Talk:Socialist Campaign Group

Austin Mitchell
I'm rather surprised to se Austin Mitchell's name on this list. I can't find another list to confirm against - the Group's website is closed - but his voting record here hardly marks him out as a likely member. Can anybody advise? BTLizard 15:47, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

He's listed as a member on the website and has contributed to their magazine.

"Joined the government"
This seems to be given as reason for MPs not being members any more. Are ministers and ex-ministers barred from membership of the group?A Geek Tragedy 01:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ministers are by tradition not members of groups like this; they are bound by the doctrine of collective responsibility which could lead them into a conflict of interest. An ex-minister would, of course, be free to re-join. BTLizard (talk) 13:34, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Bob Wareing
is he still a member of campaign group despite not being a labour mp anymore? 78.146.171.127 (talk) 18:47, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

not sure, he is still a membe of the labour party but has resigned the labour whip 86.7.237.18 (talk) 09:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Tony Benn leaving parliament
I've moved Tony Benn as he never said he was leaving Parliament 'due to age or ill health' - he said he wanted to devote more time to politics

Jpmaytum (talk) 21:42, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

New Members?
Will any of the new MPs elected in 2010 be joining the Campaign group?  SmokeyTheCat   •TALK•  05:39, 16 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I am guessing that that the lack of response to the above question may be taken as a 'no' ?  Smokey TheCat  13:35, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Five years later I ask again - any new MPs from today's election going to join? (Hoping for more than last time :-) )  Smokey TheCat  16:39, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Major edits?
I think this page needs some major edits, for which I am not qualified.

1) Various sources cite Terry Lewis, Ronnie Campbell, Audrey Wise, Harold Best and David Heyes as members of the SCG, but aren't listed here. Have they been members?

2) We need more specific dates for those MPs who remained in Parliament but left the SCG.

3) The list at http://www.poptel.org.uk/scgn/mps.php does not list Martin Caton or David Drew as having been members of the SGC. Can anybody clarify? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.183.151.38 (talk) 20:01, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Contradiction
Article contradicts itself - it lists Corbyn among those who have resigned from the Campaign Group on entering the shadow cabinet, but it also lists him as a current member of the Group. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.182.149 (talk) 21:01, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Source for current members
Can somebody add a source for the list of current members? I don't want to treat it as questionable but I can't find any source to validate the current list. Thanks!

--62.57.63.202 (talk) 10:07, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Query re current members
The 34 current members listed include Claudia Webbe and Jeremy Corbyn. However both do not currently hold the Labour whip and so are not officially Labour MPs. Does this mean that they can be members of the Campaign Group? Dunarc (talk) 21:27, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Democratic socialism or social democracy?
As posted on User talk:SunDawn

"You are absolutely correct; social democracy and democratic socialism are not the same thing.

As posted on the Labour Party (UK) talk page:

Democratic socialism is effectively dead within Labour. In the 1940s and 50s, "the left wing was not prepared to be satisfied with Keynesian modifications of capitalism." (Bevanism: A Philosophy for British Labour?), and that was the case even into the 1980s with the likes of Benn (though even then 'democratic socialism' would hardly have been prominent enough within the party for it to be listed as its ideology). Compare this to Corbyn's leadership, which was satisfied with Keynesian modifications of capitalism (as were his supporters).

In addition:

The Socialist Campaign Group, to no real extent, actually supports 'democratic socialism', as seen by even the remains of the old Benn-aligned fringe accepting the existing economic framework and seeking only social justice within it. The most that can be said is that it supports a 'radical' variant of social democracy, to the left of other social democrats."

Ideology should be changed from 'democratic socialism' to 'social democracy' and the democratic socialism category removed. The sentence in the lede should be changed from "is a left-wing, democratic socialist grouping of Labour Party Members of Parliament" to "is a grouping of left-wing, social democratic Labour Party MPs" or "is a grouping of left-wing Labour Party MPs". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.20.13.254 (talk) 13:42, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Constituencies abolished section
There is a slight issue with this section as in two cases the constituencies were not actually abolished. Les Huckfield's seat was Nuneaton which still exists to this day. However it did have its boundaries redrawn for the 1983 election and this favoured the Conservatives and turned the seat into a marginal. Huckfield then tried to get selected elsewhere, but failed. I have seen the claim that his seat was abolished elsewhere (notably in Tony Blair's memoirs), but it is not strictly true. Andrew McMahon in Glasgow Govan is even more complicated as Govan did continue, but took in a a large part of the Glasgow Craigton seat which itself had been primarily created from the 1950-1955 version of the Govan seat. Bruce Millan who was the Craigton MP got the Labour nomination for Govan. Thus I wonder if it would be safer to call this section Constituencies abolished or redrawn? Dunarc (talk) 19:11, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Copyedit required
Article needs a massive copyedit, if only to align it with MOS. It is way too much for me to sort out using mobile - really, this is one of the least compliant articles I have ever seen & it doesn't even render well in the app because of this. Aside from overlinks, punctuation and namings, there are things such as linked section headings (see WP:MOSHEAD). - Sitush (talk) 07:12, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Membership
I think the source of the membership falls far short of the required standard and at least 2 of the members given are not currently classed as Labour MPs but as independents. --Kitchen Knife (talk) 20:07, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Membership (cont'd)
It's not clear from the article whether those MPs who have had the Labour whip withdrawn (Corbyn, Abbott) or have been expelled from the Labour party (Webbe) are still allowed to be in the group. My understanding is that they are - if so, then the introduction should be amended so that it no longer says that it's a grouping of only Labour MPs, and also suspended/expelled MPs shouldn't be listed under former members, unless of course they have left parliament altogether. Mark and inwardly digest (talk) 15:43, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Current number of MPs
Can someone please cite its current number of MPs on this Wikipedia article with a reliable source and add it back into the infobox please? I can't so far find anything after the 2024 UK general election giving its current number of MPs. Helper201 (talk) 10:32, 8 July 2024 (UTC)


 * We won’t know until it’s updated by the group itself. They’ve not published anything or updated their Twitter lists yet. 92.40.192.207 (talk) 16:34, 9 July 2024 (UTC)