Left Unity election results
These are the results for the ten directly elected places on the new Left Unity National Co-ordinating Committee.
At our first national meeting we agreed the procedure for electing the NCC
The procedure is:
- Local group reps elected by the local groups, one per group, where the group has at least 5 members and has had at least one minuted meeting. As groups develop they will be added.
- 10 people elected by the meeting
- Those 10 to comprise at least 50% women
Below is the report on the election for the 10 elected at the meeting.
Each ballot was counted by two Left Unity supporters who were not standing
for election. The count team was Chris Stafford, Jenny Ross, Soraya Lawrence and
Barbara Segal.
A total of 29 candidates stood and 99 Ballots were cast in the election for
the new Left Unity NCC. Delegates were asked to
pick a maximum of 10 candidates though not everyone listed 10. We did not
need to alter the result to ensure the committee would be half comprised of
women as six women and four men were elected. The first 10 are elected to
the new committee.
1. Kate Hudson – 71 votes
2. Andrew Burgin – 69 votes
3. Bianca Todd – 62 votes
4. Salman Shaheen – 61 votes
5. Tom Walker – 54 votes
6. Merry Cross – 53 votes
7. Terry Conway – 49 votes
8. Felicity Dowling – 48 votes
9. Guy Harper – 41 votes
10. Chris Hurley – 36 votes
11. Katheryn Burdon-Manley – 35 votes
12. Micheline Mason & Iram Awan – 31 votes
14. Ally McGregor – 24 votes
15. Will McMahon – 23 votes
16. Rebecca Allan – 21 votes
17. Leander Jones & Sam Doherty – 20 votes
19. James Youd & Tina Becker – 19 votes
21. Don Quinn & Stephen – 17 votes
23. Liz Grey – 15 votes
24. Dave Emrys – 13 votes
25. Dave Stockton – 11 votes
26. Carlos Hudson & Pete McLaren – 9 votes
28. Andy Higson – 8 votes
29. Roy Sandinson – 5 votes
19 comments
19 responses to “Left Unity election results”
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Great – but when and how can we become members?
That’s something to be discussed going forward from this meeting, but it’s clear we have a lot of momentum, and I personally hope we can move towards membership as soon as possible.
The same old voting system that has caused problems in other Left Unity projects!
No form of PR, so in theory (and later it could easily be in practice)51% of the voters can elect 100% of this part of seats.
Lee
Like with all new projects, there will always be areas to improve and develop.
Yes, the voting system is one of them and rest assured that the National Co-ordinating Committee are committed to ensuring that Left Unity is representative and not tokenistic. #PeopleNotPower
I for one am glad there was no slate system.
You could, though, investigate computer programmes to implement STV, to replace the MTV system that seems to have been used here.
The membership issue, is the next exciting step.
Like Salman, I am hopeful that this will be sorted soon.
#powertothepeople
In an organisation with 8,000 supporters, the most popular leader secures 71 votes? And someone secures a place on the leadership body with just 36 votes? I am far from convinced that this ‘elected’ leadership is representative of those 8,000 supporters. I personally want trade union affiliation and I do not believe that these ten comrades in Left Unity’s leadership have won any mandate to deny me my right to put the case for trade union affiliation, which I believe I could win if there is a serious debate. I also still have no idea what “one member one vote” means for Left Unity’s leadership, who are pretending it is self-explanatory when nothing could be further from the truth. There are several possibilities, and they are contradictory. There is no authoritative statement made that puts sectarians back in their box. That means that Left Unity is becoming associated with those who want more, not less, divisions on the left! I know not everyone at the meeting is guilty of that, but very many are and nothing is being done to rein them in. For all I know of Left Unity’s elected leadership, the sectarians may dominate the leadership. If so, we need a new leadership.
Tom, I agree that trade union affiliation would be a positive development, and not just because it would mean extra funds but would make the link with the labour movement and send a clear message of notice to the neo-liberals in the Labour Party. Left Unity is in an embryonic stage and I would say those who have been elected are doing a good job so far. Personally I would argue for STV as the electoral system once Left Unity becomes a more formal organization. Kate Hudson, Andrew Burgin and Bianca Todd seem to be building a credible left alternative to Labour and whilst there will be obvious worries about sectarian tendencies, if this is to genuinely be a united left front it has to be able to accommodated social-democrats, socialists and communists and groups from the Marxist left parties as is the case with the Front de Gauche in France. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Pierre Laurent, Christian Picquet and Jean-Pierre Brard have shown the way forward and in my view Left Unity will prove itself if it can emulate them and affiliate with the EL and GUE/NGL led by Pierre Laurent and Gabi Zimmer. I have been arguing within the campaign groups of Unite for a yes vote on the political fund, but also that this fund shouldn’t automatically or exclusively go to the Labour Party and Left Unity is the obvious alternative as it has links with the European and Scandinavian left parties within the EU unlike the former No2EU alliance or the TUSC.
