Ryan’s email to members asking for their post-resignation support links her to unauthorised member data use
Labour MP Joan Ryan resigned from the Labour Party on Tuesday evening. At 22.07hrs, after her resignation, she tweeted her statement:
But only a minute earlier, she or someone acting on her behalf had sent an email to Labour members advising them, not that she intended to resign but that she had already done so:
Ryan’s email – sent at 22.06hrs – unequivocally told recipients not that she was about to resign, but that she had resigned. Yet as the email header shows clearly, the email was sent using Labour’s ‘Organise’ system:
The LabourList article that revealed the breach linked it directly to the Organise system:
Ms Ryan’s email stating she had resigned shows that she or someone acting for her was using the Organise system after she had terminated her own entitlement to use that system. LabourList‘s article confirms that the data breach involved that same system.
The quitters’ ‘Independent Group’ had denied that any of its members had made unauthorised use of Labour systems, as LabourList related:
But a spokesperson for The Independent Group has denied the allegation: “The Labour Party has not contacted The Independent Group concerning this issue. If the Labour Party has a specific allegation they should come forward.
“None of The Independent Group MPs, or their offices, have had access to or accessed personal data held on the Labour Party’s systems since the MPs resigned on Monday.”
But Ms Ryan’s email to members makes clear that this claim cannot be true.
Ryan’s email also invited Labour members to make themselves liable to expulsion by helping her activities in spite of her resignation:
If you’d like to be part of my community team going out with me talking to residents where they live and at school gates, please email me on: joan@joanryan.org.uk . Also, if you’d like to help me with coffee mornings so we can hear back from our local community and what they want to see happen then also email me on: joan@joanryan.org.uk…
I have left the Labour Party with a very heavy heart… If you would like to get involved locally to help me support this community in what are truly difficult times, please email me
Under Labour Party rules, support for a rival political group is an ‘auto-exclusion’ – expulsion – offence.
The SKWAWKBOX wrote to Joan Ryan on Wednesday:
Why was your login used to access Labour’s systems after your resignation? Unauthorised access of personal data can result in custodial sentences and individuals have already been imprisoned for doing so under GDPR laws – are you concerned about legal consequences?
Up to the time of publication, she had not responded.
Labour Party sources declined to comment except to say that action was being taken regarding the breach.
SKWAWKBOX comment:
The Tinge group’s inauspicious start – which involved a racist comment by one of its MPs within a couple of hours of its inception – continues.
An MP made unauthorised – self-declaredly unauthorised – use of a confidential Labour system she had put herself in a position of having no business using.
And the quitters’ group insisted it had not happened – even though the evidence had been emailed to hundreds of Labour members.
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I doubt anything will come from this illegality but it highlights the entitlement these people have. It was important the LP took the appropriate action to stop them accessing information that would help their election chances.
Bad enough – but on the corruption meter of a woman routinely making false allegations of antisemitism to subvert the democratic process in her own country and thereby aid a foreign government – the needle won’t even twitch.
But of course such casual and commonplace treachery could hardly be called treason…
One more thought – I imagine she would be entitled to Israeli citizenship.
I believe there are democratic countries that forbid those with dual nationality from serving as members of their governing assemblies, presumably in the belief that such individuals’ loyalty might be divided.
Seems a reasonable point of view and our present government seems to think of citizenship as a flexible concept.
My post above was prompted by a vague memory of the Australian dual citizenship MPs having been deemed ineligible.
Now it occurs to me that I shouldn’t have assumed Ryan to be Jewish because of her prolific statements when in fact I have no idea whether she is or not.
Being entitled to Israeli nationality under the law of return is not the same thing as dual nationality. I object to any insinuation that Jews are less loyal to Britain than other British nationals.
Danny, I didn’t hear of the Australian politicians with dual nationality accused of disloyalty to Australia – or accused of being less loyal than other citizens – the purpose of the legislation is, I believe, to avoid placing people with potentially-divided loyalty in positions where they might have to choose on matters of national security or the national interest.
I strongly object to your insinuation that I made any insinuation regarding the loyalties of British Jews – I did no such thing.
