by Chris McLaughlin
A DOSSIER of widespread, rule-breaking interventions by Labour officials in the party’s internal elections and policy-making process is to be published this weekend in a campaign to expose “a corrupt and scary regime”.
The move follows an official complaint to Cath Speight, chair of the National Executive Committee, which calls for urgent action to ban the party’s “civil service” from acting as a political machine for rounding up loyalist votes at annual conference and the National Policy Forum.
A series of incidences of officials at regional level attempting to bring pressure on delegates to vote in particular ways is detailed in a new activist website to be launched today (January 9) as a campaigning tool of the Grassroots Alliance, which has members on the NEC.
No officials are named, but the site, under a section named “shenanigans” contains evidence that regional officials routinely target delegates and NPF members using a rating system ranging from A-D, where A is most amenable or vulnerable to pressure and D is a hopeless case.
Under their code of conduct, which is part of their employment contract, party officials are specifically obliged to act impartially at all times.
The system has been developed since the balance of conference votes changed in the mid-1990s from 90 per cent union-controlled to a 50-50 split between the unions and the constituencies, giving the CLPs more power for the machine to manipulate.
It was encouraged by Number 10 under Tony Blair’s leadership but Gordon Brown’s aides have let it be known that it is now frowned upon.
General secretary Ray Collins is also said to have privately expressed his concern at reports of the practice.
In the past it resulted in former NEC member Tony Robinson resigning after he discovered the machine was working against his re-election and the removal of Blair critic Theresa Pearce from the NPF.
The latest example produced a previously unexplained quirk in the pattern of elections to the conference arrangements committee (the powerful organising body for the annual event) last year.
Trade unions usually dominate the result but in the constituency section votes were rounded up for a little-known “uber-Blairite” while the T&G (Unite) candidate was negatively targeted, producing a spectacular fall in the union’s traditional vote and an equally dramatic result for the outsider NPF member, Andy Furlong.
The union’s Mick Murphy won on the strength of votes in the union, but with a marked drop on the previous year.
Pete Willsman, secretary of the Grassroots Alliance who has submitted the official complaint, refused to comment on the grounds that the party chair should be allowed time to consider the allegations, which he declined to disclose but which differ in some deatail from what appears on the website (www.grassrootslabour.net).
But one trade union source, who requested anonymity, said: “What goes on is really unpleasant. It is a corrupt and scary regime. People have been reduced to tears under pressure and been made to feel scared about their position or even career in the party. About two-thirds of the regional officials are engaged in what has become to be seen as a routine part of the job.
“But it is difficult to pin down. They are very good at hiding what they do.”
