Abbott frustrated with nominations threshold ‘devised to block the left’

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

With five days left, candidates who have not yet secured the nominations – and party members who wish to see a broad contest – are becoming increasingly frustrated with the nominations process as it stands.

Diane Abbott writes in today’s Times:

“The problem is that we have a ridiculously high threshold to get on the ballot. One in eight Labour MPs must nominate you.

“If, when he was a freshman senator, Barack Obama had had to get one in eight Democratic Congressmen to nominate him, his run for the presidency would have been over before it began. At the start of the primaries almost the entire Democratic Party (including most black congressmen) were pledged to Hillary Clinton.

“Much the same is true in regard to the Labour machine and David Miliband. And it is not just my belief that the threshold is too high. Charles Clarke, the former MP who designed the system when he worked for Neil Kinnock, boasted to me that he had devised it precisely to block the Left.”

Jon Cruddas submitted his nomination for Diane Abbott last night, and others will surely follow. And Abbott also said on the BBC’s Question Time last night that she has “more [nominations] than you might think”.

But unless she secures a third of the remaining MPs’ nominations (27 out of about 80), she and John McDonnell (who has 7 nominations) are unlikely to make the ballot.