Court of Appeal backs Labour NEC in voting clampdown

Last week the Court of Appeal backed Labour’s NEC’s right to set voting conditions which can be seen to favour one of the two candidates – a move which has saddened the local Momentum group.

The five had originally launched a case against the Labour Party in the High Court. They had all joined the Labour Party this year and had expected to play their full part as members – including voting in the leadership election. However, the Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) ruled that only members who had joined the Labour Party before 12th January 2016 could vote in this year’s election. This is a much longer “exclusion zone” than was adopted in last year’s contest – which is why the NEC’s decision is widely seen as unfair.

The High Court agreed (and the Appeal Court confirmed) that the Labour Party Rule Book was a contract between the Party and the five Claimants. Labour Party publicity materials stressed that party members could vote in leadership elections.  Accordingly, the High Court ruled that the Labour Party could not exclude the Claimants from voting in the leadership contest. This ruling has now been overturned by the Appeal Court – on the basis of one rule in the Rule Book which states that the NEC can, in general, set the arrangements for a leadership election – which implies it can set a qualifying date for members to join by and earn their vote. The Appeal Court did not comment on the apparently arbitrary difference between last year’s procedures and arrangements for the current contest.

A spokesperson for Tower Hamlets Momentum said: “There are thousands of people who joined the Labour Party in good faith this year because they support Labour values and want to come together and campaign, as Labour, against what the Tory Government is doing to this country. Last year, similar people were invited to participate in the leadership contest – but this year they have been deliberately excluded. The NEC has not given any good reason for this change of practice, which can only leave observers with the fear that they were trying to influence the outcome of the election by excluding those whom they believed would largely favour Jeremy Corbyn. This is a sad day for democracy in the Labour Party.”

Smith supporters are clinging to the hope that the exclusion of some 130,000 new members will boost their chances of winning. However, many of the 130,000 new members will be among the 180,000 people who paid £25 each to become a Registered Supporter during the 48 hours allowed by the NEC and will entitled to vote anyway. So far, Smith remains firmly in second place in this two horse race.

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