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the wider labour party decided on direction and policy
That's what we tell ourselves but it's not true. If the rules worked as written, members vote on policy and the leadership enact it.
But if that's how it worked, Labour would've had a 2nd ref position by 2018 latest; Corbyn as leader did not think that was the right approach and so members didn't get to vote on it, though if they had it would've passed with a bullet.
In reality the leadership gets voted in by the members, and they get a lot of latitude on how the party works; they'll load the NEC and the PLP and the local CLPs with their allies, which means they get to load the conference with the things THEY want to be focussed on.
Membership might get to vote on every policy but 99% of the time, only where the leadership either a) doesn't care about the outcome or b) has a pretty good idea that they'll vote in line with the leadership.
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ReekBlefs
@Grumpy_Git
I'm not 100% into the detail of labour party setup/policy but my understanding was that the wider labour party decided on direction and policy. Surely then a vapid sponge (tm) of a leader with no public policies of their own but the drive to enact them is the correct outcome?