Labour Party NEC and STV

For that select few who are interested in internal Labour Party matters, two interesting facts came up in the last Labour NEC on Tuesday.

First the Labour Party now has about 580,000 members which is (I think) the biggest number since Harold Wilson was leader. Many of these have joined since the General Election in December.

Secondly, the Party has decided to adopt single transferable votes (STV) for NEC elections.  This will make it harder for any one faction to take over the Party.  The case for STV for the members section of the NEC is quite different to that for say the House of Commons.  In my view, the decision is a welcome one.

Oddly, a vocal minority seem to want the decision made at Conference.  This is odd since Conference is unlikely to happen because of the virus, and the same people did not object to the latest by election system being introduced over a long established custom of picking runners up.