Mandelson champions Labour rule reforms

Ex-minister Lord Mandelson has deemed the rule changes passed at the Labour Party Conference yesterday as ‘fantastic’.

The changes relate to future leadership elections and the deselection of MPs.

Lord Mandelson, who served as a minister under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s leadership told the BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme on Monday: “I am just thrilled by these results. They are not just a fantastic triumph for Keir Starmer, because he really put his neck on the line. It is about shifting the entire focus, culture, organisation of the Labour Party, from its membership and its activists, to the public, to the voters”.

He added: “And this says to the voters, we are turning back to you. We are going to be a voters Labour Party, and not simply a members and activists Labour Party”.

The reforms will make it harder for local constituency parties to deselect existing Labour MPs by increasing the threshold for triggering a selection contest.

Championing the reforms which overturn the current practice where it is easy for people to vote in Labour leadership elections for just a few pounds, Lord, Mandelson said, “That sort of avalanche of people who were allowed in the Labour Party to back one far-left candidate they wanted to see elected leader, that will no longer be allowed to happen”.

Appearing to admit that the rule changes were a way of demonstrating to the public that the Labour Party was moving to the political centre, “What these rule changes mean is that when they are asked to vote for Keir Starmer, they can know with almost complete certainty, that they are not going to wake up one day and find Jeremy Corbyn there instead”.