Thank you for the comment and the questions.

It is some months since I read the article and made my comment, so I have had to re-read it to refresh my memory!

Given Mr Corbyn’s history, I suspect that. IN THEORY, he probably does support greater consultation with the membership in terms of policy. However, as leader and having to balance the claims of a divided PLP, in which he has minority support, I think that he is finding the PRACTICE more difficult. In some of his statements, particularly about the constitution (i.e what passes for a constitution in the UK) he has shown gaps in his understanding – e.g ‘Scotland is part of England’, and ‘you cannot have different systems of law in the one country’ (Scots Law continued after the 1707 union.) He has vacillated on things like whether he would ‘permit’ another Scottish independence referendum – from being ‘sanguine’ about it to, in the words of his ally and leader of the Party in Scotland, Mr Richard Leonard, that even if the Scottish Parliament voted for a referendum he would ask that the Labour manifesto has a pledge to refuse this. So, you can have your democracy as long as it is OUR democracy.

Mr Gerry Hassan, who has often published on this site wrote a book “The Strange Death of Labour Scotland” in which he pointed out the excluding nature of many constituency parties, in which cliques use procedures to circumscribe any discussion of issues , such as candidate selection, within branches. He also indicated how conservative many are.

I was a member of Labour for many years, although I was not an activist, but in various walks of life I encountered councillors, MPs, and officials and, while, probably most, were fairly sincere and equitable in their attitudes, many wanted power for its own sake and could be pretty brutal in actions against any new ideas. It was “Do as you’re told, we know what is good for you.” I think that many of these still hold powerful positions and have a network of connections in the media, with trade unions (I was a career long trade unionist and a workplace rep for many years.) and, indeed, with Tories! They have power and intend to keep it. Such a long-held and deep mindset is hard to change. I think that the kinds of selection disputes and other ‘scandals’, such as the antisemitism row, are all examples of this resistance.

The intellectual voice behind Mr Corbyn is Mr John McDonnell and, in his speeches, he is a Labour tribalist and his recent speech in Airdrie indicates party democracy and the devolution of power should be pretty limited He prefers to reach out the DUP than to Greens, SNP, or PC. (There is much to be commended in the ideas Mr McDonnell is promoting with regard to the economy, but he sees these as distinct from constitutional issues. He wants to use the power of the UK STATE to implement his policies. But that state is designed to maintain the power of the public school/Oxbridge/landowning/financial/media ‘eiite’ 5% of the population (including ‘non-doms’) and will eventually and fairly quickly engineer a crisis which brings about the return of the Tories. Without changing the constitution, particularly the electoral system, they will not bring about the redistribution of power that is necessary to reverse the accretion of powers to Westminster and ‘the Crown in Parliament’.

Since the current ‘constitution’ was set up by the Conservatives and their various predecessors to govern the country, largely, in their own interests, the Conservative Party will not support change – or only support that, such as Brexit, which changes things further in their favour.

So, unless Labour commits itself to constitutional change, it is unlikely to happen other than by extra parliamentary action. Labour, despite various noises, such as in an article by Mr Jon Trickett, recently, on this site, is not going to do that any time soon. It is an Anglo-British (to use your terminology) party and its principal allegiance is to the Anglo-British state. The current leadership plan to be economically redistributive in a way not seen since 1945, but it wants to have the powers which the Anglo-British state has to direct the change which it ‘knows’ people need to have.

I have a friend who has held senior positions within the Labour Party – now retired. He has sincerely egalitarian views, but these views are coloured by egalitarianism being what a Labour government provides. His view is that Bodger Broon had to work with global finance, because the realpolitik is that they have the power and that any Labour government has to work within these constraints.

You speak of the sovereignty of the people in Scotland and Bodger Broon’s mendacious Vow of 2014 was supposed to further entrench this sovereignty. However, in the Smith Commission which followed the 2014 referendum, it was the Scottish Labour team led by Mr Iain Gray who opposed most strongly any further empowerment of the Scottish Parliament.

The Labour Party is composed of people, most of whom have a stake in the Labour Party as a vehicle for them and theirs. Many of these people are not going to release their few scraps of power and deploy it to ‘the people’. While many of the post Corbyn influx are more open-minded, they will be ground down by the ‘standing orders’ tactics of the old lags.