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Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance

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The Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance ( CLGA ) is a centre-left group of elected members on the Labour Party 's National Executive Committee , founded in 1998. They represent members from a broad spectrum of the Labour membership, ranging from the centre-left to those on the left-wing .

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27-698: The Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance's founding groups were originally Labour Reform , a centre-left democratic group within the Party founded at a meeting in Birmingham in November 1995, and the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy , the left wing democratic grouping, who subsequently brought in other more left-wing groupings from within the Labour Party. Private talks with trades union representatives to build

54-480: A broader base had failed on union demands and this initiated the inclusion of a much broader left group from the grassroots , including Labour Left Briefing [Liz Davies] and the then-Editor of Tribune , Mark Seddon . Prominent founding members also include Ann Black and Andy Howell. Successful efforts were also made to include the Scottish Left. The first Co-ordinator [one term only] was Tim Pendry who

81-516: A political party or party executive playing a role in selecting candidates to compete in elections. In politics, the preselection process is the process by which candidates who are members of a political party are selected by that party to contest an election for political office. It is a fundamental function of political parties, affecting 'representation, party cohesion, legislative behaviour and democratic stability.' In countries that adopt Westminster-style responsible government , preselection

108-686: A preselection. For example, the Australian Human Rights Commissioner, Tim Wilson, resigned that office in February 2016 before nominating for the Liberal Party. Preselection within all major Australian political parties has been the subject of accounts of " branch stacking " and abuse of process. While affecting both major parties, the Australian Labor Party was most severely affected in

135-499: A representative of another party, though they are usually at high risk of being unseated . Reselection is the procedure of requiring candidates to repeat the preselection process to retain the party's support. An example of a preselection procedure that gains extensive media coverage is the selection of candidates for President of the United States , referred to by one observer as 'the wildest democratic political bazaar in

162-423: A system of appointment, such as through decision by a selection committee. Some preselections are governed by additional rules that may serve to ensure a particular composition amongst candidates as a whole, or to facilitate other party objectives such as decentralisation of decision-making. In several countries including Australia and Canada, candidate selection is normally conducted by internal party processes at

189-422: A two step process of a preselection ballot or plebiscite of party members and affiliated trade unionists in the electorate being contested, and endorsement, which was normally a formality, by the state executive. The ALP, as well as in some states the Liberal Party, now uses a system in which votes in the plebiscite are combined with votes from delegates selected by the party organisation. Preselection can occur in

216-420: A wide variety of ways, but four main variables characterise the range of systems: In each case, it is possible to assess the variables on a scale from "open" to "closed" or from "inclusive" to "exclusive". Eligibility to be a candidate in preselection is frequently bound by rules set by a political party. Preselection may also be affected by a jurisdiction's electoral system. In Indonesia, for example, there

243-571: Is Lara McNeill. Only Dar, McNeill and Henderson were on the NEC previously. There were rumours that other candidates chosen by the CLGA included Laura Alvarez, Jeremy Corbyn 's wife, and James Schneider, founder of Momentum and former member of Corbyn's staff. The selection process saw 450 constituency labour parties participate, the high turnout of CLPs in Labour's history. 42% of selection nominations went to

270-532: Is a group of Labour Party activists campaigning for changes to the constitution of the Labour Party to ensure that Labour MPs and Labour governments enacted policies agreeable to the party membership. It was founded by activists in 1973, with support from about ten Labour MPs, and its first President was Frank Allaun . A leading co-founder was Vladimir Derer , and his house in Golders Green became CLPD's headquarters for about twenty-five years. Amongst

297-428: Is a system of public and administrative scrutiny of draft candidate lists. This may include examination of issues such as personal character or internal party issues, and lead to candidates being eliminated. The bodies that most commonly preselect candidates for political office (the selectors or "selectorate") are party members or party organisations such as a party executive or candidate selection committee. However,

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324-583: Is also the first step on the path to a position in the executive . In Australia, the term has been in common usage since the 1920s to describe the selection of candidates by political parties for public office. One usage of the term is in describing elected public officeholders in Westminster type party systems as being selected by the voters after being preselected by their parties. It derives from Australian Labor Party preselection practices that were widely used by that party before 1955. These involved

351-417: Is also the first step on the path to a position in the executive . The selected candidate is commonly referred to as the party's endorsed candidate . Deselection or disendorsement is the opposite procedure, when the political party withdraws its support from one of its elected office-holders. The party may then select a replacement candidate at the subsequent election, or it may decide (or be compelled by

378-432: Is the process by which a candidate is selected, usually by a political party , to contest an election for political office. It is also referred to as candidate selection . It is a fundamental function of political parties. The preselection process may involve the party's executive or leader selecting a candidate or be some contested process. In countries that adopt Westminster-style responsible government , preselection

