The SKWAWKBOX has uncovered evidence of possible shady goings-on at Labour’s HQ that potentially implicate either General Secretary Iain McNicol or at least one member of Labour’s NEC (National Executive Committee) in the ‘mislaying’ of inconvenient documents to prevent them being discussed by the NEC in accordance with procedure.
This blog covered the motion approved and sent forward late last year by Garston & Halewood (G&H) CLP (Constituency Labour party) declaring no confidence in Iain McNicol. Similarly, last October the Welsh CLP of Brecon and Radnorshire (B&R), approved a motion declaring the unlawful addition of two unelected members to the NEC during Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool (which the SKWAWKBOX has also extensively covered). G&H will debate a similar motion this month, but for now the evidence centres on the B&R motion.
In accordance with normal procedure, as soon as it was approved the B&R motion was sent forward by a member of the CLP’s executive for the NEC to discuss – and acknowledged by the General Secretary:
But the SKWAWKBOX has obtained emails between a north-west Labour member and a well-known member of the NEC, which culminates in the latter denying that the motion was ever received by the committee:
Another 3 NEC members are copied in on the correspondence.
Either Mr McNicol appears not to have sent the motion forward to the NEC or he sent it to someone in the NEC and they didn’t give it to the rest of the organisation committee.
Another NEC member, in a separate discussion, commented that
CLP motions never get to the NEC.
If the latter NEC member’s claim is true – and the confirmed instance involving the Brecon motion tends to support that conclusion – then it is further evidence of the apparent disdain with which many at Labour HQ regard their members.
The SKWAWKBOX has also learned that at least one front-bench member of the NEC is ‘thoroughly sick’ of the multi-layered structure of NEC sub-committees and the way in which these are being abused by the right-wing ‘old guard’. The Shadow-Cabinet level member said that all the Corbyn supporters on the NEC end up on committees with no real power, while all the committees with real clout are stacked with right-wingers and is of the opinion that it can’t be allowed to continue – that we need a new, simpler way of doing things.
This is just one more facet of the way in which Labour structures are rigged to maintain a status quo that the vast majority of the party’s members want to see ended – and on the ending of which Labour’s best chances of electoral success depend.
But the deliberate diversion and binning of communications from local parties to their National Executive is – must be – an immediate resignation matter, whether Iain McNicol or another NEC member is responsible.
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Drain the swamp!
This is sad to hear. However org sub based on past voting would be likely to just note a motion so not sure much else will happen as no one is going to move a vote of no-confidence at NEC or Conference and McNichol is likely to be in post for the next decade as there will be no agreement based on past and likely future (have you checked the 4 recent regional conf election results) NEC and Conf voting on his successor.
This again illustrates my point that the NEC is around 13-10-12 based on recent voting not 18-17 or such like, which is why it is important not to overclaim any closeness. I am still awaiting anyone publishing a list of who the 17 who solidly vote always the same way as no one has done that, which is why all the assumption that things are close to any resolution in our ‘hung party’ is way off the mark
My husband and I were at that meeting in Brecon which the motion was carried and it was clear from the member of the NEC present that the two motions put forward were not ones that they wanted to deal with.
Reblogged this on Declaration Of Opinion .
I suspect some inconvenient communications are going missing too. Our CLP sent a request for the actions of some during the Leadership contest to be fully investigated and action taken to ensure it can’t happen again in future elections. We sent it to Glenis Willmott as chair of NEC and Iain McNicol. That was in October. This was followed up in November as we never even had an acknowledgement. To date, no reply has been received by the CLP secretary.
Given the actions of the then Chair of the NEC Paddy Lillis, at the party conference (who is a member of my CLP, but nobody has seen or heard from him in years), ignoring the rule book and party democracy, this article comes as no surprise. McNicol must go.
We did the same regarding Paddy Lillis at conference passing a motion in Hastings and Rye CLP, surprisingly nothing came back from
NEC. I was a delegate at conference and I called for a card vote too.