 Later this week, we'll see the Labour Party conference down in Brighton and one of the major points of contention you're going to hear so much about this is the so-called McDonnell amendment named after the one and only John McDonnell. What is the McDonnell amendment? Well, it's in regard to the party's leadership process whereby the party elects any potential successor Jeremy Corbyn, whether it be next year, five years or 10 years from now. At present, in order to get on the ballot, you require 15% of the party's members of Parliament and members of European Parliament, 15%. Now, of course, those MEPs will soon go because we're leaving the European Union, which means that 15% of Labour MPs will be required for any potential successor to then go forward to the membership. In effect, the Parliamentary Labour Party has a power of veto over who and who cannot be decided on by the membership as a leadership candidate. Now, in 2015 we had four people on the ballot. Liz Kendall, Evette Cooper, Andy Bowman, Jeremy Corbyn. Jeremy Corbyn was only there because a number of MPs said they wanted to broaden the debate. There wasn't really much of an instinct that he would do particularly well after all the left always loses and had they thought he would win or even stand a chance of winning, he never would have got the nominations that he needed. In fact, Margaret Beckett just a few months later, one of the signatories for his candidacy said it was the biggest mistake of her political career. And the Macdonald amendment recognises that. It recognises that it could be quite difficult for any potential successor to Corbyn from the left to get on the ballot. That's why it proposes to reduce the limit from 15% of MPs to just 5%. Now, I love John Macdonald to bits. I think he's a phenomenal guy, a great politician. He's one of my favourite people on planet Earth. But John, this time I think you just got a very, very badly wrong. I really have to take exception to this. I wholeheartedly disagree. It shouldn't be 5%. It should be zero. Now, there's two reasons why I say that. First and foremost, we know that the Labour Party membership has better political instincts than the parliamentary Labour Party. After all, it was they who identified Jeremy Corbyn as the best candidate to revivify, to reinvigorate the Labour Party. And they were right. The experts, many in fact the majority of his colleagues in Parliament, were wrong. The membership said that Jeremy Corbyn could make Labour competitive. His colleagues said he couldn't, that Labour would crash under his leadership to a historic defeat, a repeat inevitably of 1983. That showed the limits of their political imagination. But when you think about it, it makes sense. After all, ordinary people in ordinary communities, a half a million of them, are going to be better placed identifying a politician able to appeal to the vast majority of the public. Meanwhile, a couple of hundred people locked up in a weird 19th century building by the River Thames. Well, it makes sense that they are totally out of touch, doesn't it? But besides the issue of political intelligence, and as I've said, the Labour Party membership has that in spades, there's also the issue of democracy. After all, the strapline, the catchphrase of Labour at the last general election was for the many, not the few. For the many. Well, how can a party for the many, for the many, allow 262 MPs to have the power of veto in deciding who can and cannot lead a party with a half a million members? That is not for the many. That's the definition of elite driven politics. It's not democratic. It's the absolute opposite. And it needs to change. I've talked many times before about the necessity of the mock ties and Labour Party, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it's politically advantageous, because it's necessary to build and underpin a political project set to transform Britain for the rest of my lifetime. We need that in terms of candidate selection, we need that in terms of mandatory reselection of MPs, and we need it in regard to changing the General Secretary and the National Executive Committee. But first and foremost, we need it for the party leadership. That's why there should be no threshold at all. A party of a half a million people and growing should not have its will curtailed or beholden to a couple of hundred people. The Labour Party is better than that and it will be better than that. It's time we held true to the principles which appealed to so many people just a few months ago. So let's be a party of the many and not the few. The McDonald amendment should not be five percent. Let's call it the Pistano amendment. There should be none at all. Let the members decide. After all, they've got so much right and those elites in media and politics have got so much wrong.