Breaking Exclusive

Exclusive: Labour’s NEC not consulted about £15k paid to bail MP and council leader out of lawsuit over unpaid bill

NEC members say they knew nothing about payment before news broke

Virendra Sharma, left, and Julian Bell

Last night the SKWAWKBOX exclusively revealed that the Labour Party has used members’ money to pay out around £15,000 to settle a court case brought by a local venue against Ealing Southall MP Virendra Sharma and Ealing Council leader Julian Bell over an unpaid bill.

According to local members, the pair had attempted to use local members’ funds to pay for an event, without authorisation by the ‘CLP’ (constituency Labour party) executive, but members refused when they found out and say there were significant ‘irregularities’ about the process. The Aroma Banqueting Suite took the two to court to claim payment.

But the SKWAWKBOX can also reveal that Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) was not consulted about the decision to pay out thousands to settle a case in which the party was not even involved – nor even informed about it before the SKWAWKBOX broke the news.

This is the second time the party has paid out a large amount of cash over the heads of its supposedly ruling body. In July it paid around £600,000, on Keir Starmer’s say-so, to ‘whistleblowers’ to settle a case the party’s lawyers said it was likely to win.

The Labour Party, Virendra Sharma and Julian Bell were all contacted for comment. None has so far responded.

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14 comments

    1. Members must not be made to collectively pay fines or settlements incurred by individual members (of any rank). Any such payments should be crowd-funded by members (if at all) or paid by the guilty member.

  1. No wonder sharma’s grinnin on that photo…

    As for the bellend on the right, he looks like a blow up doll of piers morgan but with the air being let out. I’ve seen happier lookin’ boodhounds ffs. …Bastards should be holding up mugshot nameplates in front of them – along with the rats who settled their case with party moolah.

    As for thoseSTILL saying ”Join & fight…change from withinJust HOW many more times do you need tellin’? How much more freeloading, profligacy & sleaze are you prepared to directly contribute to?

    Some people just won’t be told…

    1. Toffee, nothing surprises me anymore. If blatant corruption doesn’t make socialists pause and reconsider then the criminals will just up the ante. It has become a cesspit akin to the Democratic party. Salad times for the psychopaths. ☮️

    2. Yeah, he’s got a face like a Boxing Day balloon. A witch’s tit.
      There was a bit on TV the other day about Spitting Image coming back.
      Hard to see what they could do with that face that wouldn’t improve it.

      1. It’s not like the real one. Everyone will be masked up. X

  2. I would expect an organisation to have a formal process for authorising spending various amounts. Where that is not followed, the individuals concerned are personally liable – and that includes Kardboard Keith.

  3. If the NEC was unaware presumably that must mean it was an ‘executive decision’ by Starmer and Evans – was the 600k bribe also decided independently of the NEC?
    If those decisions were constitutionally the NEC’s to make, then its members need to stand up for the rule book and the pre-eminence of Conference.
    Or maybe the NEC sees Kermit like Kermit sees Boris – “You know best, Boris, we’ll go along with whatever you decide.”

  4. Its time to close the party down finite end off and start a Socialist party built on the same morals and beliefs of the original party and where all leadership roles are vetted by the membership!

  5. Agree with David Niven. Time for some boundaries re the power of the leader and general secretary- urgently.

    And as for Sharma and Bell. lesser people would have faced the charge of ‘bringing the Labour Party into dispute’.

    1. Paul, I didn’t want to challenge your last comment without proof so I carried out an intensive search over the last 3 days and can now confirm my initial suspicion.
      There are no lesser people than those two.

  6. Misappropriation of funds.
    Who made the decision to release the monies?
    Who attended the fund raising event and what was the net final income?
    Is this not s disciplinary issue bringing the Labour Party into disrepute, David Evans?
    Transparency would be novel idea.
    Does KS have Executive Powers and when did the Labour Party vote for this at Conference?

  7. It is disappointing that the above article doesn’t make clear who did authorise this payment.

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