Britain’s Labour Party won the right to exclude new members from voting in its ongoing leadership contest on Friday after a successful legal appeal – a decision which party leader Jeremy Corbyn criticised as legally and democratically wrong.
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Jeremy Corbyn has told supporters the power of Labour’s 500,000-strong membership can sweep the party to victory at the next general election. He said, “On the correct interpretation of the party rules, the national executive committee has the power to set the criteria for members to be eligible to vote in the leadership election in the way that it did”.
At the time each of the Claimants joined the Party, it was the common understanding as reflected in the Rule Book that, if they joined the Party prior to the election process commencing, as new members they would be entitled to vote in any leadership contest.
The High Court on Monday ruled they had been unlawfully “frozen out” but that decision was overturned by the appeal court.
However, finally forced to act, Corbyn appointed lawyer, Shami Chakrabarti, to lead an “independent” inquiry into anti-Semitism…except its credentials were derailed from Day 1, when the earnestly hand-wringing human rights campaigner naively announced she’d become a Labor member. With the added control allowed the NEC by the court ruling, it will be interesting to see if any other regulations or rule-massaging occurs within the coming weeks.
Though ideologically poles apart, both are ego-driven populists, who have tapped into an odious minority’s discontent and now consider themselves mightier than the parties they supposedly represent.
Ruth Cadbury, the Labour MP for Brentford and Isleworth, is backing Mr Smith in the leadership contest.
But Labour is 14 points behind the Conservatives in the polls, at 28 per cent compared to 42 per cent – a figure that would demolish the party at the next election.
A spokesman said: “In other words, this is a “make it up as you go along” rule”.
Councillor Theo Dennison, chairman of the Brentford and Isleworth CLP, said 1,946 constituency party members were invited to vote on Wednesday in what he described as a “good-humoured” meeting.
Our readers believe that Labour will win in all three of those elections next year. Justice Sales used to be a practising barrister at law firm 11KBW, the former chambers of Blair. The judicial arm of the state has intervened to safeguard the Labour Party as a trusted political instrument of the state, and defend those who police it from any undue influence from its members.
They also heard former Assembly Member Murad Queshsi, who lives locally, speak on behalf of Mr Corbyn, before the debate was thrown open to the floor. What really motivates him is the defence of Labour’s grip on the working class.
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“This decision advantaged Corbyn and his Sturm Abteilung (stormtroopers), but on Friday afternoon the Appeal Court handed down a big decision for British democracy (to exclude 130,000 members)”.
