No Jeremy Corbyn does not prove that a more open ballot is a mistake

One of the more controversial pieces of underreported news of the past few months was that the Labour party are apparently not going to release a breakdown of the leadership ballot by membership type. This means that there will be no published details of how full members voted versus the £3 supporters or trade union affiliates.

This is in part to avoid a 2010 situation where is was very clear that Ed Miliband had only triumphed because of overwhelming union support after losing to his brother in both the membership and MPs sections of Labour's now defunct electoral college.

Would it challenge the legitimacy of the new leader if we discovered that they had lost the membership ballot but won because of the £3 supporters and trade union affiliates? I suspect this won't be as Jeremy Corbyn will likely storm all three sections given the massive changes in party membership since 2010 but even if it were the case that the traditional membership voted for Andy Burnham but Jeremy Corbyn was pushed over the top by union affiliates and £3 supporters it wouldn't be an argument for restricting the franchise.


Read more »