Right-dominated LPIS democracy has long history as sick farce but now left candidates are simply being blocked, say insiders
Labour Party Irish Society (LPIS) is at the centre of yet another democracy scandal that has seen many members deprived of a vote in the society’s elections – and left candidates omitted from the ballot completely.
LPIS elections have been mired in allegations of rigging since early in Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership as the right tried to stack Labour’s structures to thwart and undermine the left, with a ‘smoking gun’ email in 2017 proving that the right-wing exec was setting up annual general meetings to exclude the left and keep the right in control, as well as meetings and positions decided by MPs, peers and party staff who often had no recognisable claim to be Irish or connected to Ireland.
But now even the pretence of democracy has been dropped, according to left members of LPIS, with many members not receiving ballots and two left candidates omitted from the ballot paper even though they had received confirmation that their nominations had been accepted. The basic news of a new ‘stitch-up’ broke today on social media:
An email sent by Harry Stratton, a solicitor and one of the left candidates, to fellow members explains further:
Dear colleagues,
I am writing to you concerning the Labour Party Irish Society AGM.
There are at least three fundamental defects with the way this AGM is being conducted:
1. Candidates from one group – myself and Rory McLean – have been kept off the ballot paper, despite confirmation that our nominations had been received and accepted.
2. A ballot is being held via online email ballot, even though clause 24.a of the Constitution clearly provides that the election of the executive will be done at the AGM – that is, by those present at the AGM, not the membership at large.
3. A large number of voters have not been sent ballots at all.
Any one of these breaches is sufficient to invalidate the election. Taken together, the only reasonable inference from these breaches is that a deliberate effort is underway to rort the AGM election.
Please reply prior to the scheduled AGM date to confirm that a valid ballot, including all the candidates and voters, will be conducted at the AGM itself. Otherwise, I will consider myself free to commence legal proceedings against the Executive to enforce the LPIS Constitution without further notice, and petition the Socialist Societies Executive not to recognise any “delegates” purportedly appointed at or by officers elected at the AGM.
Emphases added
No reasons given
Mr Stratton told Skwawkbox that he and the other candidate barred from the ballot paper had been given no explanation or excuse for their removal, despite ‘increasingly frantic emails’ in an attempt to pursue the matter.
The current LPIS executive includes:
- two members of Keir Starmer’s staff
- a member of general secretary David Evans’s staff
- two right-wing Labour peers
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In a democracy it appears there is no moral hazard for those who abuse it
Here’s my bet, they will threaten legal action, things will be put right, the vote will take place, someone will be elected
Here’s what should happen, take legal action against those responsible, its a slam dunk, they are as bent as a nine Bob note, ask for exemplary damages, then bankrupt the f7ckers when they can’t pay
Repeat Ad Nauseum till the message gets through
That’s why well meaning people must URGENTLY do this. STOP enabling RED TORY parasites. POINTLESS spouting every worth wind while ACTIVELY & PASSIVELY enabling parasites and REPEATEDLY confusing their aims with ours.
They NEVER were and are most OBVIOUSLY not us.
True YELLOW and BLUE labeled Tories are protectors of the status quo like NICK CLEGG. And of course the blues in particular are awash … SOAKED in Russian Oligarch kleptocratic money. I heard a well known Tory rushing to say that the wife of a Putin associate who shoved shedloads into Conservative coffers, is safe. I think he was referring to one who donated thousands to meet with May….
🔔📍🔔📍🔔📍
… WORTHY WIND
Our PRIORITY should be to help people disabuse themselves of self destructive myths symptomatic of Labour-Label itis. The infection is intellectually destructive while extremely dulling to eyesight and hearing. Even mildly infected, people with the best intentions, “listen and listen but dont hear”. They look and look but dont see”.
Parasites enabled includes one PETER MANDELSON who famously with Nathaniel Rothschild, hosted George Osborne on OLEG DERIPASKA’s yacht in Corfu while Osborne was Shadow BLUE TORY CHANCELLOR.
