On 14 February, Momentum issued the list of candidates to be balloted on in its primary for Young Labour and Labour Students elections.
Chair of Young Labour
Nabeela Mowlana
Joshua Harcup
Rsaal Firoz
Vice-chair of Labour Students
Fabiha Askari
Ben Williams
Young Labour under 18 rep
Oliver Probert-Hill
Samuel Cohen
The ballot closed 24 February. LLI felt we had not enough knowledge to make recommendations. Mowlana and Cohen won for the Young Labour posts, Askari for the Labour Students post, and the rest of the Momentum slate was just announced without explanation. We can find no information about the turnouts or the votes in the three contests.
https://twitter.com/PeoplesMomentum/status/1497203623645884421/photo/1
https://twitter.com/PeoplesMomentum/status/1497230506680848391/photo/1
The 14 February email said: “The remainder of the slate for YL and LS student elections will be composed of incumbent candidates and those that were the only candidate to apply for a non-contested position. Further details will shortly be announced regarding the full slate”.
As far as we can make out, no further “details” have been announced. We know of one nominee for a Labour Students position who was called for interview, and told there were two nominees for the slot but Momentum was going for the other one. We also know of one nominee for a Young Labour post who was told his name would not go to ballot because an incumbent from a different YL post (not this one he was going for) was now going for this one.
Those facts contradict the claim that for all other positions there was only one nomination, or an incumbent. And Momentum gives no reason for saying that incumbents should be automatically supported again without even a ballot. Even Keir Starmer’s Labour regime allows for a “trigger” vote on whether to readopt incumbent MPs, and a full selection procedure for council candidates even when there are incumbents.
The Labour Party ballots for both Young Labour and Labour Students posts will run from 8 June to 5 August.