Im not ranting, or ill informed, I do know how the electoral college works.

Obviously you don’t, otherwise you would not have made the block vote comment. In some cases trade unions vote on behalf of their members using their “block votes”. They did not in the leadership election.

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its just that no major union voted against the endorsement set out by its leaders

That does make me chuckle 🙂

How many times does the right wing press tell us how out of touch trade union leaders are with their members,
eh ? If only it was left to the members themselves to decide what to do…….your ordinary trade union member is so moderate they tell us…….probably votes Tory.

So here is an example of ordinary trade union members voting directly themselves. Perfect……there can’t be any problems surely ? No wait ….. lo and behold, the result is totally unacceptable.

Trade unionists and other affiliated members did not decide that Ed Miliband would leader of the Labour Party. They simply did not have that power…..they were outnumbered 2 to 1.

If any group within the Labour Party has a wholly disproportionate influence on the leadership elections, then it is the MPs. Firstly, only they are allowed to nominate the candidates. Yes, Ed Miliband was not nominated by any trade unions – only be MPs.

And then, despite the fact that MPs along with MEPs only number 271, they have one third of all the votes in the electoral college. Exactly the same as 3 million levy paying trade unionists.

1 MP vote = 11,628 trade union votes.

Individual Labour Party members do a bit better, they also have a third of the electoral college vote. There are approx 170,000 of them Which is again, considerably less than 3 million.

Proportionally, the most disadvantage group are the affiliated members. They are by far the largest group, and they have an inbuilt minority.

Every week affiliated trade unionists pay their pennies to the Labour Party. It is perfectly right that they should have a say when a new leader is being chosen. After all, without their support the Labour Party would collapse. And remember, they had no say when last Labour leader was chosen – so this was the first time in 16 years that they had a say.

BTW Sancho, I suspect from your style that you are not a Labour supporter, why then, are you bothered how the Labour Party chooses its leader ? Personally I truly couldn’t give a toss how the Conservatives choose their leaders…….but then I have never voted Tory, so I guess there’s some logic there.

Ernie, Im neither Labour or Tory, I am cynical of how both parties operate and are simply looking to feather the nests of their own supporters.
I dont like how the Unions are so politicised in the Labour party and I dont like how big business bolsters the conservatives.
of the 3 million levy paying members less than 10% voted, so like I said earlier, apathy wins in UK Elections.
And if you want me to remind you again, I do know how the Labour electoral college system works, its easy to understand from reading their web site, which also contains all the stats on the votes cast.