SH aka SteveH davidH et al’s “Ⓜ️🅰️NDY” was then EUROPEAN UNION TRADE COMMISSIONER when aluminium tariffs were reduced to 3% which happened to enrich further a company called RUSAL.
QUESTION – Who owned RusAl❔❔❔
Ah‼️‼️‼️ Peter Mandelson’s freind Oleg Deripaska BILLIONAIRE OLIGARCH.
Mesmerised by by RED ROSETTE WAVERS??? Try this. PAUSE. Reflect. Think for yourself. Investigate and FOCUS on YOUR findings.
1️⃣• Who said on October 26th 2008 “whole country” wanted “transparency” about Mandelson’s previous meetings with Deripaska. ???
2️⃣• “Mandelson’s dealings with Deripaska had been “found to be above board”. ???
3️⃣• WHO in October 2008 or 2005, while visiting Deripraska Moscow on a MINISTERIAL trip, allegedly had a SWIFT visa arranged for him by Valery Pechenkin, the head of security at Deripaska’s company Basic Element. ???
🟡👀🪱🟡👀🪱🟡👀🪱
HINTS:
Q 1️⃣• A then BLUE Tory Shadow Foreign Secretary.
Q 2️⃣• A Prime Minister with a Labour label. said “Mandelson’s dealings with Deripaska” were “above board.”
Q 3️⃣• A character regarded as a prominent “Labour” operator.
☢️💈📝☢️💈📝☢️💈📝
Nobel words but most don’t have the funds to fight expensive court cases that will take forever to even get close to a court and they will settle at the 11th hour and oh dear well the elections happened 6’s months ago, so see you next year!
Yogur will NOT win they have all the leavers of control. but if you want to waste your time fighting lost causes go ahead just don’t ask all of us to waste our time money and votes that could be better spend campaigning against the same crony MP’s and actually kicking them out.
I’ve always found Democracy a strange concept, particularly in a Post Truth Age of Electronic Media you have the ability to vote for someone else’s choice. We have government by Media!
I’ve no idea about the exclusions from the ballot paper but I’m struggling to see why an all member online ballot shouldn’t be welcomed by all. This is a step forward in the enfranchising of all their members and the democratisation of the party that we were promised many moons ago. This would also avoid the situation where the vote can be rigged by one faction or another packing the meeting which I understand from the above has presented problems in the past. Don’t we all welcome a more representative vote?
SteveH
Who do you trust to run the ballot
The same organisation that run Labour’s internal elections.
SteveH
Who audits them
How do they know the source information is legitimate
Or
Cherry pick a number of cases, 100 or so and kick them out, sack them, escort them off the premises and let them take legal action
I
Doug – I can’t remember but the info is available online. Why don’t you look it up for yourself and then come back and tell us all about your findings.
Stevieh”The same organisation that run Labour’s internal elections.”
Who’s that then? Which particulat organisation is that? Should a question about why certain candidates have been excluded from the election be sent to them, or might that decision have been an ‘executive’ decision of “the leadership”? If a leadership decision, does the NEC have any review or verification role in it?
So many questions, so many answers not yet provided. This ‘new management’ gang are worryingly incompetent, or openly anti-democratic.
qwertboi – You should have a look at the new rules that were passed at conference.
qwertboi – Why don’t you do some research, given that you are used to doing this for your day job it should only take you a few minutes.
“qwertboi – You should have a look at the new rules that were passed at conference.
I’d hoped you knew. YOU are, afterall, still a member of the party and hope, I expect, that it is not as corrupt and rotten as I believe it to have become, thanks to the ‘new leadership’.
qwertboi – I don’t remember it being any better under the previous leadership, do you?
” I don’t remember it being any better under the previous leadership, do you?” Difference is, I trusted th previous leadership. It wasn’t trying to pasokify – denature – Labour.
Yes, so long as all names are on the Ballot and all Members have access to the Ballot.
Which part of that do you not understand?
Steve H : 20/02/2022 at 5:10 pm :
Ah, now I see your problem – naivety.
George – I have already said that I have no idea why some of the candidates appear to have been excluded. Although on the basis of the info given above this decision appears to be perverse I’ve little doubt that the reasons will emerge very soon.
