dropped something that damaged her relationships in LOTO? Did here not knowing who Hollie Ridley was (Pogrund and Maguire Get In page 372) undermine her position with a lot of LOTO/HQ staff? How defined was Waheed Alli's role in fundraising and what impact did the donations to the Party and Labour Together have? Was this donations phase driven by the Tories raising national election spending limit from £19.5 million to £35 million?  Why was he involved with Government appointments?

• What was the difference in parliamentary candidate due diligence for 2015 (localised), 2017, (none), 2019 (more than people realise as candidates were asked to remove online posts), 2024 (strong on online issues but clearly much weaker on other aspects as some subsequent cases showed) and has its rise been inevitable across all parties due to the rise of social media self-publishing since the early 2010s? Because Parties are seen to be legally responsible for those acting on its behalf even when they are a representative and not a direct employee and the digital footprint of its representatives has massively expanded in the last 15 years, it is hard not to see the drivers for more due diligence as inevitable across all parties irrespective of the politics.

• How many "left PPCs" would have actually got selected by target CLPs if NEC longlisting was not introduced? Has anyone ever compiled a list to look at? The most detailed news article is here but is not complete. Of 200 or so selections held in 2022-24, my own estimate is it may be up to 20+ people in just over 10% of selections. The ones I found of those seeking selection (but not necessarily a shoo in as candidate in a contest) but were not longlisted by the NEC include the following 18 across 16 constituencies: (Scotland) Matt Kerr in Glasgow South West, (North East) Simon Fletcher in Gateshead, Paul Daly in Sedgefield, (North West) Joseph Ghayouba in Copeland, Sean Halsall in Southport, Leigh Drennan in Bolton North East, (Yorks/Humber) Jack Hemingway in Wakefield, (West Midlands) Mish Rahman in Wolverhampton West, (East Midlands) Greg Marshall in Broxtowe (London) Emma Dent Coad (and when she was not longlisted Kaasim Aliin) Kensington, Maurice McLeod in Camberwell & Peckham, Connor Liberty in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, (South East) Carl Walker (and also soft left Cat Arnold) in East Worthing and Shoreham, Lauren Townsend in Milton Keynes, Maya Evans in Hastings (South West) Doina Cornell in Stroud. That list is separate to the 3 MPs who failed to be reselected as a result of a trigger ballots or competing with other MPs in boundary changes (Beth Winter, Sam Tarry, Mick Whitley) and those 2 MPs/candidates directly removed by the NEC (Lloyd Russell-Moyles and Faiza Shaheen). To the list for the record should be added Graeme Currie who was not longlisted for the North Staffordshire by-election. Important to note there is no guarantee some of the candidates seeking selection would have been selected due to the 50% hit rate of member selected Corbyn supporting candidates in 2015-19 selections (Source: James Schneider's Left Bloc) and the 40% recomposition of membership after 2020 which together may take the party back to the sort of far smaller number of results left candidates got prior to 2015 - perhaps 20%? Thus quite possible only 25% of the above list may have been selected (eg 4?). I also have no doubt there were also lots of "locals" excluded from the appointment of candidates in the 200+ non battleground seats in 2024 but that was less because of their "politics" and more because they were simply not in the networks that would have ensured them being noticed at HQ to be selected. Those networks may well have had a "political" slant, but the fundamental driver was less "politics" and far more "last minute convenience" and "willingness to mobilise their CLP to support the twinning strategy" through a candidate contract (already long used for Labour Cllrs well before 2015) and that is different. After researching the above what may be needed in future is a website similar to this listing parliamentary selections and recording main applicants, longlisting and shortlisting and the outcome.

• Did Matt Faulding, running the candidate recruitment operation really have a number of explicit photos of some potential candidates not long-listed sent to him? Did Both Ed Balls and David Miliband really want to be candidates in 2024? (Pogrund and Maguire Get In pages 384-385)

• Why are people who are quite used to fighting elections where over 20% of voters have postal votes actually surprised that some Labour parliamentary selections will have up to 50% of what will be more politically aware Labour members applying for a postal vote? Those who may secure advantage in such situations may be those who are  local officers or their allies who have access to local data.

• Why have over 200+ smaller CLPs not had a local parliamentary selection since 2014 under different wings of the Party now covering the 2017, 2019 and 2024 General elections with so far no guarantee it won't happen again for a 2028/29 General election?

