Confused? Tonight I learned from right-wing Labour First leading light and self declared NEC candidate Luke Akehurst that I will be on the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance slate to contest the Labour Party National Executive election in 2010. (Labour First is an email list, not a membership organisation, Luke insists - well that avoids any need for accountability.)
All I know is that Save the Labour Party set a precedent in 2005 when it held an all member postal ballot to decide whom to back for the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance (CLGA) slate for the 2006 NEC elections. In today's parlance I suppose it was a primary. The next STLP primary was held in 2007 for the NEC 2008 elections in which I came second to Ann Black. At the CLGA slatemaking both of us made the cut (there are no membership organisation quotas), appeared on the NEC ballot paper and we both got elected.
Today, the latest STLP primary is being held to determine member's preferences between Gary Heather and myself. The deadline for ballot papers to be received by the Returning Officer is 23 November 2009.
Meanwhile another CLGA member organisation, the Labour Representation Committee, held its AGM and CLGA hustings yesterday. A membership ballot of those present backed Christine Shawcroft and Susan Press.
This leaves questions about how other CLGA member organisations are going to select their candidates. The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy is the other leading body in the CLGA. I look forward to hearing about its plans and those of any other CLGA member organisations about how they are going to select possible candidates for the slate - Compass Youth and Progressives for London, for example .
Rumours are circulating of a meeting last week between Neal Lawson of Compass and Ken Livingstone of Progressives for London. I do hope they are planning their own primaries for the slate-making process too. Except Compass hasn't applied to join the CLGA as far as I know.
Let's hope the Compassites read the article in Saturday's Guardian by Ed Miliband MP, the concluding keynote speaker at their own AGM, who wrote:
We have been warned. It really is up to people of progressive persuasion to decide where they stand.
Quite so.