I have been friends with Gordon Dangerfield for more than 25 years. In case you don’t know him, Gordon is one of Scotland’s top lawyers and for the past few years has been handling the Tommy Sheridan v Murdoch case.
His brilliant blog piece re-blogged here sets out why his legal opinion is that JC does NOT need nominations to stand as leader. I find his opinion and words refreshing:
NOW THEY WANT CORBYN TO CHALLENGE HIMSELF
By Gordon Dangerfield
As everyone with a functioning brain knows, the Chicken Coup plotters against Jeremy Corbyn — and against democracy — have been coming out with outrageous whopper after whopper ever since the man was elected in a landslide, each one reported faithfully as gospel truth by our utterly corrupt and craven media.
One of the best whoppers, which according to the Herald will give rise to “intense legal argument”, is that the Labour Party Rules prevent Corbyn from even standing for his own job — the job he was democratically elected to do in a landslide less than a year ago.
Of course, in a functioning democracy, with a media willing to engage in — and intellectually capable of engaging in — independent thought and research, this whopper would be instantly exposed as such.
But then, if we had a functioning democracy, with an independent and competent media, all of the treachery and lies of the Chicken Coup plotters would have been nailed long since.
So let me do here what any journalist capable of actual journalism would have done for you the moment this ridiculous lie was first floated by the plotters.
Let me just quickly show you why the notion of Jeremy Corbyn having to challenge himself for the leadership of the Labour Party is utter bollocks.
You can find the current version of the Labour Party Rules here:
Paragraph 2 of clause II of Chapter 4 of the Rules deals with the election of the party leader and deputy leader. Part B of paragraph 2 says this:
Nomination
- In the case of a vacancy for leader or deputy leader, each nomination must be supported by 15 per cent of the combined Commons members of the PLP and members of the EPLP.
Nominations not attaining this threshold shall be null and void.
- Where there is no vacancy, nominations may be sought by potential challengers each year prior to the annual session of party conference. In this case, any nomination must be supported by 20 per cent of the combined Commons members of the PLP and members of the EPLP.
Nominations not attaining this threshold shall be null and void.
So there are two situations covered by the Rules.
In the first one, the leader has resigned, and there is a vacancy. In that case, every candidate for the leadership needs the support of 15 per cent of the Commons members of Parliament and of the European Parliament (let’s just call them MPs) before (s)he can stand.
In other words, in the first one, there’s no sitting leader, and no challenger, and every candidate is a nominee of equal standing, each requiring 15 per cent support of MPs.
In the second one, things are very different.
In the second one, there is a sitting leader who has not resigned but who is open to challenge at any time. In that case, every potential challenger to the leader needs the support of 20 per cent of MPs before (s)he can stand.
Yep, that’s right. It’s only the challenger who needs the support.
And the support needed to mount a challenge is higher than in the first case — 20 per cent instead of 15.
The reasons for the differences between the first and second cases are blindingly obvious to anyone capable of actual thought.
The Rules are different in the second case precisely to discourage the inevitable turmoil caused by stupid and malicious challenges to sitting leaders (even ones not elected in a landslide less than a year before).
If you need any evidence for that proposition, well, just read the papers or watch the TV news.
But still, don’t take my word for this.
Scroll back up and check the actual wording of the Rules themselves.
See it?
…potential challengers…
Only a potential challenger to a sitting leader needs the 20 per cent support of MPs to be nominated.
The sitting leader doesn’t need any nomination or support because he’s the one being challenged.
There can only be a challenger where there is a sitting leader in place who is not that challenger and to whom the the requirements for challengers do not, by definition, apply.
That’s precisely the difference between the first and second cases.
So this is what the “intense legal argument” comes down to.
The Chicken Coup plotters and all their media pals say that Jeremy Corbyn must now challenge Jeremy Corbyn for the job of leader of the Labour Party.
And if Jeremy Corbyn the challenger can’t muster up enough support to challenge Jeremy Corbyn the leader, then…
Well, what exactly?
It’s all bollocks, pure and simple.
Only our brain-dead and hegemonic media could even repeat it with a straight face.
If the plotters are stupid enough to take their “argument” to court, they’ll be laughed out of it right quick.
When that happens, please remember to have another good laugh at our ridiculous media too.
No Time to Think 