Members voting for the next Labour leader?

Jordan Carter blogs:

I am not yet sure of it, but I think it is possible by the end of this year, the New Zealand Labour Party will have an institutional role for members in choosing the leadership of the Party.  We will, if that is so, be joining our fraternal parties around the world, and will be giving people a big new reason to join the party and be involved.

I’m a fan of giving the members a vote, as the UK Conservatives did in choosing David Cameron.

The process we choose will be important.  My view is that in a country as small as this, we should do our best to keep it deliberative.  We could, as Patrick suggests, have an electoral college model between the Caucus, Members and Affiliates, and that would work for me to a degree with postal ballots for the latter two, and in person ballots for the Caucus.

I’m more a one person one vote person. Jordan’s model (which is used in UK Labour) would see union bosses controlling say a third of the votes.

Why not just have a postal ballot of all members of the party, a member being someone who has filled in a membership form and paid a sub.

But good to see Labour looking at involving their members more.