Labour’s internal elections have returned mixed results, with seven of the 15 positions won by Momentum-backed candidates, while a prominent critic of the party’s previous leader was swept to power as a constituency representative with the most votes. The national executive committee (NEC) elections on Friday represented the latest face-off between the party’s factions after Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension last month. Influential voices on either side of the party’s divide claimed victory on the party’s ruling body, with Corbyn critic Luke Akehurst coming first place in the constituency Labour party (CLP) vote, while former MP and Momentum pick Laura Pidcock won the second highest number of votes in the same race. Akehurst is the co-founder of the Labour To Win ticket, which describes its aims as building the “broadest possible coalition with everyone of goodwill”. The faction gained three seats, with Johanna Baxter and Gurinder Singh Josan winning alongside Akehurst. The pro-Starmer wing also gained another voice with the election of former Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones, who won the Welsh Labour representative post. The two representatives of Labour councillors – who are largely supportive of the party’s leader – kept their posts. As well as five Momentum-backed candidates winning CLP posts, candidates backed by the faction also took the disabled members’ representative and youth members’ representative. Although candidates from the party’s left did better than some expected, Keir Starmer’s supporters have a working majority on the ruling committee. The vote returned Baxter, Josan and Yasmine Dar to the party’s ruling body, as well as reinstating former NEC members Akehurst and Ann Black. The latter ran on the soft-left Open Labour ticket.
Labour To Win said the results had “finally given Keir the solid majority on the NEC he needs to transform Labour and win the next election”, adding that it now needed to “make that dream a reality in CLPs up and down the country”. Momentum responded to the results by tweeting: “These results are a huge victory for the socialist left. Grassroots Voice is by far the single largest slate in the members’ section of the NEC. Members want Labour to back a transformative, socialist programme – and that is exactly what these representatives will fight for.” Several MPs on the party’s left saw the victory of the faction’s Grassroots Voice slate as a vindication of Corbyn’s political vision, with Zarah Sultana, the MP for Coventry South, writing on Twitter: “Winning the overwhelming majority of positions, it’s clear the left is a significant part of the party. That needs to be respected, starting with Jeremy’s reinstatement to the party.” Richard Burgon, the MP for East Leeds, expressed a similar sentiment, urging that “Corbyn should be reinstated and we must unite to fight the Tories”. The NEC moved away from first-past-the-post voting to members ranking candidates in order of preference – a change that had been backed by organisations such as Open Labour, which said it would minimise “hyper-factionalism” and “one-slate-takes-all” results. The election followed controversy earlier in the week when concerns were raised that the votes of those who had quit the party in reaction to Corbyn’s suspension would be discounted. The party clarified that all votes would be counted, as long as members who have resigned cast their ballots before quitting.