Unions call on Starmer to scrap online voting system

FOUR trade unions have called for the Labour Party to ban its online voting system Anonyvoter unless further proof of its robustness can be provided.

The demand came in a letter, seen by The Telegraph, from four general secretaries to David Evans, the party’s general secretary, the most senior Labour employee.

The intervention follows this newspaper’s investigation into how the system could, in theory, be open to abuse, and allegations from Left-wing figures that they are being disadvantaged.

Sam Tarry, the Labour MP for Ilford South, is threatening to sue the party to reveal Anonyvoter records for the re-selection race he lost in October 2022.

Anonyvoter is used by many local Labour branches to pick candidates for the next general election, often alongside postal and in-person voting.

There is no suggestion that the system is inherently faulty.

However left-wing MPS have raised concerns in legal letters amid claims in some cases it is used to help moderates.

Now four general secretaries from unions formally affiliated to the Labour Party have written Mr Evans, in what amounts to a significant escalation of the row over the system.

The signatories were Mick Whelan of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF), Dave Ward of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), Maryam Eslamdoust of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), and Matt Wrack of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU).

The letter posed a series of questions about how the Anonyvoter system is being used, many revolving around fears there are less checks and balances than in-person or postal voting.

Mr Evans is understood to have issued a robust defence of the Anonyvoter system when asked about it at a meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) yesterday.

A Labour spokesman said last week in response to The Telegraph’s reporting that the party has “full confidence in the integrity” of the Anonyvoter system.