What it has is 8,000 people who clicked ‘Like’ – some of those have probably never read another post and quite likely even blocked the torrent of posts there have been. Of those who are following, many would like to see a credible left-wing party, but remain to be convinced that this is it – most left-wing parties spend their time bickering among each other, ‘Judean People’s Front/People’s Front of Judea’ style, or have not the faintest grasp of economics.
Tom, it is so very simple. The 71 votes you cite is out of 100, that is 71% or over 7 out of 10 in the old money. Understand? There were 100 people in the room, not 8,000, because this was a gathering of reps of 50+ geographical groups.
And it was not to elect a ‘leadership’ but a functional organising committee.
Now, I am a bit nonplussed when you say you could win any serious debate about trades union affiliation. I am sure if you were to write an article about how to achieve TU affiliation, it would be published on this website. If you have the holy grail in your pocket, please let us know.
I think we would all welcome a little TU funding- but perhaps not at the expense of them dictating policy- after all, the left political party is supposedly a higher form than the trades union which represents all workers in a particular trade, regardless of their politics.
Oh yes, before I sign off, ‘one member one vote’ simply means that each person within the organisation has a vote of equal weight to that of the next person- ie no special privileges or extra votes just because people are also members of other organisations or groups. Basically, a level playing field.
The crucial and interesting task is to implement OMOV- for that we need to develop structures of membership, a functioning office and mechanisms by which the membership can create, influence and shape policy.
Tom “In an organisation with 8,000 supporters, the most popular leader secures 71 votes?” You are wrong Tom these 99 votes caste were DELEGATES of local Left Unity branches and as far as they could were voting for the best National Coordinating Committee on behalf of their branches – or least they did their best to do so.
It was well attended meeting with people from across the UK and well represented by both female and male delegates. Any first meeting was always going to be hard to organise and chair and I do not envy those who had this task. We can all learn from this process and I would ask the new National Coordinating Committee to consider a few issues that I wish to put forward in a positive way;
1. That all motions and amendments are circulated prior to the meeting in good time to be considered by branches (unless a genuine emergency motion).
2. That some sort of audit of the current 8000 supporters is made – do we have an address, e-mail and union membership if any and a skills list (some may be good on the internet others may be good graphic artists etc).
3. Some sort of membership/supporters card is issued.
4. Some form of membership/supporters fee is considered (say £5 per year unless unwaged) – we need some finance and we need it fast to pay for all the many things we need to do. Perhaps each branch should be asked to pay say £10 as branch affiliation?
5. Consider a better format for the national web site – it is a good start but I think we can do better. Its essential its interesting, bang up to date and with new articles at least every two days – so far this has been the case (if you want to know how NOT to do it look at the TUSC dull, boring web site).
6. During the summer a serious of regional Left Unity rallies to be held – they need to be big and cover a large area. Speakers should include Left Unity but also others like Trade unionist in struggle, anti bedroom tax people and Syriza etc. These rallies should be exciting and planned well or not done at all. Mark Perryman suggested a Left Unity Big Red Bus to go around the country – now that’s great idea if we can raise the money.
7. A Left unity fighting fund (or call it what you like) to be started to raise £20,000 ASAP.
8. A 2nd Left Unity appeal to go in the Guardian with an update of where we have got to + sign the pledge + donate. Branches and members to be asked to donate now for this to happen (we missed a chance at Saturdays conference where no collection of any sort was made).
Now that should keep the new National Coordinating Committee busy for a while and us at local level. I am sure many others have even bigger and better ideas they can add to this list.
How can i be a member of this organization?
No formal membership yet, but you can sign Ken Loach’s appeal and get in touch with your local group through the email address listed on this site.
What’s the Marxist-Leninist responses to Left Unity?
I Made the point before. LEFT Unity needs to aim to change the culture of the left. the existing far left groups should be part of this. they can surely observe that there is suspicion that they would mostly like to come into left unity recruit a few, denounce the majority and then leave. this is born of actual experiance of many activists.
I am more positive that a marxist left within left unity can grow and that new alignments can develop. i think that when members of left unity see that the marxists in the far left are getting their hands dirty in building left unity these strains may be allieviated.
pete b
I don’t pretend to understand what you are all talking about re. the political references and jargon, but I am following Left Unity with lots of interest and am behind you so far. Things cannot be allowed to go on in this country as they are and I’m happy to see that you are moving forward quickly. I intend to get in touch with my local group very soon and help promote the party in any way I can. I wish you well and continue with the great work.
I wrote to Norwich Left Unity contact Ellen Nierop saying we could not attend the meeting but read and commented on the Draft Statement asking to be kept informed and have heard nothing since. Where local groups do not function correctly something else has to be of offer.
We’ve been supporters from the start. Would Left Unity consider linking/supporting the NHA (National Health Action Party)?