Right-wing Redbridge council leader who ousted Tarry as new parliamentary candidate for Ilford South was the subject of ‘serious’ sexual harassment allegations – and was reinstated by Starmer-run party against the recommendation of independent legal adviser on sexual abuse and harassment, say Labour insiders
Last night, Skwawkbox reported that Ilford South MP Sam Tarry had been deselected by the Labour party in a ballot to which some of his supporters were denied access and in which around 600 of the 860 votes cast were postal votes. Tarry lost 459-361. Labour admitted that the trigger process to decide whether there would be a selection contest at all had seen fraudulent votes cast, but the party took no action.
But in the candidate who displaced him, local council leader Jas Athwal, stood against Tarry in the seat’s 2019 parliamentary selection – until he was suspended at the last moment after a complaint involving unspecified ‘serious’ allegations.
Athwal’s right-wing supporters in Parliament reacted with outrage and claimed that the accusations were a stitch-up to prevent Athwal’s selection – but news broke that the allegations concerned ‘serious’ sexual harassment.
Despite the nature of the allegations, Athwal’s allies on the council continued to support him – and in autumn 2020 – five months after Keir Starmer became Labour leader – the party dropped the case, with a right-dominated panel of National Executive Committee (NEC) members ruling that the party’s investigative unit (GLU) had not presented enough evidence. Allies such as right-wing neighbouring MP Wes Streeting claimed that Athwal had been ‘exonerated’.
But Skwawkbox can reveal that, according to party insiders, the barrister that the party brought in for the case to act as an independent legal adviser on sexual harassment, abuse and assault recommended that Athwal should face further disciplinary process over the complaints.
One told Skwawkbox:
Once Keir Starmer took over, the allegation of serious sexual assault disappeared.
Earlier this year, Starmer’s party was shown to have asked female former staffers to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to silence their complaints of sexual harassment by male staff members – while serious complaints of bullying and harassment against at least one well-known right-wing ‘troll’ were ‘disappeared’ just before he was welcomed back to Labour by a right-wing NEC member – and of course the recent Al Jazeera ‘Labour Files’ documentary series revealed a ‘shocking’ litany of abuse, racism and rigging by Labour right-wingers.
Now a newly-selected parliamentary candidate’s reinstatement to the party, presented by his allies as exoneration, is said to have involved a decision by party right-wingers to ignore expert legal advice, from the barrister they appointed for the case, that action against him should continue.
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