Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Luke's Blog: Compass N-E-W-S Lost Bearings?


Is Compass getting too big for its boots? What is it for? Does it need a General Secretary and a Parliamentary Group? And Local units? Is it actually competing with the Labour Party? More so than Progress, LRC, Coop Party that demand membership or at least no membership of electoral rivals?

Discussion at Luke Akehurst's. He's agin it 'cos he's not in it. But he may be right.

3 comments:

Tom said...

"3. Membership

Membership shall be open to individuals who are, or who are eligible to be individual members of the Labour Party. Members of other political parties in the UK, other than the Cooperative Party, are therefore not eligible for membership of Compass."

Ta da.

If Compass is getting too big for its boots, in my view, that's largely a good thing.

But of course, I'm not sure that it is...

Chris Paul said...

Righto, thanks Tom. Same sort of rule as LRC, Co-op Party etc. But are two-thirds of Compass members really non LP members? And are there any checks on this rule - harder as a virtual national organisation.

And didn't you largely support Luke's position re local branches of Compass over at his blog?

Tom said...

"But are two-thirds of Compass members really non LP members"

I dount it's that high, but obviously, I haven't seen the member list; if I had, Compass would be in the dock for poor data protection.

"And are there any checks on this rule - harder as a virtual national organisation."

Not as far as I'm aware. I wonder how many members of other parties there actually are in the LRC? And why the Maoist NCP is an affiliate? Perhaps McDonnell plans purges, or people's war? :O)

"And didn't you largely support Luke's position re local branches of Compass over at his blog?"

Hell no. As far as I'm concerned, as long as ginger groups stick to party rules, they can do whatever they like. The dire state of the party means that Compass needs to organise, and I reckon this is a decent way of doing it. Might even try to set up a NW Branch if I know I'm staying here (when I find that out I'll transfer my CLP membership too!).