There have been suspect goings-on in Manchester Central CLP (constituency Labour party) in recent days, as Labour members work democratically – and some perhaps not so democratically – to have their say in how the CLP is run.
In the Moss Side branch in particular, it seems there have been moves to prevent women being properly represented among delegates. The branch recently held its AGM (annual general meeting) and elected five delegates – three men and two women.
This is in clear breach of the party rule-book, which states:
One would-be woman delegate challenged this with the branch, CLP and Labour’s legal dept – all of whom insisted that three men and two women somehow complies with this rule, or even that the rule is merely a guideline or suggestion – but seemed curiously unwilling to put that ruling into writing.
When the CLP treasurer discussed this in a phone call with legal and then asked for it to be confirmed in writing, this was the – deliberately? – vague response:
But no mention, in writing, of what the advice was.
Apparently, Labour’s north-west region has now finally confirmed by email that,
it is acceptable practice to rounding down the quota rule
But in fact, two out of five is only forty percent – so the branch is rounding up two women to three, which is a 50% round-up of the actual number.
The barred woman delegate has tried to have a motion to apply the rules properly discussed at tonight’s branch meeting but has been told it will not be included in the agenda on the spurious grounds that it has already been discussed – when in fact, the branch chair merely made a unilateral ruling.
The Labour right seems ready to go to creatively sexist lengths to protect its hold on party structures.
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Let us not beat around the bush.
The Governance and Legal Unit of the Labour Party is completely corrupt.
Along with the corrupt General Secretary of the Labour Party it has actively facilitated illegal activity regarding routine and wilful breaches of the Data Protection Act.
It is time for a full investigation of this unit and its illegal activities.
Thanks for airing this – now it will (finally) get sorted.
Let’s hope!
Reblogged this on sdbast.
We know why it is happening and its why we so desperately need left wing majority controlled NEC, that said the NEC went to the high court inorder to have a high court judge rubberstamp the NEC as final arbitours of the party rulebook. So not much room for maneuver on this decision for now. We just need to get that majority left leaning then things will change fast i suspect for the better!
I would take the view Evangelou was a bi more complex than just saying the NEC has untrammelled power. The final arbiters are still the Courts. Whilst the NEC has a lot of discretion where the rules allow it I believe the CoA laid down a tougher standard in terms of the manner in which the terms of the rules should be read.
In my view the NEC and Compliance have broken this many times and are extremely poor at interpreting the rules correctly. Mostly because no one in Compliance seems to actually be very well qualified to do this. As far as I am aware I don’t believe a single member of the unit has a legal qualification, even a legal exec qualification. That is pretty ridiculous in itself. I have had conversations with members of that unit and they didn’t even understand what an unincorporated association was and thus what the Labour party is as a legal entity. It is quite hard to get them to just understand that the principles of contract law interpretation apply to the rule book and that things like custom and practice have quite limited application in regard to implied terms.
My own view is this will keep happening until the proposal from Baroness Chakrabarti is picked up and a position of a proper Party General Legal Counsel is created then this person who should be properly legally qualified in a UK jurisdiction takes over Compliance and reforms it or if it is not repairable closes it and starts anew.
Only way to solve this is to have 6 membersof EC. Obviously 5 members will always have an unequal representation. Or are you suggesting that men should always be in the minority because “they have the power”? Totally stupid situation–or rather non-issue!
Read again, please – it’s not about the EC, it’s about delegates and the entitlement will vary with member numbers.