A report from Labour’s last NEC meeting reveals that Wendy Nichols, the NEC chairwoman, having to shut down discussion of the “crisis” in Labour. The 5-hour-long  March meeting – described by NEC Unite member Howard Beckett as “the most depressing” he’d ever attended – saw 4 of the 22 motions submitted by local branches describe Starmer’s Labour as “in crisis”; all of which were ruled out of order in an extreme intervention by the NEC chair. Nichols claimed debating the motions would distract from winning elections…

Despite this speech clampdown, some NEC members rebelled, and it was later claimed the refusal to debate the motions makes the NEC process itself “a pointless waste of time for local parties to send motions at all”. The NEC meeting didn’t need any motions to prove Labour’s crisis in the end, as it was the same meeting that saw Laura Pidcock storm out after being called a “cow” by Margaret Beckett…