Black activist Marc Wadsworth was recently expelled from the Labour Party after a public argument with MP Ruth Smeeth in 2016. Although some media outlets have claimed the expulsion was for antisemitism, it was in fact on grounds of bringing the party into disrepute – a charge that Wadsworth vigorously denies.
Wadsworth has been on tour around the country, speaking to supporters and raising funds for legal action.
So far, at least twenty-one CLPs (constituency Labour parties) have passed motions supporting his reinstatement, including several not considered predominantly left-wing:
- Bath
- Brent Central
- Croydon North
- Ealing Central and Acton
- Ealing North
- Hackney South and Shoreditch
- Harborough
- Hastings and Rye
- Hove
- Kenilworth and Southam
- Lewisham West and Penge
- Luton South, Richmond Park
- South West Norfolk
- Stroud, Wallasey
- Tonbridge and Malling
- Henley
- Newark
- Croydon Central
A large number of other CLPs are believed to have motions planned after CLPD (Campaign for Labour Democracy), which came out against Wadsworth’s expulsion, sent out emails with a model motion.
Wadsworth has raised significant funds for legal action via crowdfunding.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Very good.
Don’t expect Birkenhead while they’re kept in a choke hold by paranoid Frank Field.
North West Norfolk voted for Marc’s reinstatement on Friday.
How do I obtain a copy of the model motion please so that I may propose it on our next branch meetings so we can have it debated at the July CLP
Good news about North West Norfolk, bringing the total to 22 CLPs. Here’s a model motion, as requested:
This branch notes that:
Marc Wadsworth, a leading Black antiracist activist, was expelled from the Labour Party with no right of appeal on April 27, 2018, charged with bringing the Party into disrepute.
His expulsion followed 22 months of suspension from membership.
His expulsion was not for antisemitism, despite continuous prejudicial media coverage falsely accusing him of antisemitic abuse at the media launch of the Chakrabarti Report on June 30, 2016.
This branch believes:
That the party has indeed been brought into disrepute, not by Marc Wadsworth’s non-abusive remark at the Report launch, but by the actions of PLP members publicly denouncing him as an antisemite; by the adherence of the entrenched party bureaucracy to a disciplinary system which was not fit for purpose; and by its failure to put in place a system conforming with principles of natural justice, which should be automatic in any labour movement organisation. This branch therefore:
Supports Marc Wadsworth’s campaign to clear his name of the antisemitism slur and calls on Labour’s NEC to reinstate him as a member of the Party.
Calls on the new General Secretary to:
* Speedily implement Chakrabarti’s recommendations designed to reform flawed party rules and structures to ensure prompt, fair and transparent handling of disciplinary complaints against members, with right of appeal and including presumption of innocence and fact-based judgements that do not rely on guilt by association.
* Pause disciplinary hearings until a process based on natural justice for all parties to a dispute has been established.