But he welcomed Friday’s Appeal Court decision to allow Labour’s National Executive Committee to block 130,000 new party members from voting in the leadership contest as a triumph for democracy.
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The NEC decided that full members would not be able to vote if they had not had at least six months’ continuous membership up to July 12. In his ruling Monday, Justice Hickinbottom upheld the five’s claim that the NEC was not within its rights to arbitrarily impose such a restriction, which represented an unlawful breach of contract.
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn’s campaign team said: “The court’s ruling disenfranchises almost 130,000 Labour members, who joined the party since January and were explicitly told that they would have a vote in any leadership election”. The five members had “paid their dues” and had a right to vote. For those reasons, the Claimants’ claim succeeds. There was a short window for new members to pay £25 and become “registered supports” and gain the right to vote.
But today’s judges thought differently. It’s no surprise that they’re a massive [5.4] to win most seats at the next general election.
“The Corbynista dream of government is our nightmare”, writes Foster, who has donated some 400,000 British pounds in the past few years to Labour.
The Labour leader appeared confident of victory on September 24 and told rebellious MPs and others to join him in “taking the fight to the Tories”.
It is understood that the Supreme Court was preparing to hear the case on Tuesday and making urgent arrangements to pull back five justices during summer recess.
After a day-long hearing, Lord Justice Beatson, sitting with Lady Justice Macur and Lord Justice Sales, said the court appreciated the urgency of the case and aimed to give its ruling at 3pm on Friday.
First, the High Court ruled on which party members are eligible to vote in the contest. “That rests with the NEC”, he said, adding that the committee “defines the precise eligibility criteria, meaning it fixes the eligibility criteria, it sets the boundaries, it sets the limits for the eligibility criteria”.
A spokesperson for Mr Corbyn said the decision was wrong, “both legally and democratically”.
The appeal against Hickinbottom’s ruling was demanded by a handful of people on the NEC’s “procedures committee” and forced through by Tom Watson, deputy leader of the party.
The move to set up a new official Northern Irish Labour party in April meant that the Labour members were risking expulsion from the overall UK-wide Labour fraternity.
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The leadership contest came to the North East this week with a hustings in Gateshead.
