A sorry tale has reached the ears of this blog about the abysmal treatment of a sixteen-year-old Labour member by the Don Valley CLP (constituency Labour party) of ‘moderate’ MP Caroline Flint.
This young member – who has been a member of the Labour Party since she was fourteen – was eager to go as a delegate to Labour’s annual Conference in Brighton in September. She stood, and was duly selected, to go as the CLP’s ‘youth delegate’.
And then, after thanking her for being willing to go, the CLP ‘executive’ blocked her from going – after she had already booked and paid.
The SKWAWKBOX has obtained emails sent to this young lady by the CLP Chair and Secretary that show the train of events. The first two emails concern the fact that she will self-fund – as the exec claims the CLP can only afford to fund one delegate – and then confirm that she can and will attend as a self-funding delegate.
And the CLP thanks and congratulates her for it:
The deadline for Conference applications this year was 7 July and our young heroine duly applied and paid.
The day after the deadline, she received an email from the CLP Secretary that completely reversed the earlier confirmation:
Let’s be clear: there is nothing in the Labour Party’s rules that says a delegate cannot be self-funding. Likewise, there is nothing in the party’s rules to allow a CLP exec to simply decide to ignore the democratic vote of its members to send a youth delegate (or the women’s delegate, who has also been blocked).
And, according to local members, the ‘exec’ that made this decision is said to include the MP, the MP’s husband, her paid assistant – and the councillor who will be going to the Conference.
The young would-be delegate contested the decision and the exec simply kicked it into the ‘long grass’ of the Labour bureaucracy saying, in another email:
As far as Don Valley CLP is concerned, the matter is closed.
One of the delegate’s parents told the SKWAWKBOX:
She was nominated as youth delegate at our CLP meeting along with our local councillor who was nominated as the additional women’s delegate. The main delegate is a Progress supporter. On the evening our MP Caroline flint said the CLP couldn’t afford to send the youth and women’s delegate because it has been an election year! She said only one delegate can go with voting rights.
After checking this the following day this was proved to be wrong and found that both the youth and womens delegate have voting rights and could be sent to conference. Our CLP secretary sent an email giving confirmation that both the youth and womens delegate could go as delegates with voting rights only they had to self fund.
Our ward Labour party agreed to pay. Registration and accommodation were paid for but on the morning of the 8th July (after deadline for delegate registration) the Chair and Secretary of the CLP sent an email stating that she could no longer go as a delegate.
They stated that there had been a meeting of the executive committee (consisting of the secretary, Caroline flint, her husband, the Progress delegate and Caroline’s paid assistant). At this meeting they made a decision not to allow the youth and women’s delegate to go because it was discriminatory against other members because they were self funding from our ward despite being told self funding was the only way they could go!
The idea that self-funding is discriminatory against other delegates is one that has been used at multiple CLPs around the country – and has no basis whatever in Labour’s rules. But the idea that self-funding is discriminatory against members who haven’t even been selected to go to Conference is a first for this blog.
The SKWAWKBOX calls on Ms Flint, Don Valley CLP and the Labour Party to reverse this ludicrous decision and allow the CLP’s elected delegates to attend – and vote at – the party’s annual Conference.
The matters to be decided at the Conference are huge and it is essential that every delegate of goodwill toward Labour’s vision and status as a true alternative to a failed economic and political Establishment is there to vote.
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Reblogged this on O LADO ESCURO DA LUA.
And that’s encouragement for the young to get involved?
(Skin)Flint…Another that needs punting into the long grass.:/
Caroline Flint and her fellow members in the Progress Organisation, which has only 2,000 members, is engaged in a coordinated attempt to gerrymander Conference 2017. This is of course an abuse of the rules and regulations of the Labour Party. That this corrupt faction is using this corrupt strategy is bad enough in and of itself.
But to use such sectarian tactics against a youth member of the Labour Party is beneath contempt, is completely unacceptable and must be reversed.
This despicable and corrupt behaviour on the part of Caroline Flint demonstrates that she is unfit to be Labour a MP.
Yes – but you won’t see this matter reported on the daily politics…
Of course not.
Very well said.
Some of Labour’s CLPs seem to be acting horribly. Is there a higher authority to take this to?
Sadly a lot of COP’s use the argument of not enough money Sedgefield CLP did.
Progress – the Party within the Labour Party. Undemocratic decision.
I raised the point that “no one should not be able to attend conference as an elected delegate because of their personal finances as it was discriminatory”, after it was sort of wafted around that “we” couldn’t afford a full set including a disabled delegate. I was very surprised then to find the EC had in fact decided that all delegates would be supported! Would it be a surprise that we had actually managed to elect 2 members of the EC to go? Thought not!
I think this is the wrong approach to take.
It is clear enough that the right-wing CLP exec blocked this candidate after they were validly elected, and the obvious presumption is that they did so for factional reasons. It is equally obvious that the reason they gave is invalid.
But while self-funding is not against the rules and therefore couldn’t justify the CLP’s post-hoc action, self-funding properly so-called is a questionable practice – allowing members to buy a place at conference – so the CLP’s action might appear at least somewhat understandable.
Might, but doesn’t in fact – because the delegate wasn’t ‘self-funding’ at all! The local branch Labour party apparently paid, so the delegate was ‘branch-funded’, not ‘self-funded’. The key issue of using individual wealth to buy political influence simply doesn’t arise here and the CLP has absolutely no basis for its action whatsoever.
Surely the NEC nor JC would support this? Well mayb not McNicol but it is against the rules against the whole Labour Party? Our youth & women have a right to vote even if they’re not of ‘Progress’
Reblogged this on michaelsnaith.
Yet another absolute bloody disgrace. This Bliarite faction of the Labour Party is showing itself yet again to be every bit as democratic as Uncle Joe’s Stasi.
I hope they crowd fund a legal challenge.
Shocked but not surprised. As a new Labour member due to attend my 1st local meeting in a Tory stronghold, I am somewhat worried what the general mood will be like and what they are doing to get the word out.
I didnt get so much as a whiff or a leaflet in the run up to the election.
Reblogged this on Declaration Of Opinion.
there is someone else on twitter who was elected as delegate having a few problems – i wonder if you can cover it?
https://twitter.com/adr1e/status/886587433214771200 you can follow similar problem here – could really do with some publicity in my view (though i haven’t talked to person directly – there’s plenty of info on twitter & ultra right tory mp has been having a go through the media
sorry ultra right Labour MP
By the way, Skwarkbox, as corbyn supporters are really at the centre of the party, i think the so-called ‘moderate’ should now be hard-right or ultra right LP members. The zeitgeist has changed and needs to be reflected in the language. (and I am fed up being called hard left, trotkyist, communist for supporting what is now the mainstream of the Labour Party)
Agreed. But the content of the articles speaks for itself, so ‘moderate’ becomes a damning joke
How can this be allowed to happen?
Our CLP Exec decided we could only afford to fund 2 of our 4 allowed delegates. The members mtg decided to send 4 delegates. It was suggested they could self-fund but the members had worries about this being unaffordable for the extra 2 delegates. Members present pledged to fund the costs and raised enough to fund the extra 2 delegates, so all 4 of ours are now going to conference.