No Labour Love Lost

Today's meeting of Labour's National Executive Council to decide the rules of the Party's leadership contest will be one of their oddest. And perhaps bitterest.

Three Labour Party sources have told me that the leadership tried to make a last minute attempt to remove Jonathan Ashworth MP as a front bench representative on the NEC. The Shadow Cabinet rebelled and kept him on.

They will also be discussing the future of one of the people in the room: Jeremy Corbyn. One Labour source told me this was "completely bizarre and absolutely unprecedented" and that when Angela Eagle's role as possible Deputy Leader was discussed last year she left the room. Mr Corbyn is expected to sit there.

Secondly WHATEVER they decide looks likely to be challenged in the courts. A Union source tells me that four separate QCs have independently advised that Mr Corbyn should be on the ballot regardless of whether he can get the 51 MP and MEP nominations any challenger would need.

The current expectation seems to be that he WILL be on the ballot automatically but that will be legally challenged by the anti-Corbyn side (who incidentally say it is "absurd" that he has to rely on a technicality to get on the ballot).

With reports of Angela Eagle's constituency office having been attacked last night, barriers being erected around the venue for the NEC meeting and lawyers sharpening their pencils this looks like being a long, hot, loveless summer for Labour.