• Who did the media seem to think Keir Starmer's likely successor was during 2023 Annual Conference? Was it a continuation of the spreculation at the time of the Keir Starmer might have to resign period in 2022?

• Did the response of Keir Starmer to the events of "October 7 "on October 11 2023 LBC interview regarding "proportionate response" to the attacks (compounded by the Emily Thornberry response on Newsnight) create a big issue around "collective punishment" (breaching the Hague and Geneva Conventions of International Law) have a big long-term impact in some voters views towards him that hardened as the main conflict continued for over 2 years? Was the latter call for "humanitarian pause" also not enough and "ceasefire" a better call as done by Andy Burnham, Sadiq Khan and Anas Sarwar on 25 October? A quarter of then Labour MPs had called for a ceasefire by 26 October and 11 Frontbenchers resigned to support the SNP ceasefire motion on 15 November. In the end Labour committed to an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire" on 21 Feb 2024 after the Speaker controversially allowed a labour amendment to an SNP motion.

• How did Labour manage to damage themselves over the Rochdale by-election with what was a lack of due diligence over a candidate's previous actions?

• How much was it noticed in May 2024 local elections before the General Election that in wards where more than one if five were Muslim, that Labour's vote dropped by 21%? Was this early signal of wider disaffection taken into account enough when further data from the general election showed that disaffection had widened with a rise in the Green vote too - see below?

• Could the Party have handled the Diane Abbott candidature issue far better bearing in mind she was allowed to stand in the end?

• How well did the Natalie Elphicke defection to Labour go down with the PLP?

• Was the "crocodile bar chart" (based on an analysis that the higher the Leave seat the higher the swing to Labour) presented to the NEC which showed Labour was increasingly upping its vote in Leave voting wards in local elections and the Tories dropping even more (Pogrund and Maguire Get In pages 388-390) a key aspect to maximising "vote efficiency" as it meant Labour could just reach a lot of close to 60%+ Leave seats which looked impossible from 2019 result scores? Does the crocodile strategy reinforce the point made in 2019  that in an election that most really did expect Labour was going to lose - see above - it was far better then to rise above unrealistic short-termist factional position (as basically John McDonnell did, but is still not thanked enough for from both wings of the party) and see the best strategy was to secure Remain votes for a short-term massive lead over the LDs (+20%) and Greens (+30%) in order to then have a lot of latitude with that vote to focus on the likely bigger return of Leave voters as Brexit soured in the subsequent five years. So far no one (ignoring for a moment the novelty and uniqueness that 2017 had) has taken 2019 and 2024 together (because 2019 is lumped in with 2017) but if you do and see a strategy to defend one cultural values wing to give you latitude to reach another the two elections together may have lessons for the future? Indeed, and this is rarely pointed out, if the tragedy of Israel/Palestine/Gaza had not happened in late 2023 it is likely Labour would have had even more latitude in 2024 which may have lasted for a few years instead of a collapse in the vote in just months?

• Why does Labour operate one-way "twinning" of less winnable seats with winnable ones when the Tories have for many years operated two-way "mutual aid" which means a Target CLP establishes a relationship with the less winnable one and build a relationship making it easy to mobilise members to travel to help it? Instead, did heavy handed switching off of smaller CLP access to data simply meant some were demotivated or the one's who expected that to happen simply "went dark" and carried on?

• Was the main aim with "Hero voters" less to win lots of them (as only a few needed as +2 (-1/+1) voters, but as much to reassure them so they did as much abstained ("voter depression") as voted?

• How big was Labour's polling day operation.? Labour gained 0.17% of vote for every extra 1% contact rate which was 1 vote for every 6 contacts. A voter was 86% more likely to vote Labour if they had 8 or more contacts via doorstep, phone, text, email, social media. It was claimed Labour spoke to 1 million voters on polling day which assuming most efforts went into 200 key targets means around 5,000 voters per target and if campaigners speak to up to 50 voters that only requires 100 volunteers per seat.

• How much was Labour's drop of from a final polling average of 39% to a -4% drop to 35% in GB vote share down to tactical votes for LDs  +1% and Others (including Left Indy/WPB) +2% as well as a final rise by the Tories +3%? 

• What discussion was there after the election about winning a landslide on 35% of the GB vote (a figure that can be compared with GB opinion polls)? With Labour no facing different challengers in the seat types I flagged in July 2024: Security/Patriotic seats (Reform), Aspirational/Opportunity seats (Tories), Cosmopolitan seats (Greens), Global Issues subset of Cosmopolitan seats (Left Indy/WPB), what discussion was there on messaging for all seat types?

