Labour Party: Expulsion to Reinstatement in a month

30 August: Email received: Thank you for your email. Unfortunately you do not currently hold any status with the Labour Party, and will not be receiving a ballot in the leadership election.  […] Thanks for getting in touch.

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There followed emails, phone calls that went dead, call answerers were embarrassed, Supervisors were mysteriously not available,  I was advised to speak with NCC  and Compliance, Compliance couldn’t speak to me until I got my letter.

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It has been brought to our attention with supporting evidence that you are an organiser for Left Unity in Leicester.

Chapter 2.I.4.B of the Labour Party’s rules states:
“A member of the party who joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour Group or unit of the Party or supports any candidate who stands against an official Labour candidate, or publicly declares their intent to stand against a Labour
candidate, shall automatically be ineligible to be or remain a party member, subject to the provisions of part 6.I.2 of the disciplinary rules”.

You are therefore ineligible to remain a member of the Labour Party.
Under Clause 6.I.2 of party rules you may apply for re-admission but this must be made directly to the National Executive Committee (NEC) for their consideration. Clause 6.I.2 of the Labour Party’s rules states:
“When a person applies for re-admission to the party following an expulsion by the NCC on whatever basis or by automatic exclusion under 2.I.4.A of the membership rules, the application shall be submitted to the NEC for consideration and decision. Such
applications shall not normally be considered by the NEC until a minimum of five years has elapsed. The decision of the NEC shall be binding on the individual concerned and on the CLP relevant to the application.”The NEC will only relax the “five year” exclusion period in what it deems to be exceptional circumstances. Any application to re-join should be sent directly to the Compliance Unit at the Newcastle address given above.

Yours sincerely,
Iain McNicol, General Secretary of The Labour Party

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I spoke to Compliance and asked for the evidence.

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7 September 2016: Email received: 

Please find attached the evidence that the NEC panel have used to make their decision to revoke your voting rights in the Leadership Election 2016. It is an exhaustive record of everything which the NEC panel was sent with regards to your case.

All decisions are made by the majority decision of a panel of 3 NEC members – these particular NEC members have been chosen to sit on this panel by the NEC.

The NEC is the governing body of the Labour Party. It is made up of 33 elected members, including the party Leader and Deputy Leader, members of the Shadow Cabinet as well as representatives of Constituencies, Trade Unions, Socialist Societies, the Parliamentary Labour Party and Labour Councillors.

Your original letter will outline if you are eligible for an appeal. Please note, that only full members of the Labour Party have the right to an appeal. If you are eligible and would like to appeal this decision, please submit it in writing to appeals@labour.org.uk within the timeline outlined in your original letter.

Please note, replies to this email are not monitored. If you are not the intended recipient of this information, please delete it and let us know immediately.
Kind Regards

The Validation Team.

and more creepily:

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7 September 2016: Email sent to Validation, Appeals and Legal:

I called after a couple of days and was advised that Appeals were responding within 3-4 days.

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14 September  2016: I called again  and was put through to Legal.

The Legal Unit advised me that I should reapply for membership and explain why the evidence used to expel me was wrong. The guy said that Appeals deals with other kinds of issues and as the NEC has decided that I should be expelled then Appeals will not deal with that.

He said to apply again for Membership and explain why I do not agree with the decision and therefore why the 5 year rule should not apply, but pointed out that recent support for another political party was the reason given for being expelled – it was actually current support for Left Unity that was given as a reason but I thought there was a message there.

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Application for membership – I already have a number waiting to be reinstated: L1412207I have been expelled from the Party on the grounds that I am organising Left Unity in Leicester. I am not organising for Left Unity and so the grounds upon which that decision was made are invalid. I want my membership reinstated but have been advised to re-apply as I have no right of appeal.

This decision was made without any approach to ask what I had to say about the evidence you have.  The evidence used to expel me was historical and I think it was used to expel me as an opportunistic swipe because I was given no right of reply. I believe that the Party knew of my previous Left Unity activity before allowing me to join.  In effect I am very disgruntled and frustrated that my time, my CLP members’ time, and your time has been so wasted when we should be fighting the cutbacks, not each other.

The ‘evidence’ used by the NEC to expel me included an article from the Left Unity website:

http://web.archive.org/web/20130413062651/http://leftunity.org/left-unity-some-of-our-local-organisers/

This page was written in March 2013 when Left Unity was being established and I was indeed the initial organiser in Leicester. The other piece of ‘evidence’ is a Facebook extract dated January 2015 – yes, I was then in Left Unity and organising the Branch, also Chair of the Disputes Committee, and I chaired one National Conference however I left Left Unity in May 2015 and provide evidence of that below in my email exchange with Kate Hudson, Party Leader in May 2015.

When I applied to vote in the Labour Party 2015 Leadership election (which came after I had left LU) I was called by the Guardian who knew about my application to Labour and my link to Left Unity – I can only surmise that their information came from the Labour Party. I applied to join Labour Party at the same time as others in my house after Jeremy Corbyn took the Leadership but my membership application took a lot longer than theirs to be processed.  I know that the Chair of the CLP was asked about me, and I surmise that I was being screened before being allowed in.

I was however admitted and have been Oadby & Wigston Branch Chair, Vice-Chair of Harborough CLP, CLP rep on the LCF and observer at the Labour Group. I have been out door knocking a number of times with Willy Bach in the PCC elections, canvassed in the streets on behalf of Labour in the EU elections and attended the count; I have attended a newcomers’ meeting, the East Midlands conference, the Leicester meeting, and had paid for a ticket to Conference which I have now cancelled. I was given a vote in the NEC elections.

I am applying for membership and expect the 5 year rule to be lifted in my case as the expulsion was based on inaccurate information.When you accept that the grounds for my expulsion were not accurate, and there are no other grounds you can find to keep me out of the Party I expect my membership to be re-instated rather than starting as a new member as this situation would have been avoided if I had been given the right of reply. Time limits are very important in the Labour Party and I want to have continual membership on my record.

My direct debit payment last went out on 22 August 2016.  I have cancelled this arrangement now but would be happy to make any necessary back payments. I will sign up for Direct Debit when I have confirmation that my membership has been restored.

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Monday 19 September 2016: Email received:

You can now cast your vote in the Labour Party’s leadership election to decide the Labour candidate for Britain’s next Prime Minister.

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members.net opened for me again and I am back on the members list.  I have not had anything either by email or by post to tell me that I am back in.

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I have pestered people who should have been using their time to shout about the injustices of Government policy.  I been supported by a whole bunch of lovely people in many ways, and Harborough CLP and Oadby & Wigston Branch were brilliant.  I know that supporting letters were sent, and it is frustrating that they have been so inconvenienced –  the plug was suddenly pulled, and I had to withdraw from everything. The CLP and Branch had to make decisions about when/how to fill my roles  etc.etc.