Meeting abandoned amid chaos: ‘I’ve never seen anything like it”
At the end of last month, the SKWAWKBOX reported that Barking MP Margaret Hodge had been ‘triggered‘ as local members voted heavily to force a selection contest including new potential candidates.
And in an astonishing backlash tonight, the constituency party (CLP) annual general meeting (AGM) has been abandoned in chaos after the arrival of hundreds of members – many of whom were said to be ineligible to vote – turned up and members objected to Hodge’s presence in the meeting as she does not live within the constituency.
And – yet again – the drama has been driven by the right of the CLP, with one of Hodge’s former protégées even threatening to call the police on the Barking MP.
Members present have told the SKWAWKBOX that some 250 people turned up to the meeting, more than double the usual number expected at an AGM – many of whom were new and did not have the necessary eight weeks’ membership to be entitled to vote in the meeting.
Before the meeting’s agenda could even be distributed, a councillor – Hodge’s former ally – made two ‘points of order’:
- that Hodge, who is not a CLP member, could not participate in the meeting or act as a teller (vote-counter) because she lives in Islington, outside the constituency boundary and
- that members with less than eight weeks standing should also be excluded
Hodge objected to the first point, claiming that she had always done it in the past, but was told that did not entitle her to do so now.
The CLP chair asked the secretary about the eight-week requirement, but the secretary said she was not sure about it. The rule is a well-known and fundamental principle of all CLP votes and clearly laid out in the party’s rule-book.
The chair asked for members to volunteer to self-identify if they did not meet the membership requirement. Some fifteen people did so in a room of around 250 people.
Some attendees attempted to have the meeting postponed, saying there were too many people in the room for health and safety but others were insisting it had to go ahead.
One member described the resulting scene:
Some people wanted to carry on the meeting even though we had no way of knowing how many people hadn’t put their hand up. How can you do that, what if someone loses by a couple of votes?
At that point the meeting just descended into absolute mayhem, with people screaming and shouting.
[Hodge’s former councillor ally] was on the microphone shouting, “The meeting’s rigged! The meeting’s rigged!” Margaret Hodge was trying to get involved and [the councillor] shouted that if Hodge pushed her again she was going to call the police.
In the end, they had to abort the meeting without a single vote being cast because it had gone into absolute mayhem, with people shouting over each other about the rules or claiming it was rigged.
In decades of being a member I’ve never seen anything like it, it was so toxic. And there were lots of members have said they didn’t even receive an email about the meeting so there could have been even more people there.
They’re talking about rescheduling it in a couple of weeks’ time, but as you can imagine we’ve got the [parliamentary] selection as well. Who knows what’s going to happen? And it’s all driven by people on the right who are angry that Margaret isn’t standing down like she said she would.
If the AGM is rescheduled, the ‘freeze’ date for eligibility to vote will have to be maintained as if the meeting took place this evening.
Margaret Hodge was contacted for comment.
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 or here for a monthly donation via GoCardless. 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.
Does nobody check their party card on admission? Sounds like anybody could turn up and vote!
Dead easy to check eligibility on the door and hand out official ballot papers using the up-to-date online membership info available to authorised members of the the CLP.
(No GDPR problems as that is one of the uses for which it was collected.)
What a f.ing shambles.
A ‘Brewery’ situation that smells to high heaven.
The state of things in the CLP is exemplified by :
– clearly no proper procedures on the door. Absolutely basic.
– Hodge thinking that she is other than a guest at a CLP meeting
– … and also thinking that she could act as a teller in a CLP meeting (astounding if true).
Absolutely pathetic.
The irony of some organised mobilisation against RW tapeworms finally coming, but from the RW is what tickles me!
An appropriately ignominious end for the Old Hag is surely in motion now… (?)
It won’t be long before we shall need bouncers on the door. The RW are creating toxicity.
Michael Kennedy,, do hope the councillor followed composite on Labour party health and safety when dealing with Barking mad dogs and got a rabies injection.Has Hodge been released yet?
You’ll need some paras to get some out. Tapeworms are clingy, very clingy. Still they can sit in the gutter and swear at passersby. Regards.
Way things are going we are going to need bouncers to keep people in.
It will be interesting to see how the MSM report this. You can lay bets that Hodge will be portrayed as the ‘victim’.
So far there is not one word about this on the MSM. However if Margaret is eventually deselected it will be all over the media that “Corbyn supporting thugs/antisemites/ hard left rabble/extremists have ousted outspoken critic of Corbyn and antisemitism campaigner Dame Margaret Hodge” We are never going to get a fair deal from the MSM
She’s behind you !