Do you have any evidence that Labour’s online polls have been rigged or are you just emulating Trump and getting your excuses in early.
“or are you just emulating Trump and getting your excuses in early.”
Maybe he just wants confidence that Evans – who is prone to ‘outsiourcing’ his work to some very dubious commercial operations – has not corrupted the internal party election process. A reasonable question to my mind.
qwertboi – Instead of making wild unsubstantiated assertions why don’t you do some research.
Asking quesions is not “making wild unsubstantiated assertions” SteveH.
Quite the opposite, it is trying to avoid them.
qwertboi – Yes of course it is. 🥱
Well just you remember that each and every time you ask a question from now on, Mister I can’t comment on individual cases
A ballot is much easier to rig and just blame the computer says no “.Not everybodys idiots Steve H and the freedom to exploit as well as inform is but the finger on the keys…..ps Carol says you must be” having a larf “were I would say stop taking the piss.
oh dear another Trump wannabe
qwertboi – I don’t remember it being any better under the previous leadership, do you?
…The previous leadership that you are only too ready to make a point of having voted for it – TWICE? 😏
Oh, and should we overlook your pearl of wisdom that you’ve made a wild, unsubstantiated aspersion by asking the question?
Or doesn’t it apply to you (and keef)?🤫🤫🤫
Torys in talks to stop the may elections for the assembly in may so has to stop a Catholic first minister and a protestant deputy.all behind closed doors.
Westminster direct rule on the cards to keep the DUP in position and also on the hit list the Good Friday agreement and the N Ireland protocol….
sir knight and his plans to go one up on the wounded Tory government is to lead the Labour party into the graveyard of partitioned Ireland by campaigning on the streets for a Labour alternative and come into direct conflict with the Nationalists Catholic community and Sinn Fein….The hijacking by the Labour party of the Irish society is all part of the plan……Some of the Irish society who collaberate with this are little more than Irish and class traitors.in allowing this fascist dictatorship to take both the Labour party and the Irish back a hundred years.
Joseph – What a load of ridiculous drivel. We both know that the Irish people will via the ballot box be the ones that get to decide on whether Ireland is reunified or not. Surely your case for reunification isn’t so week that you are worried that Starmer will swing the vote.
Joseph – It will be interesting to see the result of the by election following the death of DUP MLA Christopher Stalford
https://news.sky.com/story/christopher-stalford-northern-ireland-politician-dies-aged-39-dup-says-12547152
Reply to JospphO’keefe
There will not be a bye- election following the death of Mr Stalford. Under the NI rules if a member of the NI Assembly ceases to hold office for any reason – death, resignation, illness etc- their party gets to automatically nominates a replacement.
I am shocked that you did not know this Joseph given your membership of Sinn Fein and extensive knowledge of Ireland and Irish politics
Steve H it will be interesting to see if a bye election is allowed and should only happen if the may elections for the assembly are held..I
.Sinn Fein already the largest group on the assembly are more worried that the democratic elections will be suspended so as to stop a democratic socialist party and representatives of the Catholic nationalist population from being elected and the position of first minister(PM)being a Catholic socialist and a Nationalist for the very first time in gerrymandered partition Ulster
I have know idea what the government are playing,but its a dangerous game
Basically the British will be throwing the baby out with the bathwater unless the statos quo be maintained of a sectarian unionists N.Ireland.
Because of the secatarian divide a bye election in N.Ireland makes little difference as the seat would be more likly to go to another member of the flat earth society DUP..so Sinn Fein will not be looking there for support
.I have no knowledge of mr stalford but I hope he finds peace in the afterlife.which many of my comrades never had in Ulster being gunned down by Crown forces in collusion with death squads….
Reply to JosephO’keefe
There will not be a bye- election following the death of Mr Stalford. Under the NI rules if a member of the NI Assembly ceases to hold office for any reason – death, resignation, illness etc- their party gets to automatically nominates a replacement.
I am shocked that you did not know this Joseph given your membership of Sinn Fein and extensive knowledge of Ireland and Irish politics