Some Labour party members are currently finding out that they can’t vote in the leadership election after all because they’ve been picked up as being insincere members. A number of them are furious about this, understandably, but what’s also understandable, perhaps, is that the party is struggling to consider them as sincere members given they were actively campaigning for other parties until recently. Marcus Chown is angry at being purged, even though he is the ‘twitter lead’ for the National Health Action party, and stood against Labour as a candidate for the NHA in the 2014 European elections.
This self-described Labour member, trade union rep and Young Fabian Emily Maiden is furious that she has been barred from voting, and says she is going to appeal – though she also tweeted this in June:
Still, surely all the angels of Labour HQ should rejoice over one Green that repenteth? The problem for the party is that in some people’s cases, they may be signing up as sincere members, having been active in another party until recently, but it’s rather difficult to distinguish between that and someone who doesn’t share Labour’s aims at all and is just up to no good. And what if they believe they share Labour’s aims, but that those aims will only be realised if Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader, and they will therefore leave if he doesn’t, returning to the Greens and the NHA and so on? Or if they’ve, as this barred member claims, retweeted something about Ken Loach, without knowing who Ken Loach is?
And there are members who have been barred who have MPs lobbying for their appeals:
Given the deadline for voting is 10 September, there’s not a great deal of time for the party to find all these tweets from members about being Green, or indeed for it to resolve all the appeals from such members. Even though Harriet Harman has been trying to ensure that the result isn’t the subject of a judicial review, it’s difficult to see how the party will avoid legal action from some of those who have been denied votes.
UPDATE, 4.45pm: Labour is now having to apologise to genuine members who it told were ineligible to vote in error. Does this really look like a process and result the party and outsiders can have faith in?
Just had a *very* apologetic Labour Party on the phone to say my rejection was an error and I'm still a member pic.twitter.com/47ri0KinqB
Still, surely all the angels of Labour HQ should rejoice over one Green that repenteth? The problem for the party is that in some people’s cases, they may be signing up as sincere members, having been active in another party until recently, but it’s rather difficult to distinguish between that and someone who doesn’t share Labour’s aims at all and is just up to no good. And what if they believe they share Labour’s aims, but that those aims will only be realised if Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader, and they will therefore leave if he doesn’t, returning to the Greens and the NHA and so on? Or if they’ve, as this barred member claims, retweeted something about Ken Loach, without knowing who Ken Loach is?
And there are members who have been barred who have MPs lobbying for their appeals:
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