Daily catch-up: the strange story of Labour's leadership election rule changes

Two rule changes would make it harder for Labour MPs to oust Jeremy Corbyn – one by mistake and the other on purpose

Singing 'The Red Flag' on the last day of Labour conference in Brighton, 30 September 2015 (Getty)

No word yet on whether Labour's National Executive yesterday approved the rule change to make it harder to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn as leader. My colleague Andrew Grice had that scoop last week. 1145 update: I am told it was not discussed; it would still have to be put to the vote at next year's annual conference before it became effective.

The proposed change seems small: it is simply to remove an ambiguity in the Labour Party rule book that had not been noticed before, because the party has never been in the strange situation of having a leader supported by fewer than 15 per cent of its MPs. As John McTernan pointed out, the leader can be challenged by anyone with nominations from 20 per cent of MPs, but the current rules do not explicitly say whether the incumbent is required to secure nominations to stand in an election triggered that way. My assumption was that the incumbent would be a candidate automatically, and that the nominations gathered by Neil Kinnock against Tony Benn in 1988 were purely for show. But the rules do not say. Which would matter in Corbyn's case, because he would find it hard to secure enough nominations, given that some MPs (the Reverse Darwin Award winners) nominated him last time only to "widen the debate".

Grice's story revealed, however, another rule change that had already been nodded through at this year's annual conference. It went unreported at the time, but the leadership election rules were amended to include Members of the European Parliament in the nominating pool. The rules under which Corbyn's election took place required candidates to be nominated by 15 per cent of Labour MPs, which is 35. The change has the effect of raising the threshold to 38 MPs and MEPs (there are 232 Labour MPs and 20 MEPs). And the threshold for a challenge to a sitting leader (20 per cent) has been raised from 47 MPs to 51 MPs and MEPs.

The change was not, however, a cunning plan by Corbynites to protect the new leader. It was agreed by the National Executive before Corbyn was elected. The recommended change was notified to delegates in the Delegates Report (page 9) of 2 September (Corbyn was elected 12 September), in name of Harry Donaldson, chair of the Conference Arrangements Committee. It was passed as card vote no 2 by 95 per cent on the last day of the Labour conference in Brighton.

Presumably the rule change was pushed by the EPLP (European Parliamentary Labour Party), which had long been envious of the PLP's exclusive role (I think the EPLP was included in the PLP section of the 40-30-30 electoral college between 1981 and 1993). I am told that the change was proposed during the review by Ray Collins, who rejected it when he abolished the electoral college in the 2014 rule changes. However, some of the left-led trade unions continued to push for MEPs to be included, thinking that Labour MEPs generally, but particularly last year's intake, are more left-wing than the MPs.

So the unnoticed rule change will strengthen Corbyn's grip on the party slightly, but that is an accident, while the proposed change to give the leader the automatic right to stand if challenged would obviously make his position more secure on purpose.