Pro-Starmer candidates resoundingly beat left-wing slates in internal elections

Candidates backed by pro-Keir Starmer group Labour to Win have resoundingly beaten left-wing candidates in elections to key internal committees.

Alice Perry and Phil Wilson were elected to the two Constituency Labour Party (CLP) representative positions on the conference arrangements committee, which is responsible for running Labour’s annual conference.

Labour to Win-backed candidates also won all five CLP representative positions on the party’s national constitutional committee (NCC), which oversees the disciplinary process within the party, and all six of the positions in the CLP section on the party’s national women’s committee.

Perry and Wilson received 239,998 and 210,608 votes respectively from CLP delegations at this year’s conference, ahead of Jean Crocker and Chris Saltmarsh – backed by campaign group Momentum and other organisations within the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance (CLGA) – who received 75,267 and 60,581 votes respectively.

Perry – whose candidacy was also endorsed by soft left group Open Labour – is the former chair of Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) and a former councillor. Wilson served as MP for Sedgefield from 2007 to 2019. They will serve a two-year term.

Their election represents a notable victory for Starmer, as the two CLP rep positions on the CAC have been held by Seema Chandwani and Billy Hayes since 2017, whose candidacy was backed by Momentum and other left-wing groups.

The CLP positions on the CAC were previously elected by a one-member-one-vote ballot, but the NEC decided last year to return to the election of the posts by conference delegates.

Labour to Win-backed candidates Hugh Goulbourne, Sem Moema, Sue Pugh, Sioned-Mair Richards and Brahmpreet Kaur were all elected to the party’s NCC, with each candidate receiving between 173,094 and 207,694 votes from CLP delegations to conference.

They beat the left-wing slate of candidates – Jabran Hussain, Dave Levy, Marion Roberts and Annabelle Harle – who received between 50,341 and 78,818 votes.

The last time seats on the NCC were contested back in 2021, Labour to Win gained two seats in the CLP section, reducing the number of Momentum-backed reps on the body. The four CLP rep positions up for grabs that year were evenly split between the two factional groups.

According to Labour to Win, its candidates also won all six of the positions in the CLP section on the party’s national women’s committee, with Sagal Abdi-Wali, Amina Ali, Alison Gray, Caroline Price, Kathryn Salt and Lucy Smith elected by women’s conference delegates over the weekend.

Meanwhile, newly-appointed NEC chair James Asser was re-elected to serve a fifth term on the party’s ruling body earlier this week, winning election as the NEC’s socialist society representative with 22,768 votes from socialist society delegations, ahead of Rathi Guhadasan on 1,829.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, following his election as NEC chair on Tuesday, Asser said: “A huge honour to be elected as the new chair of [Labour’s] national executive committee for 2023/24.

“Thanks to my NEC colleagues for putting their trust in me and to the socialist societies for their support in electing me as their rep for the last eight years.”