Pantomime season started early this year
Is it a case of Pantomime Dame shipping in these individuals and is that a criminal offence or automatic booting out of party
Remember she managed to find 200 cases of anti semitism,
Only problem was 180 were vexatious and I think 8 were genuine
This individual has a lot of previous, so very little would shock me
“The State of Israel is a racist endeavour”. I’m guilty of anti-Semitism by definition.
You need to watch it : soon you’ll be saying offensive stuff like “Racism is racism” and ‘Theft is stealing’.
That’s it. I’m getting some security guards in case we meet.
J
Absolutely undignified and disgraceful behaviour, from right wingers letting the party down and making public exhibitions of themselves if the reports are accurate.
Ah well when rogues fall out………….
Why does nobody ever seem to video these incidents?
Evidently someone did record this event
https://skwawkbox.org/2019/10/11/excl-video-mayhem-at-barking-agm/
Barking..?
Foul mouthed fish wife causes havock at meetings….thats news? She must be barking!
That’s an insult to fish wives!
Sod’s law,yesterday was my monthly chemotherapy so couldn’t attend. For the last twenty years I have had to sit and listen as Hodge states “It’s as I have always said elections are only won” and a roomful of her acolytes finish the sentence “from the centre”. Really don’t care if it’s the right,left or a combination ousting her as long as she goes. Have complained to the party about the various MPs who have described CLP members as vile etc. and implied we are all anti Semites but having seen Mr Williamsons video hold out little hope of justice from the current corrupt regime.
I’ve asked before,but what are labour right’s policies?
Jim look after your health first…Hodge is history.Shes little more than a foul mouthed old hag!.. Even her own lot want her out!. Regards comrade
Good question esp now the left love mandy.
Efff ME is this the Party I belong to … really … ?
Only yesterday we had the utterly corrupt and appalling abuse of power by the Right Wing in our Party , over their continuing war on Chris Williamson .With a torrent of lies because that’s what ALL of those so called accusations were , and now this.They and Hodge are acting just like Fascists with these intimidatory tactics.
We can see there is no use in looking for justice to the Disciplinary Body and rules as the Right Wing have infiltrated and run that as well .
Its like a rotten apple the more you cut into it the greater the rot is to be seen.
WHAT THE HELL TO DO ABOUT IT , that’s the burning question , never mind getting into power or winning a GE ,as imo even if we do win then these MPs who do not represent Labour but represent varying degrees of “other” interests that are not synonymous with the “ordinary people ” , will be a threat to all of us and our desire for a Socialist Labour Govt .They have to be stopped peacefully and democratically somehow .
I wonder just how many Trigger Ballots there have been ?
Its a useless crap idea and system of selection and the more we get of these abuses so the documented evidence needs to be collated and be presented at the next Conf for a rule change on selection , no arguments from idiots like Lansman and MCluskey ..
“WHAT THE HELL TO DO ABOUT IT”
… is the key question. The Party has become a shambles way beyond any simplistic political analysis, with the central bureaucracy operating independently and against the interests of members and using the worst sort of corruption to progress a sectarian agenda.
Clearly key processes are out of control, and the generality of members and the leadership have become victims of a mafia, rather than subject to an agreed rules-based system of governance.
The essence of what needs to be done is actually simple : the NEC
and its bureaucracy needs to be stripped of all but simply functional powers pending a special conference called to agree a way forward in replacing the current structures and procedures on a OMOV basis. The current constitution has proved itself to be too amenable to corruption and subversion. A complete clean-out is the only way forward.
The trouble is that this all takes time, and this is precisely the time for such internal stuff *not* to be happening.
Tories or Corrupted Labour – not much of a choice, is it?
Surprise! Surprise! LP does what it does best…..kick the can down the road until nothing can be done.
It has to be a secret ballot on such a sensitive issue
…..perhaps there will be a video of the ‘meeting’ in the Jewish Chronicle? Oh dear, I do hope I’m not being anti_semitic?
Look at the lovely picture. Doesn’t it make you feel warm all over. You just want to take her in your arms. Where’s the pitchfork? We’ve got the mob.
How the pederast enabler has the brass neck to show it’s haggard, wizened arld grid in public’s beyond me.
And I don’t get why people don’t make a huge noise about hodge’s pederast enabling, neither.
Filth.
Oh be fair. She’s lovely, modest, softly spoken, and shy with the media. Don’t mention the kids Pike.
Can somebody draw Jeremy Corbyn’s attention to all these damaging shenanigans?..and if they do Jeremy for God’s sake do something about it and pretty damned quick..
Utterly disgraceful.