To whom does a political party belong? To its leader? To the MPs who have been elected in the party’s colours to represent it in parliament? To the party’s members? To the organisations who founded the party and still pay most of its bills, which in Labour’s case are the trades unions? This question doesn’t often trouble anyone except political scientists, but who owns the Labour party suddenly matters a great deal. It will be one of the big questions – perhaps the biggest, and certainly a more important, question than whether or not Jeremy Corbyn can master reading from an autocue – at the party’s conference in Brighton.
Read Full Article »
