 Momentum, the pro-Germi Corbyn campaign group has thrown its weight behind proposals, which would make it easier to deselect sitting Labour MPs. A raft of new measures are set to be debated at the party's conference later this month, including a plan which would require sitting Labour MPs to be re-selected by their local parties on a regular basis. While the final details haven't been revealed, the reports have caused concern among critics of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, with some MPs faring as part of a plot to replace them with pro-Corbyn candidates joined from Haringey in North London by the political writer Nora Mulreddy, who recently quit the Labour Party, and from Westminster by Michael Walker, a contributor at the Independent News website, Navora Media. Let's go with gentlemen first for a change. Hello to you, so thanks for joining us on Sky News this afternoon. Isn't that what general elections are for? Well, that is what general elections are for, but we also think there's another level of democracy which should be in the Labour Party. So currently, if you're a Labour MP in a safe seat, the election isn't particularly competitive for you, and you don't really face any competition for about 30 years, potentially. I mean, if you want to stay in your seat, you get to stay in your seat until you resign, and we think that can breed a bit of complacency, but the main reason we're doing this is because we want a method for, will I say we, I'm supporting momentum in doing it, is because we are supporting, we want a method by which the new talent in the Labour Party, there's half a million members of the Labour Party, we want that to be able to rise up to the top, we want to create avenues by which our talented membership can become MPs instead of what we see now of them being locked out. So, Navora, MPs shouldn't be flabby and complacent, and there should be a healthy opportunity for youngsters to rise through the ranks. Right, I think, yeah, it's very interesting that that's how they're putting it. There is already a mechanism within the Labour Party to, if people are unhappy with their MP or they want other people to have an opportunity to stand for the seat, there is already a mechanism within the Labour Party rules to trigger that, and that comes around every few years. So, this is quite disingenuous. I mean, all this is doing is removing one layer of the process of selecting and reselecting Labour candidates. I think what's really happening here is momentum has a huge machine now within the Labour Party. They've taken over just about every aspect of the Labour Party. The only part that they haven't really completely captured at this stage is the Parliamentary Labour Party, and so this is an attempt by momentum to make it basically easier to deselect any Labour MPs who are not part of the kind of Jeremy Corbyn group thing, you know, the absolute kind of total loyalty to the leader, to the movement, all the rest of it. I mean, the momentum movement there, not the Labour movement, and to just basically make it easier to deselect people like that. So, I think it's very disingenuous to say this is about democracy. Michael, you're being disingenuous, sir. Well, I'm not going to accuse Nora of being disingenuous. I'm just going to disagree. So, what I'd say is, yeah, at the moment there is a trigger ballot process. The reason I think that's dysfunctional for the Labour Party is what it means is that people have to mount a negative campaign against their current MPs. So, if we want a new crop, a new generation of leaders in the Labour Party, we first have to start negative campaigns against incumbents. And I don't think that's a particularly healthy way for activists to be forced to act really if they want to have a choice over who represents them. So, what momentum are proposing is that we allow candidates to stand against sitting MPs, just as you do in America, just as they do in Ireland. It's quite normal practice, just as actually Labour councillors have to face this, is to say, we want activists, community leaders to be able to say, I'd actually quite like to be the Labour candidate for this seat. And if they get enough support, that would trigger a contest, and then they can face off against that MP. And the best, the most popular one will win. I also don't think this is really going to be run by any kind of machine as we've seen how selections work up to this point. People tend to vote based on who they find is the most charismatic in their community, who has name recognition. So, selections up to this point have been fairly mixed in terms of ideological alignment. So, I don't think this should really be seen as means of creating more ideological purity in the party. I think that would be a misrepresentation of what's going on. Okay. So, Nora, you're right, but they're not a nasty movement. They want to do it nicely. Yeah, I actually, well, let me put this to Michael then. If they're really interested in extending democracy and getting community leaders and activists and making this more representative of the communities people are serving, why stop at the Labour Party membership choosing Labour candidates? Why not go to fully open primaries like they have in America, which is one