“I simply want to ensure that organisations like the Alliance for Workers Liberty, who have instructed all their members to join the Labour Party and target our youth sections for recruitment, are dealt with under our rules”.
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Owen Smith’s campaign was not available for comment at the time of writing.
The ruling was condemned by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign team, which said it was “the wrong decision – both legally and democratically”.
More than 130,000 new members have joined the party in the last six months, many of whom are believed to support the incumbent leader.
According to the Mirror, a source close to Miliband dismissed him standing in Cox’s Batley and Spen constituency, but did not rule out a return to British politics, saying: “He is concerned about what’s happening with Labour but his focus is in America right now”.
The Corbyn campaign said it was delighted with the endorsements.
“With over half a million members, Labour can be at the heart of every community in Britain and win the next general election”, he will say according to BBC broadcaster.
The result of the contest will be announced at a special conference in Liverpool on September 24.
He told a Milton Keynes rally that the party’s 500,000-strong membership will “win things in their community and ultimately win things for all communities”.
The group said it would cost £1,000 to get their case heard by the Supreme Court – on top of the more than £80,000 in legal fees and costs they have already had to pay.
Next week, Margaret Hodge will kidnap John McDonnell, which she will claim is in accordance with the Labour Party Constitution, Rule 457.
The NEC had originally said members who had joined after 12 January could not vote in the election, which the high court on Monday had said was a breach of contract law in a case brought by five new members, Christine Evangelou, Edward Leir, Hannah Fordham, Chris Granger and “FM”, a teenage member.
Mr Smith said: “I had welcomed the prospect of 125,000 additional members being given the opportunity to vote in this vitally important leadership election”.
The big problem for Labour is whether the people of Britain are ready to hand them the keys to 10 Downing Street.
That said, there’s better polling news for Labour this week, as YouGov put them seven points behind the Conservatives. Burnham, who remains ambitious and popular within Labour, might well have decided that he’s better off outside Westminster while the party’s current battles rumble on. Only last June, Burnham was expected to succeed Ed Miliband.
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They did so in defiance of a long-standing ban upon competing in elections, imposed by the England-based party leadership – a ban which Mr Corbyn himself had refused to overturn. That was the basis upon which each Claimant joined the party; and the basis upon which they each entered into the contract between members inter se. A new breakaway could even become the official opposition if enough MPs jumped on board.