Keir Starmer period in Government

• Why was preparation for Government seemingly so poor according to many reports? What lessons can be learned in the future? Nick Boles and others claim that detailed planning on things like legislation only happened during the General Election campaign itself. There also seemed to be no planned grid for the first 100 days even though this was assumed to be part of Sue Gray's role. (Pogrund and Maguire Get In pages 404-406). Some also commented all the information was being kept in Sue Gray's head and not shared? Civil Servants at the access talks for Government also claimed they were not getting any steer (which I know having seen some of them, whilst working in the Civil service in the 1980s) for the options papers prepared for new Ministers. Why were other party staff not invited to the Cabinet Office visits? Why were civil servants not prepared for the PM staff team? Was the balance of responsibilities between Sue Gray and Morgan McSweeney also flawed? How much did she tell the PM on appointments? Why was no Deputy PM office created like it was under John Prescott? Was it the advisor pay and numbers issues that finally brought the dysfunction to a head and lead to Sue Gray leaving Downing Street? Keir Starmer later said he had regretted appointing her. Since then Sue Gray has now set out some of her side of events and the report covers other people's responses too.

• Were some really surprised to be in Government? Polls but also all third party proxy measures pointed to a Labour Government for a year and half since Liz Truss?

• Why were people given informal roles that came out of the "freebiegate" story and why were members of the House of Lords who had such a role not made a Lords Whip to be more accountable to Parliament? Why did it take until October 2025 to establish the Ethics and Integrity Commission as promised in the Manifesto when it could have been set up within months of the General Election?

• Was a big issue from the start and as far back as 2022 when the public started giving Labour a hearing that the Labour as Opposition/Government's "bring me solutions not problems" approach explained by Yvette Cooper (also described by Alan Milburn as "he's a buyer not a seller") meant its communication "Message House" (a pretty standard comms tool used since the 1990s) in its Plan for Change" had "Foundations" and "Walls" (Missions) but not an overarching umbrella statement "Roof"? The tool is only half of it as it simply clarifies thinking, but who  and how they promote the message matters too. One could go back through all recent leaders to explore which ones were buyers, sellers, prophets in the wilderness, paragons of virtue, policy wonks etc to explore how would they have communicated a Government/Opposition message with a Message House simply setting out more clearly what they might have said. Mission Driven Government that Labour adopted was a long-termist strategy based on theories/ideas developed by Mariana Mazzucato in the last 2010s/early 2020s. How effective was mission driven government, explained by Peter Hyman here and here without an overarching "Roof" vision and message explained by a convincing messenger? Was it better used as an internal "thinking tool" first to develop more tangible policies rather than a direct message to voters and then rolled out later as a concept once the detail had been developed?

• What impact did the summer 2024 riots after the Southport tragedy have in building a sense of grievance among the 15% emerging "soft Reform" vote on top of their 15% more hard core vote?

• Why did the Party once in government focus on a negative "blaming the Tories" ( a bit like the Tories/Lib Dem "there is no money" narrative is 2010) when the Tory messaging was aimed at more pessimistic voters anyway and Labour really needed an optimistic "hope" message to start, like it did in 1945, 1964 and 1997, leaving the negative attacks to "third party" reminder attacks on the Tories? Looking back was it really wise for the Prime Minister to do a "Things will get worse" speech offering no hope to voters not long after the riots?

• What lessons can be learned from the Winter Fuel Allowance decision and the delay in deciding over the two child benefit cap (now lauded as a reduction in child poverty, but having less impact due to how it was implemented), both of which misread the public mood after 14 years of Tory Government? Was the early strong role of the Treasury less subordinated to wider political considerations and did it simply go off and announce a big policy change, not in the manifesto or briefed to civil servants or thought through  or discussed by Number 10? The Winter Fuel Allowance came out of the £22 billion Tory black hole but could more options have been considered with wider discussion?

• Presumably the rumoured proposal for Labour MPs to only elect the Leader when in power and a wider franchise when in opposition (ironically likely to have far wider "unintended consequences" as compared to being done the opposite way round as quite a few members in opposition would likely feel more free to choose a  far less establishment leader) was dropped and will not return as we have had 1 Leader election and 1 Deputy Leader election since?

