Truth To Power

Having longlisted Andrew Gilligan for the Paul Foot Award, I hope that the judges are as shocked as the rest of us to learn of somewhere where political activity can include getting and keeping on the right side of local religious and business leaders, some of whom may be a bit dodgy, and one or two of whom are well-known to be enormously so. And to learn of somewhere where people sign up their friends and relations in time to vote in the selection of candidates. And to learn of somewhere where candidates' supporters congregate around polling stations on polling day. Ooda thunk it?

On 30th November, the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party will assemble to do whatever it is that it does. In attendance will be Ken Livingstone, vilified for suggesting that second preference votes be given to an ultimately successful candidate who had in fact won the Labour Party's internal selection process, and who, if anything, should have been opposed for having endorsed David Miliband for Labour Leader.

But so will be Luke Akehurst, Leader of that party within the Labour Party which operates with impunity contrary to Rule, Labour First. And so will be that party's poster girl and would-be London Mayoral candidate, Oona King, a person notable for nothing except having lost elections, but who for now, though probably not for much longer, still looks good on the less serious sort of television programme.

No action will be taken against Livingstone, who topped the poll for the NEC, and who is well on course to become London's de facto Mayor for Life from 2012. Nor should it be, since he has done nothing wrong, in marked contrast to the very existence of Labour First, a horrifyingly successful machine for securing both safe seats and internal party positions for its members.

Two MPs were rightly expelled for membership of Militant, so, although vastly more are members of Labour First, at least a symmetrical two MPs should be expelled in the first instance, namely the two in Tower Hamlets who are going out of their way to make the case for restoring mandatory reselection.

Which of them is abusing parliamentary facilities by booking a room in the House of Commons for this evening's meeting of Tower Hamlets Labour Group, at which it will plot how to subvert the result of an election, an election which could not have been won without the majority of white support, since Tower Hamlets, certainly where people over 18 are concerned, is still predominantly white? Lutfur Rahman merely happens to be a Bengali Muslim. Helal Abbas was imposed specifically because he was one, over the head of a white candidate with more votes.

However, whether or not these expulsions occur at this stage, this is Labour First's opportunity to stop pretending to be a part of the Labour Party, by expressing its disgust at Ken Livingstone in the form of a candidacy, most obviously that of Oona King, for the London Mayorality. Like Militant before them, let us see how far they get as themselves rather than by pretending to be someone else. And as with Militant, let us see the expulsion of those nominally Labour MPs who adhere to them. This time, there will be a lot more than two, and they will be a lot better-known than Terry Fields and Dave Nellist ever were.