Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has been blocked from standing as a candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election by Labour's national executive committee. The…

Much as I want someone to replace Starmer, this decision is not a big surprise, really. Aside from Starmer’s desire for self-preservation, Burnham becoming an MP would have forced a mayoral by-election in Manchester which Labour might well have lost (on current polling, Reform had a slight edge). Burnham had a chance to run as an MP in 2024 without causing that problem and decided not to, so it’s hard to feel too sorry for him.

  • frankPodmore@slrpnk.netOPMEnglish
    1·
    3 小时前

    ‘The PLP has representatives on the NEC’ is true (but not in dispute).

    ‘The PLP is part of the NEC’ is false.

    You’ve used one source, Wikipedia, which while very useful for many applications, is not a good primary source. Even this source does not say what you need it to, viz., that the PLP is part of the NEC. I have to say, if I was leaning on a source that doesn’t say what I need it to say, I might at that point consider quietly logging off for a bit.

    Here is a primary source, the Labour Party Rulebook for 2026, which refers to the PLP and the NEC as separate entitites several times, most relevantly at Clause VIII (p.11 of the PDF), which describes the make-up of the committee. You will note that it does not at any point say that the PLP is part of the NEC. It does say that representatives from the PLP will serve on the NEC - again, not in dispute, but also not proof of your point, as my several examples above demonstrate.

    While I didn’t cite any sources previously, I did cite those examples, none of which are in dispute (or you’d have disputed them), which clearly show that your argument (which I would gloss as ‘having representatives from Body A on Body B makes Body A part of Body B’), is false, and I will continue to say so unless I am provided with a single source suggesting otherwise. If your logic operated, then it would be correct to say that GMB is part of the NEC because it sends representatives to the Committee. However, this is not the case (and, again, you haven’t disputed this, because you know it’s not the case).

    I have of course seen Venn diagrams, which often show the ways in which organisations overlap. However, they do not show that larger organisations are considered to be parts of smaller organisations if they share representatives. This is partly because this just isn’t the case but it’s also because that’s not really what Venn diagrams are for: they show all overlapping relationships between different things but, as we have seen, an overlapping relationship does not necessarily mean that thing A is part of thing B.

    Note however that, even if it is conceptually possible, the PLP is still not part of the NEC, which is an easily verifiable statement of fact. Again, I refer you to the Labour Party rulebook and indeed to your own source, which lists several subcommittees that are part of the NEC, a list which does not include the PLP.