• How did the "island of strangers" speech get agreed? Later on Keir Starmer said he regretted using the phrase.

• How often have every 2 or 3 months membership figures been regularly published under all wings of the Party? It was only done 2021 to 2025 - see above.

• How much did the 2025 local elections result force a quick change over Winter Fuel Allowance?

• In retrospect was the withdrawal of the government proposal to reform welfare after 100 MPs rebelled now a very wise decision?

• Was nationalisation of British Steel one of the better earlier decisions of the Government? On top of that public ownership of rail companies if happening and we have GB Energy too. In 2017 it was observed support for public ownership had risen due to Manifesto commitments. It should also be noted that support for public ownership has continued to rise whoever was in charge of Labour as this 2023, 2024 and 2025 data shows. The ongoing and perhaps increasing poor performance of private utilities as well as public/political campaigning may both matter here?

• How much is the release of the report in July 2025 by Unite the Union: Project Clean Up: Interim Report into Historical Allegations into Corruption going to have on Unite and the Labour Party's debates when all the investigations are finally concluded?

• How good was Keir Starmer at doing reshuffles in opposition or government?

• Apart from the appointment of Darren Jones as First Secretary to the Prime Minister, how much of the PMs "Phase Two" relaunch worked? Was it pretty much quickly derailed by the Mandelson crisis?

• Was serious speculation over how much time Keir Starmer had left starting from the point of the Sept 2025 reshuffle? Did Andy Burnham jump just a little to early at 2025 Party conference with his message then (which he had to pull back from) when as was discovered he became a serious choice in the new year and the inevitable choice by May?

• Whilst Peter Mandelson had been sidelined in the Ed Miliband era the conflicts in Lab in 2015-19 and 2020-24 saw him sought out for advice, but also his extensive networks. In the light of his publicised issues such as two resignations and media coverage of his relationships, why was he not seen as someone who was kept at arms length? Did he strike lucky that the Trump return, gave him more of a cachet that English domestic politics didn't? Remarkably when he was appointed in Feb 2025, the media coverage was positive. Was his advice, which if similar to Tony Blair's (publicly rejected by Starmer, Streeting and Burnham essays - see Labour Dashboard page), whilst relevent to the 1990s-2000s era of globalisation and less fragmented politics, perhaps not as relevent to the present as some believed? Is "they have nowhere else to go", a mantra that was exposed in the late 2000s, even less relevent in the fragmented politics of today?

• Why did Labour to Win publicly back Bridget Phillipson against Lucy Powell for Deputy Leader when they could have kept the brand focused on other Labour internal elections and not get embroiled in an election it was always likely from the start that they could not win?

• How many are aware that Momentum had a ballot and voted 74% to back a tactical vote for Lucy Powell?

• Did Wes Streeting go through quite a political journey from Autumn 2025? Seen by the PM as a challenger, then publishing his Mandelson texts which likely did drop his poll rating  with members, then resigning from the Cabinet and planning to run, then switching to support Andy Burnham?

• Was the second budget process, poorly signposted, made a threat to break a tax pledge and then in the end didn't? Was the abolition of the two child benefit cap its best bit, but having only just done it and suspended MPs who had rebelled on the issue when it was not on the table, did it look like a massive wasted opportunity that could have been delivered on earlier?

• Was the refusal of Andy Burnham to run in Gorton and Denton by-election a bad thing (as he was always expected to win that), or did it in retrospect actually generate the right narrative arc in the end of Labour losing very bad to the Greens energising Labour MPs to move towards change and the opportunity of Andy Burham to stand in a Reform facing seat instead which widened his appeal across MPs?

• Is Think Labour now pretty much a different organisation to Labour Together now with different people and acting more like a think tank not a campaigning organisation? What does it have to do to prove it has changed? How many versions of Labour Together were there: 2015-18?, 2019-20? 2023-25? Will Labour Together go back to some of the less controversial elements that was part of its public persona in 2020 such as "Bridge Building" which sounds close to Compassion in Politics approach but also the reasoning behind the questions posed here

• Did anyone ever notice and write that "Movement for Another Future", the 2020 Keir Starmer campaign funds and data holder company was actually dissolved on 31 March 2026?

• Was the 2026 local elections outcome always going to be the final nail in the coffin of the premiership bearing in mind serious conversations had likely been going on from September 2025 and  with little done to save the administration enough time had passed to conclude the situation?

• How much did the public agree with Keir Starmer's resignation? 62%-19% for all voters and 52%-29% for Labour voters.