405-822: The Australian Labor Party and the German Social Democratic Party. In Belgium, the Belgian Christian Social party set rules aimed at ensuring balanced preselection of Flemish and Francophone candidates. In the ACT Liberal party in Australia, candidates for the 2016 election were required to pay a A$ 3,500 "nomination fee". There were 25 nominations for five seats. In Australia, public office-holders are required to resign those offices before nominating at

432-471: The CLGA agreed a slate called "Grassroots Voice", which included six representative on the nine CLP seats and a representative for the disabled and youth seats. Changes to the voting system means they had to provide a reduced slate. The six CLP representatives are Ann Henderson, Gemma Bolton, Laura Pidcock, Mish Rahman, Nadia Jama and Yasmine Dar, the disabled rep is Ella Morrison and the Young Labour rep

459-460: The CLPD became the first Labour organisation to call for more representation of women within the party, which eventually led to all-women shortlists to select candidates being adopted in the Labour Party. In 2015, CLPD member Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Leader of the Labour Party , and took forward the CLPD agenda of increasing democracy in the Labour Party by putting forward reforms to increase

486-765: The Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance is broadly left-wing. They want greater powers for Constituency Labour Parties and individual members in the National Policy Forum ; to maintain the power of the party conference; to resist privatisation in the National Health Service ; to nationalise the railways and to increase powers for local government . Organisations associated with the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance include: Campaign for Labour Party Democracy The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy ( CLPD )

513-612: The Grassroots Voice CLP slate. The result saw the 7 candidates winning; 5 of the 6 candidates in the CLP section and the disability and youth reps. The candidates in the CLP section won a combined amount of 37% of first preference votes. In 2021, all six of the CLGA's backed candidates for the newly created National Women's Committee were elected. These candidates were Solma Ahmed, Ekua Bayunu, Mandy Clare, Tricia Duncan, Pamela Fitzpatrick and Chloe Hopkins . The current policy of

540-603: The ability of the Party Conference to determine Labour Party policy. Corbyn did not advocate mandatory reselection for Labour MPs during his term as Labour leader – a demand that he, along with Tony Benn and other members of the CLPD, had made in the 1980s – but because of the Conservative government's constituency boundary redrawing , all MPs intending to stand again were due to face reselection by October 2018 anyway. Reselection Preselection

567-486: The changes desired were mandatory reselection of MPs, for the party leader to be elected on a franchise wider than MPs and for the party manifesto to be drafted by the National Executive Committee rather than the parliamentary leadership. Tony Benn was the foremost advocate of CLPD demands. In the late 1970s, CLPD had about 450 members and nearly 300 affiliated organisations. In the 1980s,

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594-443: The constituency or electorate level. However it can be possible for a regional or national party body or leader to intervene to ensure a particular candidate is preselected, and there may be party rules governing the composition of the body of candidates as a whole that may require modification of preselection processes or outcomes, such as to implement policies directed toward gender balance. Gender balance objectives have been set by

621-404: The electoral timetable) to forgo contesting that seat (for example, the Liberal Party of Australia after Pauline Hanson was disendorsed just before the 1996 House of Representatives election , and likewise the Labour candidate for Moray, Stuart Maclennan, just before the 2010 UK general election ). The deselected representative is usually free to still contest the election as an Independent or as

648-755: The grassroots and the Co-ordinator liaised solely with the Campaign Group during the latter stages of the campaign. The first election resulted in four of the six available constituency seats going to the Alliance despite significantly less resources being available to the Alliance and was notable for getting the editorial backing of the Guardian . In 2018 the CGLA put up a full slate of nine candidates, all of which were elected. In 2020, The groups of

675-463: The selectors may be a broader group such as all voters or registered voters (as in some United States primary elections ). Alternatively, there may be a more restricted group of selectors or selection may, in rare cases, be undertaken by an individual, such as a party leader. Preselection may take place by a system of voting by the selectors (examples include United States primaries and most major Australian political party preselections), or there may be

702-401: The world'. These are generally known as presidential primaries , but are actually a combination of primary elections , in which voters in a jurisdiction select candidates, and caucuses , in which candidates are selected by a narrower (but still potentially large) group of party members. In other countries, a wide variety of preselection systems exist, though the majority involve members of

729-471: Was Vice Chair of Labour Reform and the Alliance originally restricted itself to issues of party democracy, resisting attempts to put in place a left policy platform in order to be inclusive of constituency feeling from the centre ground. Labour Reform was originally associated with the What's Left Group of MPs and CLPD with the Campaign Group of MPs but liaison with What's Left ended on attempts to dictate terms to

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