Striking a balance: the next general secretary, university pensions talks and Brexit

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When it was announced Iain McNicol was standing down last week, a number of party activists called for the post to be “democratically elected”. They realised there wouldn’t be enough time for such a reform to be enforced for the next general secretary, even if the idea did win support. What we didn’t know is quite how quickly the selection process was going to be put into action.

The race is now properly underway as the national executive committee is set to appoint McNicol’s successor on 20th March. Who’s in the running? Sam Tarry, Emilie Oldknow and Andrew Murray have all been touted but seem highly unlikely, Anneliese Midgley is more probable and Unite regional secretary Jennie Formby is regarded as the frontrunner.

The latest development is that Jon Lansman, founder of Momentum, has apparently thrown his hat into the ring. You might wonder how and why a ‘Momentum vs Unite’ choice could emerge – but the Left of the Labour Party is not a monolith.

In non-internal Labour news, University and College Union’s Sally Hunt has written for LabourList ahead of talks between UCU and the universities’ representatives’ organization UUK. “Strike action on this scale has never been seen before on British campuses,” Hunt writes, but the support they have received from students and even vice-chancellors has been “overwhelming”. She hopes UUK will be constructive today and help resolve the dispute.

Did Jeremy Corbyn strike a happy medium with his Brexit speech yesterday? Trade unions have welcomed the move, but Labour Leave says millions of voters will be “deeply concerned” by the policy shift. The Mirror is running vox-pops with Barnsley voters showing just that, yet polling suggests Labour leave voters care more about housing, education and NHS funding. The prospect of the UK being a ‘rule-taker’ not a ‘rule-maker’ will be worrying to many, but Corbyn seems to have hit the right note on Brexit for now.

@siennamarla

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