Labour activists ‘disappointed’ by party leadership
11:00 am - May 20th 2009
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Labour party candidates and activists who organised a letter to the NEC urging strong leadership on the MPs expenses said last night the Prime Minister had lost the opportunity to get back in touch with public opinion.
In a joint statement to Liberal Conspiracy the NEC protest letter organisers, Richard Bingley, Fred Grindrod and Tom Flynn, said:
Since Mr Brown’s proposals even more Labour activists have added their name to the protest letter calling for firm and speedy leadership. Regrettably, by not taking action to challenge MPs and ministers who have made deeply damaging expense claims, which by a mere technicality fall within archane parliamentary rules, today’s opportunity to get back in touch with the public has been lost. We repeat our call for immediate and firm moral leadership on this issue, that puts the country before institutionalised convenience.
Over 200 Labour Party activists, candidates and councillors had signed a letter, first published on LC on Sunday, urging the party to take more stringent action against ministers who had been accused of flouting the rules on expenses.
They said Labour leadership had failed to “take immediate and clear disciplinary action”, and appeared to side with MPs who had “made excessive and exaggerated claims” despite “justifiable public anger”.
In a statement following the NEC meeting, Gordon Brown said:
I have asked for systematic independent scrutiny of every single expenses claim made in the last four years – with the power to decide what should be paid back. But I am committed to a complete clean-up of the system, so the work that MPs do to improve the lives of their Âconstituents is not overshadowed by those who have broken the rules. Wherever immediate disciplinary action is required, we will take it; including barring sitting MPs from restanding as Labour candidates if necessary.
In an email sent to signatories, the three letter organisers said in response:
While undoubtedly well-meaning, we feel that the proposals stated today by our Prime Minister, and agreed by our NEC, lack the necessary teeth to help restore our Party’s credibility with hard working members of the public.
They added they were particularly concerned that:
– An MP will not face sanction by the Party if they remained within Parliamentary rules – no matter how publicly damaging their expense claims may have been.
– Constituency Labour Parties remain unable to take action to challenge those MPs who have brought the Party into disrepute, without a system of approvals first from the leadership
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Chris is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. He is an aspiring journalist and reports stories for LC.
· Other posts by Chris Barnyard
Story Filed Under: Blog ,Labour party ,Our democracy ,Westminster
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Reader comments
You’re all in the wrong party. How fucking long is it going to take before you realise that Brown and co are the problem, not the solution, and it’s well-meaning but deluded sorts like you that enable him?
as someone who has moved parties 3 times over 4 decades i know how glib that “youre in the wrong party mate” sounds. however, the idea of reselection misses the point too; the people whove been betrayed are the voters & they are the ones who should have the choice. where sitting MPs have betrayed their trust the voters need a real choice between 2 candidates from whichever party won last time. dont deselect “your” MP, stand another candidate alongside them under a clean-lab/lib/con (delete as appropiate) label, then your loyal voters have a real choice.
“- An MP will not face sanction by the Party if they remained within Parliamentary rules – no matter how publicly damaging their expense claims may have been.”
This is not the case. The NEC ‘star chamber’ can sanction MPs for bringing the party into disrepute, even if they remained within Parliamentary rules.
Look Brown is not good enough simple as that, I did not like Blair but he stood his ground and defeated most who stood against him, while Brown looks like somebody from the age of a cave man, he is out of date and out of touch. The fact is I do not think any party does well after two terms labour are now well past the sell by date. Policies have gone and Labour are annoyed the Tories are not helping them by saying what they do.
lets get an election get Labour either elected or out and then we can start again
In other threads here, I have posted about my expectation that local associations/parties would challenge MPs who have abused the system. An MP who fiddles the allowances will be an anchor weight in the next general election, and we can expect unusual results in safe seats (there were fewer safer Tory seats in 1997 than Tatton), so parties need candidates who are unencumbered by sleeze. And deselection should be the choice of local associations/parties, not the federal bodies.
Until today, I have been shocked by the response of Labour CLPs. Hats off to those who signed the letter to Labour’s NEC. The Conservative apologist response at association level has appalled me, but I really should not have been surprised — they are a top down organisation by nature. The LibDems have “no comment”.
Voters, and there may be a few more at future elections, are going to give the mainstream parties a kicking. The appropriate preemptive response from local parties is to boot out abusive MPs, to boot out local officials who are too close to offending MPs and to campaign vigorously with “clean skin” candidates. That is hard news, with risk, but the risk is scarcely different from trying to re-elect a fraud. A few offending MPs may wish to rejuvenate their careers in four years — Michael Gove, for example, is a useful man in parliament (whether or not you are a Conservative), so he would be welcome back after time in the wilderness to reflect on his conduct.
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