• Does the "Hyperpolitics" debate suggest that Keir Starmer was not the best placed person for the modern politics of Government and is Andy Burnham more "fleet of foot" to be able to navigate it for a few years? See some charts at the foot of this section.

• What are the lessons of the Starmer Government? Perhaps useful to go back to Chris Clark who wrote Warring Fictions mentioned at the start of this Narratives/Frames study who has recently written two articles. One was on Government Delivery problems around trying to deliver across 3 broad cultural values defined areas of long-term reform (broadly social democratic & on energy/net zero cosmopolitan), short term growth (valence/centrist/aspirational - New Lab) & deference to the popular will (patriotic/safety/security - blue Lab) with a move to the latter two failing to impress the public . The second article was on its unpopularity/polling and electoral challenges  such as the decline on traditional valence/triangulating centrism , partisan dealignment, cultural values politics, Brexit era left/right blocs, decline of 1990s style stealth tax/politics & talking right and governing left/half-heartedness, failure of New/Blue Labour message, increased importance of identity issues. From this he sets out some conclusions for the Burnham era of sticking to its place in the broad left of centre "Left Bloc", acting as the senior (eg Government experienced) partner within that broad left with deliverable policies the public can believe in, deliver a visibly workable migration management policy that people across values divides can see is just and working , but most of all focus on cost of living/economy as it unites the left and splits the right. 

2026 to present

Andy Burnham period in Government

• What does the political journey of Josh Simons (Corbyn Office, Labour Together, Andy Burnham supporter) tell us about the politics of the last decade?

• Will "Starmerism" or "Starmerites" be descriptions we ever use in future (apart from perhaps the framing used by Left external political opponents for at least a short period) or will it go the way of "Callaghanism" which did not outlast its leader? Is it more likely the right & centre-right of the Party will realign around a new future person and their supporters be named after them?  Will the 20% MP threshold (really aimed at the SCG but they are only on 5% of the PLP) also effect realignment on the right as more "purist" right candidates we have seen in the past find it hard to get nominated compared to that past? Is Wes Streeting, who clearly rejected Keir Starmer with his resignation, on an Andy Burnham political journey so perhaps not as "purist" to some on the right in future? Only time will tell at present.

• How many members have resigned after Keir Starmer announced he was standing down and also how many joined after? My estimate was 2,800 resigned and 4,000 joined - see above.

• How much was donated to Andy Burnham in the last year and including his Leadership campaign? He has registered £345,000 which includes sums from large donors, £22,145 from Think Labour and £20,000 donations from Unison, CWU and FBU. If there had been a contest it is likely that (based on Keir Starmer/Rebecca Long-Bailey totals) that the unions would have donated over £350,000 to his campaign, but with no contest were not going to spend money at that point.

• Will the Leadership nomination system adopted of MPs nominations first (an increasingly established pre-requisite in 2025 and 2026 elections) followed by affiliates and only then CLPs nominating (only so far used in 2026) making their role superfluous be adjusted to bring it in line with Scotland's Leader election of Affiliates and CLPs being taken together? In Scotland the 2 union rule has been relaxed a bit to say any 2 trade unions and not 2 unions with 5% of the affiliate vote. 

• Has anyone noticed that Labour Together's polling of Lab members in 2020 said two issues that united most of them was "ending homelessness and improving mental health provision" and Andy Burnham has taken early action on both issues?

• What do party members think of the development of Number 10 North and the associated devolution, growth and cost of living strategies associated with it?

• Why do the Tories have a far better online version of their conference than Labour with more direct info to online members and far more fringe meetings streamed?

• How many with takes on how Labour would have operated if Jeremy Corbyn and LOTO had not been opposed in any way within Labour are now revising their views after seeing how he and any ex-members of LOTO are now running "Your Party" with little restriction on their actions by trade unions or other forces within Labour?

• Are people aware that by 2026, of the members still in the party who had voted in 2020, the figure was Starmer 70%, Long Bailey 12% and presumably Nandy 18%?

• How far will Momentum's Democracy proposals get with the current NEC? The following questions explore some of the issues in more detail.

  • Will a party where the Coop Party is clearly more influential support a longlisting proposal that only privilege's TUs and not the Coop Party which had similar rights in the past?

  • Will the 200+ non-target CLPs that have not had a selection since 2014 get any selection at all?

