McNicol’s Departure is only the beginning of the campaign to
democratise the Labour Party
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| Conference delegates let their voices be heard |
Socialists inside and outside the
Labour Party will undoubtedly be celebrating. The Witch is Gone and this was a very very
wicked witch at that, unlike those he persecuted. The symbol of the decaying carcass of New
Labour, with its undemocratic stitch-ups, its lies and manoeuvres and its contempt
for ordinary people, has been effectively dismissed. The man who put his hand into the electronic
ballot box and fished out thousands of votes and who suspended people because they were suspected of voting for Corbyn, is on his way out. This is the man who tried to prevent legal advice
reaching the National Executive Committee and who did his damnedest to prevent Jeremy
Corbyn restanding for Party leader.
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| Detested and loathed, McNicol is now headed for the knackers yard |
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| Fraud was a ‘private’ matter |
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| demonstration outside conference calling on McNicol to |
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| Gormless and corrupt |
suspension and expulsion of, we understand, up to 11,000 members, has finally
been told to go. Skwawkbox claims
that after a range of McNicol’s initiatives,
including the premature deactivation of the entry passes to Labour’s Southside
HQ of Corbyn and his team on General Election night, that McNicol was finally
given his marching orders on Tuesday afternoon.
Presumably McNicol, having refused to give any help to Labour candidates
in Tory marginals, because he too believed that Corbyn was headed for a
devastating defeat, decided to bar Corbyn and his team from Southside in order
effectively to stimulate a movement leading to his overthrow and dismissal.
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| McNicol explains why he refused to suspend Newmark |
be demanding my own reinstatement, having been expelled only last Sunday, since my original suspension was clearly unlawful and unconstitutional. For 23 months I was suspended, since March 18th
2016. Yet the skeleton
argument of the Labour Party’s barrister, Thomas Ogg conceded that:
suspension from the Labour Party on 18 March 2016. Mr Greenstein does
not appear to have moderated his abusive conduct online in any way . The NCC
should infer that Mr Greenstein is not a person who will respond to any
lesser sanction than expulsion by improving his behaviour. The only question is
whether Mr Greenstein, given his past behaviour and his unrepentant stance in
respect of that behaviour as regards the future, should be permitted to
continue to be a member of the Labour Party or not. (paragraph 102)
it would be premature to celebrate too soon.
In every Labour Party regional
office in the country there are ensconced those who did McNicol’s dirty work,
suspending socialists and fixing and controlling elections and putting
dissident parties into ‘special measures’ – all to ensure that the elected
representatives of the Labour Party were from the Right of the party.
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| Labour apparatchik Karen Buckingham refused to investigate the lies of the Right in Brighton |
Party staff have worked overtime in order to ensure that the party remained
undemocratic. Wallasey Labour Party was
suspended when it made it clear that it wanted to support Jeremy Corbyn over
its own imposed MP, Angela Eagle. Brighton
and Hove District Labour Party was suspended when we voted the ‘wrong way’ by a
2-1 majority at the AGM on July 9th 2016. Naked lies of spitting were told by the
Council leader Warren Morgan and Cllr. Emma Daniels and the Labour Party inquiry
conducted by Katherine Buckingham refused even to look at video evidence of the
‘spitting’. All of this must stop. All those auto-excluded or expelled like
myself, must be readmitted to the Labour Party.
be done in clearing out the Red Tories in Labour’s bureaucracy.
is a statement from Labour Against the Witchhunt. Now is
the time to join LAW and make sure that we consolidate tonight’s
achievement and reverse McNicol’s expulsions and suspensions.
Greenstein
Statement
LAW welcomes the resignation of Iain McNicol
resignation of Labour Party general secretary Iain McNicol. He was
directly in charge of the unelected and discredited compliance unit,
which has purged thousands of pro-Corbyn members from the party.
We see his resignation very much as an important symbol and an integral
part of our fight to radically transform the Labour Party, which is
undergoing a long overdue Democracy Review, to which we have also
contributed.
The automatic and instant expulsions and suspensions overseen by McNicol
– especially those based on alleged anti-Semitism and those based on
members’ alleged “support for other organisations” using rule 2.1.4.B –
have brought the party into disrepute: They have prevented and
discouraged new members from getting involved in party life, while
valuable resources have been wasted in persecuting some of the most
energetic and effective campaigners for social change. The purging of
pro-Corbyn activists has been a major stumbling block to Labour winning a
general election, which requires maximum unity.
We ask the NEC – which now has a strong majority supporting the leader
of the party – to implement the following changes urgently:
- the recommendations of the Chakrabarti
report dealing with the party’s disciplinary procedure based on natural
justice and due process should be brought in; - all those summarily expelled or suspended without due process should be immediately reinstated;
- an accused member should be given all the evidence submitted against them and be regarded as innocent until proven guilty;
- membership rights should not be removed until disciplinary procedures have been completed;
- disciplinary procedures should include consultation with the member’s CLP and Branch;
- disciplinary procedures should be time limited. Charges not resolved within three months should be automatically dropped;
- the first part of Rule 2. 1. 4. B
(‘Exclusions’) should be deleted: it currently bars from Labour Party
membership anybody who “joins and/or supports a political organisation
other than an official Labour group or other unit of the Party”; - the party should reject the
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of
anti-Semitism which, in its list of examples, conflates anti-Semitism
with anti-Zionism and support for the rights of the Palestinian people; - the party should immediately abolish
the ‘compliance/disputes unit’. Disciplinary decisions should be taken
by elected bodies, not paid officials.
Donate:
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LAW, Sort code 309473 Account No 21409868
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Contact:
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