Labour is appealing against a High Court ruling that said new party members should have the right to vote in its leadership election.
Advertisement
The High Court case was triggered by the decision by Labour’s governing body, the National Executive Committee’s (NEC), that full members could only vote if they had at least six months’ continuous membership up to July 12 – the “freeze date”.
The original ban affected an estimated 130,000 new party members, who had joined Labour after the “freeze date” on January 12 this year.
But officials said Labour would mount a legal challenge to “defend the NEC’s right” to uphold the party’s rules and the appeal is expected to be heard within days.
If it loses the appeal, Labour is likely to have to refund the £25 supporter fee paid by new members at a potential cost of several million pounds and will have to work out how to stop those individuals having a duplicate vote.
Mr Cragg asked the judge to declare that party rules had been misapplied and the five are entitled to vote in the September 24 poll.
Now, the victory of five new members – Christine Evangelou, Hannah Fordham, Rev Edward Leir, Chris Granger and a minor named only as “FM” – could open the door to the thousands who felt unfairly excluded from the contest between challenger Owen Smith and incumbent Jeremy Corbyn.
Most of us joined because we believe in Jeremy Corbyn, to not be given the right to vote for him to remain as leader was utterly appalling.
The Labour peer told the programme, Brexit – The Battle for Britain: “It was very hard to know what Jeremy Corbyn’s motives were”.
He declared: ‘For the party to refuse to allow the claimants to vote in the current leadership election, because they have not been members since 12 January 2016, would be unlawful as in breach of contract’.
Both Corbyn’s supporters and his opponents had been actively recruiting party members in recent months, helping Labour’s membership rise to more than 500,000 – higher than the peak under Tony Blair.
“This statement was not qualified with any conditions – so the NEC’s attempt to retrospectively alter this contract has (rightly) been ruled to be wrong”.
Members of Momentum Exeter, grassroots campaign group backing Jeremy Corbyn, welcomed the decision.
In his judgment he ruled that the Labour national executive committee did have “the power to disenfranchise one-quarter of the party membership”.
The Tottenham MP also accused wings of the party of being engaged in a clash which they had been fighting “since student union times”.
But the Labour leader later said that the party must “abide by” the result of the June 23 referendum.
Advertisement
“All the time we were being held back because the prime minister just simply didn’t want – and I completely understand why – to deepen the chasm that had broken out in his own party”, said Lord Mandelson.
