Corbyn is plunged into a fresh war with his own party
Court rules 130,000 new Labour members – most of them his backers – cannot vote in leader election
JUDGES yesterday ruled that 130,000 new Labour Party members cannot vote in its leadership contest – in a bitter blow to Jeremy Corbyn.
The Court of Appeal backed party chiefs in their move to stop the new members – most of whom are thought to be backing Mr Corbyn – choosing the next leader.
Last night Mr Corbyn’s campaign slammed the move as ‘wrong… both legally and democratically’.
John McDonnell, the Labour leader’s campaign chairman, accused the party’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) of using a ‘grubby little device’ to overturn the original court decision.
The Shadow Chancellor told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: ‘I just find it shaming for a democratic party like ours, with a tradition over a century of campaigning for democracy throughout our society. We are now undermining the democracy of our own party.’
The case arose from an NEC ruling that members would be allowed to vote in the leadership race – in which Mr Corbyn has been challenged by Owen Smith – only if they had six months’ unbroken membership up to July 12.
Five new members challenged the ruling in court, with lawyers arguing they had been unfairly frozen out of the ballot despite paying their ‘dues’.
High Court judge Mr Justice Hickinbottom agreed, ruling that refusing to allow the new members to vote would amount to a ‘breach of contract’.
But on Thursday, Labour’s general secretary Iain McNicol took the case to the Court of Appeal.
Announcing the court’s decision yesterday, Lord Justice Beatson 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.’
The ruling said a member’s entitlement to vote was not a product of them simply being a member, but the result of them satisfying criteria defined by the NEC.
Labour’s NEC, whose relationship with Mr Corbyn has been under strain in recent months, had offered a window from July 18 to 20 for more recent mem- bers and non-members to become ‘registered supporters’ for £25 and gain the right to vote in the leadership election.
NEC chairman Paddy Lillis said the party welcomed the decision. He said: ‘It is crucial to the Labour Party that our governing body has the authority to debate, decide and implement the procedures, timetable and voting eligibility for our internal elections and selections.’
Mr Corbyn’s campaign said the ruling had disenfranchised nearly 130,000 members who had joined since January and were ‘explicitly’ told they could vote for the new leader.
A spokesman for Jeremy For Labour said: ‘Serious questions must be raised, however, over why and how the NEC procedures committee brought this appeal. In doing so, it effectively risked new members’ money on an attempt to disenfranchise them.’
But Mr Smith backed the NEC, saying it was the ‘correct body’ to set the rules for the party.
‘I don’t think, by and large, we should be in the courts debating these things,’ he told Sky News.
Mr Corbyn is still expected to win the leadership race. A total of 275 constituency Labour parties have made supporting nominations for candidates, with Mr Corbyn leading Mr Smith by 234 to 41. The result will be announced on September 24.
Meanwhile, Mr Corbyn was mocked yesterday for claiming his leadership had brought Labour ‘neck and neck’ with the Tories.
His campaign launched a website called Corbyn Facts to set the record straight about the his accomplishments. Its claims included: ‘Before the recent attempt to remove Jeremy, we were neck and neck in the polls.’
Mr Corbyn went even further during hustings on Thursday, claiming Labour had been ahead until MPs moved against him.
The Corbyn campaign pointed to a single poll that had both parties level on 32 per cent.
However, another poll on the same day put the Conservatives four points ahead.
Analysts Britain Elects said polling averages showed Tories had held an ‘uninterrupted lead in the polls since April 2015’ and warned against looking at any one poll in isolation.
Further data from Ipsos MORI showed that Labour was faring worse in the polls under Mr Corbyn than any of its previous leaders in recent history, including Michael Foot.
‘An attempt to disenfranchise’