The High Court ruling plunged the party’s leadership race into chaos and Labour’s procedures committee held a hastily arranged conference call to decide how to respond.
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“We are now calling on the Labour Party bureaucracy to act sensibly and play by the rules for the rest of this leadership election”.
Shortly after it was annouced Labour would be appealing the judgement, he added: “This is a deeply disappointing decision by a small clique of people behind closed doors, many of whom have openly expressed their opposition to Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, who are now trying to use Labour members’ money to fund what they think is a further attack on Jeremy”.
Bookmakers William Hill immediately slashed their odds on Corbyn winning from 1/10 to 1/20 on the High Court verdict.
To gain the right to vote, members were given a window of opportunity, between July 18 and 20, to become “registered supporters” on payment of an additional fee of £25.
It comes as Owen Smith, Mr Corbyn’s challenger in the leadership contest, appealed to his rival’s camp to extend the contest. Around 65% of the roughly 140,000 people who successfully applied to join Labour since January support Corbyn, according to early sampling.
But Mr Justice Hickinbottom, sitting in London on Monday, ruled that refusing the five the vote would amount to a “breach of contract”.
Justice Hickinbottom, yes that’s his name, was ruling in a case brought forward by five recent Labour members who had all joined after January.
Other backers directly bringing the legal action included Christine Evangelou, Rev Edward Leir and Chris Granger.
He said that a refusal to allow them to vote was an unlawful breach of contract.
The landmark ruling which – provided an appeal against it on Thursday fails – will mean the 130,000 party members recruited nationally within the past six months – which includes many new members in Stevenage – will now be able to vote in the leadership election, where they had previously been barred.
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor and chairman of Mr Corbyn’s leadership campaign, described the court decision as a “huge victory for Labour Party members and party democracy”.
A change.org petition has been set up by the four Labour members who won the court case titled: ‘Labour Party: Don’t Appeal the Court Decision!’
“It would be extremely surprising if the rule book gave the NEC the power to disenfranchise one quarter of the party membership as it purported to do”, the ruling states.
“They joined because they want to be involved in the party and they’re not being allowed to”.
Labour has been given permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal and it is understood the appeal could be heard later this week if the party opts for that move.
Before the decision Labour MP David Lammy warned that the party was in danger of splitting.
The NEC consists of the Labour leader, deputy leader, frontbenchers, trade union representatives, constituency party representatives, councillors and members of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
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Mr Corbyn, who is holding a campaign rally in Bristol later, has called for “radical solutions” such as “injecting £500bn into our economy”.
