NEC member criticises manoeuvre
Keir Starmer and his deputy Angela Rayner today announced an investigation into the leaked Labour Party report that accused senior right-wing former staffers of sabotaging the party’s electoral campaigns and of obstructing disciplinary processes.
However, in doing so Starmer bypassed Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) – the party’s sovereign body – an act that was criticised by the NEC’s chair, TSSA union representative Andi Fox:
Starmer’s decision to go around the NEC may be because he has framed the investigation as looking primarily into how and why the report was commissioned in the first place – and into the whistleblowers who leaked it when no action was taken – more than into the former staffers whose behaviour the report exposes.
This seems a needlessly extreme step by Starmer, who now has a comfortable ‘centrist’/right majority on the NEC given the presence of representatives from right-wing unions, three new NEC members from this month’s by-election and his own representatives he appoints as leader.
This makes it a matter of even greater concern to those in the party and movement who value due process, democracy and the integrity of Labour’s ‘machine’.
Especially when the SKWAWKBOX understands that the report was given to Starmer almost immediately after he was announced as the party’s new leader.
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