Peter Kenyon

Labour Party steamrollering of members' rights in Stoke continues

Labour Party members rights to select candidates for public office are enshrined in the Rule Book. Ever since I was elected to the National Executive Committee and was made aware of party matters in Stoke on Trent, I have been researching how authority for actions in the name of the NEC has been granted.

This morning [email protected]  commented on my last posting. S/he states there is no 2-year plan, but states:

I'm sure that we should have a 2 year plan, agreed and shared amongst all the members but to the best of my knowledge no such document exists.

I have asked the person concerned to reveal their true identity. I  hope that this statement is genuine. If so, it could prove a positive development.

Very urgent action is needed to halt the steamrollering of members' rights to select remaining candidates for Stoke City Council elections on 6 May.

As matters stand, members in three Stoke Central wards,  have been invited to selection meetings in a central location in less than a week's time on Friday 19 March. Those who attend will have NO prior notice of who the candidates are before they arrive at that location. What  the vast majority who do attend will know is that three local members the chair, secretary and political education officer of Stoke Central CLP who all applied to stand had their applications refused and appeals overturned.

Those decisions were not taken by their peers as provided for in the Rule Book, but by persons imposed by the Labour Party NEC, from elsewhere in the West Midlands. The Appeals were conducted by NEC members Mike Griffiths - a former TU representative on the NEC , now removed from his role in Stoke, Cllr Ann Lucas representing local government  and Stephanie Peacock, the Young Labour representative.

What was the NEC doing in Stoke in the first place? I have yet to see any justification that would stand up to public scrutiny for its intervention in the selection of local government candidates in Stoke on Trent. Now we know there is no plan, who authorised this unwarranted intervention? Why should members - all volunteers - tolerate this gross interference in their rights? In particular, why should they take part in selections of candidates whom they have no prior knowledge of, whilst candidates whom they know (warts and all) are refused their rights to stand for the Council under the treat of disciplinary action if they continue to refuse to accept the NEC's authority? In plain language, they are being bullied into submission.

I have just taken a call from another  woman member in Stoke who told me that the regional office and their 'trusties' in Stoke supported by the NEC  "set out to get them". "It is quite awful, and cruel how they have treated Mick Williams and the others."

Mick Williams was given a Labour Party Merit award in 2008.

Tom Watson's short-list for Leyton and Wanstead?

When the ballot papers are despatched to Labour Party members in Leyton and Wanstead they are likely to be seen to carry the fingerprints of Tom Watson MP. According to my sources he chaired the interview panel(s) conducted yesterday to reduce the longlist said by some sources to have numbered 12 (out of some 103 applicants) to a shortlist of six. Bizarrely at least one candidate was interviewed by a different panel from the rest, but for continuity's sake, I suppose it might be argued, chaired by the same Tom Watson. I can not think of a single instance in my whole life of shortlisting for a position being conducted by different panels of people. But I suppose there is a first time for anything, especially in the equal opportunities conscious Labour Party.

Tom's presence on the Labour Party National Executive Committee itself has been a bit of a mystery to me ever since he resigned from the government. Why? Because he still sits on the NEC representing....the government. Be that as it may, much more relevant to members in Leyton and Wanstead is Tom's alleged closeness to No 10 Downing Street, and his alleged association with a shadowy organisation, or is it an eMail list, called Labour First. Yesterday he sat with Cllr Ann Lucas, alleged by some to also be associated with,,,,Labour First, who sits on the NEC representing local government, and Paddy Lillis, an NEC representative from the leadership loyalist shopworkers' union USDAW. USDAW along with Community were the only trades unions to vote at Labour Party Conference 2009 against one member one vote for constituency section representatives to the National Policy Forum. 

What is beyond doubt is that a shortlist produced by members in Leyton and Wanstead would not have been the same as that decided by Tom and friends yesterday.

Tom's list now goes to an all-members ballot to decide who will be Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate to campaign to retain the seat held by the disgraced incumbent, Harry Cohen MP. A strong local candidate might have helped.