A beginner’s guide to the Labour Party rulebook, Part 2: reselection of MPs

Much of the discussion around Jeremy Corbyn’s takeover of the Labour Party has focused on the perceived threat to moderate, mostly critical, MPs, who feel vulnerable to the threat of deselection as a Labour candidate at the next election.

“Deselection” is one of those weird words so regularly used by political activists and journalists that we forget it has very little meaning to ordinary voters. But although its meaning is relatively simple, the Labour Party processes that will decide MPs’ fates during this parliament and beyond, are absurdly complex, perhaps inevitably so, given that they have evolved through a long series of political and managerial compromise and manoeuvring. Continue reading →