One week before voting opens in the leadership election, New Statesman analyses the Labour Party electoral college and finds votes weighted massively in favour of MPs and MEPs: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/08/vote-worth-labour-mps-members
In a supposed era of one member one vote, the disparity is truly remarkable
“- The vote of one MP is worth nearly 608 party members and 12,915 affiliated members.
- The vote of one party member is worth 21 affiliated members.
- An MP's vote is worth 0.12 per cent, a party member's vote is worth 0.0002 per cent and an affiliated member's vote is worth 0.00000943 per cent.”
What is not in the public domain is what constitutes the one third section of affiliated members? The Labour Party does not publish the affiliation levels of trade unions or socialist societies. Several large unions (but not UNISON) are known to under-affiliate yet all political levy payers will get a vote and the atomised votes will be put into the one third pot.
This process mangles the collective influence of affiliated trade unions into a mere voting recommendation.