  • Anonyvoter is simply a free tool the party uses and will suffer from "Garbage In, Garbage Out". In the end its not the tool but the users who may be the issue. In any case why has no affiliated TU offered to fund the design of a new free tool for the Party?  

  • Since the SCG has only 6% of MPs, there is soft left "scar tissue" from 2015-16 and 18 of them nominated Andy Burnham will a 10% MP threshold simply increase more uber-Blairite candidates in the next 20 years? Will the party centre/soft left want to faciliate other groups with more support than the SCG and more likely to win with the current membership composition?

  • Has the more "HR Department" approach of the whips already indicated that MP suspension will occur far less in future?

  • Will the NEC move on from "interim LGCs" to full LGCs in due course in areas where they have not yet been set up?

  • Will the NEC regularise "Campaign Improvement Boards" so they are more clearly set out to be used:

    • When part of Government interventions in Council financial/governance issues and LGA interventions so there is more consistency in application?

    • When Electoral Performance over a period as assessed by an open published assessment setting out the data is below a peer group of similar authorities? 

  • Does CLPD think Conference would ever pass a Party Ombudsman proposal bearing in mind no affiliated trade union has such a role and would they really wish to vote to set a precedent? Also Your Party have not adopted such a role either so little precedent for it, especially when Labour has also been through a lot  with two big reports (EHRC, Forde)  to set up its current system  - see above - where another role may cut across the now existing processes?

  • How do Labour members and ex-members now see the issue of Leninist Group "proscription" now that Jeremy Corbyn's Your Party has also proscribed Leninist groups too?

  • CLPD put forward an expansion of STV votes rule change in 2024. Are they and Momentum still committed to that?

• In view of changes to Labour's Leadership elections in 2021, has anyone yet given any thought as to whether the next London Mayoral Selection  will operate eg member/affiliate as per Scottish/Welsh Leader or will it be proposed as a member OMOV ballot only? Based on past precedent it looks like it will stay member/affiliate.

• Is productivity rising more than some think with AI having an impact?

• Will Party Conference have another vote on electoral reform with a two-thirds majority on a card vote going into the Party Programme bearing in mind between 2021 and 2022 over 400 out of 651 CLPs and 8 out of 11 affiliated TUs (representing approx 61% of CLP vote and 75% of affiliate vote so approx 68% of the overall conference vote) voted to support electoral reform?

• In view of the NEC CLP elections showing some BAME candidates getting lower transfers for some slates, will all slates review vote management, make reasonable adjustments and support more political education to seek to challenge implicit bias among members?

• Is Darren Jones now developing a critique of growth being more important than public spending as a key message from the more right elements of the PLP in the Burnham era?

• In view of the most recent rows about Diane Abbott speaking at a conference and her recent comments on NATO (which under the new HR Department more lenient whipping system she probably won't be suspended for), have people considered that if there were actual card votes at Labour Conference on NATO and support for Ukraine, they would in view of known TU votes at the TUC likely lead to votes in favour of both by over 90% and possibly as high as 95%?

• How much does the Canary Alt-Media site suspending operations relate to its claimed "debanking", but also alleged claims by former staff (here and here)? How much also relates to conflicts likely caused when its staff and outriders did not have a common enemy in the Labour Right any more and how it may have narrowed its political base by often taking sides in left of Labour recent Trade Union and Your Party internal disputes rather than acting more as a site of record for the contests like the Morning Star and Novara Media try to do more? Or is it about the issue of donor base with possibly big individual donors more risky as explored in a forthright discussion here? Is an issue the decline in TU funding (eg have many moved to a more "industrial" use of own resources compared to the more "political" usage of 2008-2021 - very much aligned with the Morning Star's business model - and why would they fund other websites that might attack them rather than the Morning Star approach of more carefully reporting TU issues). Or is about maintaining a less narrow individual donor base such as done by Novara that might mean it too is careful how it reports thing so as not to alienate its funding supporters? Is the story when it fully comes out going to in any way involve quite a range of people on various sides of the Your Party chaotic launch & CEC elections and operation? Those who remember what happened to News on Sunday in 1987 (eventually written up as quite an entertaining  book here and later appearing in a BBC documentary series) in a very different media landscape will watch all this with interest and to explore any comparisons.

• With 6 reps on the NEC, are left unions like Unite and ASLEF taking a more emollient view of the Burnham Government? Will also unions like FBU and CWU take a similar position and also TSSA too?