Hillary Benn’s Leeds Central CLP (Constituency Labour Party) has voted in a landslide to install supporters of Jeremy Corbyn. As the quote above from one of its new officers says, his face was a picture – one imagines not of delight.
The SKWAWKBOX congratulates Leeds CLP on an excellent democratic move – and also warns them to take extra care.
Brighton Hove and District Labour Party saw similar results not too long ago – and these were followed by a witchhunt based on invented allegations of abusive, bullying behaviour as a pretext for the suspension of the DLP and eventual expulsion of its chair.
Wallasey CLP voted in new, pro-Corbyn officers and was about to vote no-confidence in its MP, Angela Eagle, when suddenly allegations sprang up that Ms Eagle had to endure homophobic abuse – from a CLP whose chair and secretary are each the proud parents of gay children, during a meeting she did not even attend.
Riverside CLP in Liverpool voted overwhelmingly to support Jeremy Corbyn – and an anonymous ‘dossier’ of anonymous allegations of ‘entryism’ and antisemitism mysteriously materialises, with the CLP’s own, anti-Corbyn MP calling for its suspension. An investigation is about to begin.
There are people in positions of influence in the Labour party structure who are determined not to allow Corbyn supporters to take their democratically-earned positions of influence in local parties and who plainly have few qualms about confecting evidence-free allegations to prevent it.
Hopefully, flagging this pattern will make those miscreants think twice about repeating their all-too-obvious tactic.
But I strongly advise Leeds Central to video all their meetings from now on.