It’s ‘fantastic’ to see notorious ‘racist’ troll back door-knocking, says Gurinder Singh Josan
Last week, the Liverpool Riverside Left Twitter account pointed out that Gurinder Singh Josan – the new chair of the Labour party’s second-highest and most influential disciplinary panel – had welcomed Luke Stanger back into the party, describing it as ‘fantastic’ to see Stanger ‘back on the #Labourdoorstep’:
But Stanger had been suspended by the party over a series of complaints of harassment, stalking, bullying and racism – and his case had been referred to the NCC (National Constitutional Committee), the party’s top disciplinary body, which has the power to expel. Under Labour’s rules, suspended members are not allowed to campaign with members – and if they slipped through somehow with complaints pending against them, this should not be welcomed by someone chairing the second most senior disciplinary body.
Stanger was suspended by the party in late 2018 after complaints of ‘abusive behaviour’ toward Labour members, particularly women. He had also caused outrage with racist comments against the Gypsy/Roma/Traveller community:
Stanger also admitted that two men had threatened and abused an Asian woman and her partner in a Brighton pub after he pointed out to the two men that the others were left-wingers, but claimed that he had no idea that this might lead to the abuse that took place. He also confirmed, in a post to social media about complaints against him, being asked by a so-called ‘moderate’ councillor to ‘build a dossier’ with the aim of smearing a Labour parliamentary candidate when it was subsequently leaked.
But now, Mr Stanger is back campaigning for Keir Starmer’s Labour – and the new chair of the NEC Disputes panel has praised his return as ‘fantastic’.
So Skwawkbox began to dig and was able to discover that Stanger’s case – including three new cases on top of the original reasons for his suspension – had been moved from the backlog onto the NCC’s docket to adjudicate only in late August last year – and had not yet been heard.
However, the case has simply gone from the NCC’s pending cases. A Labour source told Skwawkbox:
There’s no record of it pending. It’s just disappeared.
Skwawkbox understands that the NEC called back a number of cases from the NCC after Josan became Disputes chair in January this year, but the case against Stanger does not appear to have been on that list – so no record appears to exist of its withdrawal. It is simply no longer on the list of cases for the NCC to hear.
Skwawkbox contacted Gurinder Singh Josan on Wednesday, asking for comment by 6pm that day on the following:
You said it was ‘fantastic’ that Stanger was back campaigning. Suspended members aren’t allowed and his case was referred to NCC but seems to have disappeared from the NCC list since you became disputes chair. Any comment please provide it no later than 6pm.
Apart from a reply asking who was sending the enquiry, no response has been received at the time of writing on Friday morning, two days later.
But the evidence appears to suggest that Luke Stanger was quietly reinstated to the party – without any notification to the NCC that was responsible for resolving the serious complaints of racism, stalking, harassment and bullying against him – and without even any record that it was done apart from the disappearance of the case from the NCC’s docket. Whether he played any role in the reinstatement or not, Gurinder Singh Josan has stated that he considers it ‘fantastic’ that Stanger is back.
Luke Stanger has previously said that he is not willing to respond to any questions from Skwawkbox.
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