of the countries that he just referenced there, where people from within the constituencies and the wider community get a say over who becomes the Labour candidates. Now, I suspect that momentum would absolutely not support something like that because I think in their heart of hearts, they know that the kind of hard left politics that have now taken over the Labour Party massively helped by momentum wouldn't, candidates that are espousing those kind of politics would not win in open primaries. So, you know, they're talking about Ocasio Cortezer, but actually, if they fought that kind of battle within the communities in Britain, they're very unlikely to come out with the hard left candidates that they want. So, you know, they talk about, let's extend democracy only up to a point. That's awesome. Michael, what do you think? Personally, I'd be in favour of open primaries. I'd definitely be in favour of a registered supportive scheme. The proposal that was agreed by momentum was saying they will back anything which allows, or the best proposal which allows candidates to stand against sitting MPs. They haven't specified who would be able to vote in that contest. I also think that Nora might be misled in some of the assumptions that when you broaden the electorate, I mean, it is true. So, if you read the statement, the statement doesn't say... Well, it's not in the article that we're talking about. Well, the article doesn't specify. So, what the article says is that it's in, is this Laura Parker's article? So, what the article specifies is we want to create a system where there can be a positive campaign against sitting MPs, not because we want to get rid of the sitting MPs, but because we want to see who has the most talent, who has the most connections in that community. It doesn't specify who'd be able to vote. I'd personally be in favour of definitely registered supporters being able to vote. And as I say, I think Nora's misled in the idea that when you expand the electorate, candidates from what was her wing at the party, the centrist wing will win. Obviously, we know that when the Collins report happened, it's getting a bit wonky, but when the Collins report happened, that was when we introduced one member one vote for the leadership. And that was introduced partly by centrist because they thought that when you go into the wider community, you'll get a more centrist candidate. It turns out that centrism doesn't actually have that much popular support in any community. So, I think we will get a nice diverse spread of leaders in the Labour Party, even if we do go to open primaries. Yeah, Nora, I mean, okay, but we find it hard to get people to vote in the general election. So, you know, introducing other elections, how is that going to go down? Nora? Sorry, I didn't hear that question. My point was that we find it very difficult to get people to vote in general elections. So, in elections that are, you know, pretty arbitrary and the ones that we're discussing right now, I mean, what sort of turnout do you think there might be if there were sort of open elections for local people? Well, actually, I think that's an interesting point. One of the possible problems with politics now is that people do feel detached from the party that they're voting for because they, I mean, Michael's right, when you have safe seats, actually, it's very hard for the general population. I mean, they just have to vote for whoever the Labour Party puts on the table. And, you know, given that we are going to have, I think this will happen. I think momentum, you know, may succeed in this as they've succeeded in everything else so fast as they've appeared on the scene. Whereas, actually, if the general population had more of a say over who was going to be the Labour candidate, you know, actually, you might see greater interest in, you know, coming along and voting in general elections. Sounds as though potentially she might be agreeing with you there, Michael. At the end, that's always a nice way to end an interview, isn't it? Do you agree? Yeah, it does seem like we do agree. I think that we shouldn't say because turnout is low, we should give up on democracy. I think we should ask why turnout is low. And I think that might be that many people in safe seats don't really feel like their vote counts. They've had the same MP for 15, 20 years and they know who's, they ultimately know who's going to win the election. So this would give a chance for people to have more skin in the game. Also, I think what you'd see in terms of turnout is it would be very variable. So it would depend on whether or not someone has come forward as an inspiring candidate and managed to mobilise people. So what you saw in the United States is a Casio Cortez, the socialist candidate in New York. She massively increased turnout in that primary because she'd inspired people and I think that's a good challenge for Labour members and Labour activists to meet. Okay, well maybe we should discuss the first pass the post system. I'm just kidding, we'll do that another time. Thank you both very much indeed for joining us on Sky News this afternoon. Thank you. Let us know what you think on that or indeed any of the stories that we're coming for you here on Sky News this afternoon.