The only Jews whose loyalty I doubt are those making false allegations against innocents to assist Israel in crushing the BDS movement – I also doubt the loyalty of the far greater numbers of non-Jews guilty of the making exactly the same false accusations – and to precisely the same degree.
Would you agree?
Every damn time I don’t do a final read-through…
‘with dual nationality BEING accused’
‘guilty of ̶t̶h̶e̶ making’
“I object to any insinuation that Jews are less loyal to Britain than other British nationals.”
So do I, Danny. That *is* real (as opposed to fake antisemitism).
But that wasn’t what David was implying – and it is a beautiful illustration of how meaning can be distorted (although I don’t think that you were doing this intentionally).
The thing is : ‘antisemitism’ is about prejuducial generalisations that indict a whole cultural/religious group. It works both ways, and the automatic assumption that members of a particular group *cannot* be accused of nefarious activity is itself a prejudice or bias.
The criticism of Ryan is of her as someone using the concept of Jewishness as a shield for dishonest political activity.
My answer to anyone who screams ‘foul’ when the use of repetitive lies as propaganda techniques developed by Goebbels is called out for what it is – is : “Don’t behave in that way, then! By your actions you will be judged, not your protestations”
The Australian legislation was introduced in the early 1900s as immigrants flooded the country and indeed among the first few Prime Ministers were foreign born Scots, Brits, Chileans and it was correct that those in Parliament declare their sole loyalty. It sadly caught up recently with numerous MPs who had to resign because they had not renounced previous citizenship, were dual nationals or even just eligible for another citizenship but none were accused of anything untoward, rather they received sympathy for a complicated situation in which they were the losers.
I don’t think these rules apply in the UK.
Friends of Israel should have no place in any democracy outside of Israel !
Very disappointed in Barry Gardiner yesterday who is a member of the LFI, for his crawling apologies to Luciana Berger. She has done nothing but try to destroy Corbyn since he became Leader.
Yes, I seen a small clip of that somewhere late last night. He may as well have changed his name to Barry Screeching it was that far overboard. .
All the kudos for Gardiner’s previous ownings of Tv ‘pundits’ has gone right out of the window with that, in my estimation.
He’s given himself a fair bit of work to do to regain my trust.
Yes, I agree.
Labour should not surrender to the false narrative that it is institutionally anti-Semitic.
There is no point in being disappointed by members of LFI… they are predictable even if usually competent media performers on domestic policy.
I didn’t see it but Berger has been on the receiving end of vile abuse from neo Nazis! Craig Murray points out the history here… of course the cabal of MSM never mentions that.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/02/democracy-and-the-corrupt-seven/
This new group is a Blatcherite org. intent on ensuring the project of ‘privatise the world’ continues in any way it can.
Tony, it appears to some that the LP is institutionally Zionist.
Agreed, except of course Israel is not a democracy it is a racist apartheid State.
Have complaints been made to the police and have the CPS been informed? If not, WHY not?
The brass neck of the parasite. Not only using labour’s IT systems but using it to beg for help off the ‘stalinists & trots’…No depths to which the leeches won’t plumb.
Get bent ryan. Hope you go to jail. You deserve it.
No action will be taken, not least by exec’s in the Labour Party.
There are tweets indicating Ummuna has done the same thing. I hope you follow up!
If the email was sent after she left the party (as the wording implies) then is it not for the ICO rather than the Labour Party (LP) to investigate and act?
Once she left the party she no longer had the right to use the membership data, something she and every other user cannot pretend they do not know as regular warnings are sent to all users. As a private individual misusing data then I think the liability is entirely hers?
If she did it whilst still within the party it was still a breach: those with access must only use the data for the uses that the giver of that data has agreed to – in the case of the LP systems only for LP purposes, and canvassing for support for herself as an independent is most certainly not LP business! However as she has now left the party I’m not sure what the LP can actually do. If she were still a member she would be subject to LP disciplinary procedures, but once she has left I’m not sure what they can do?
Of course the likelihood is she didn’t send it herself but got someone on “staff” to do so, and it is therefore that person who – if still a member of the LP – can be disciplined.