Trigger dates

28 Jan

Here are the dates for the Labour Party branch meetings to re-run the trigger ballot.

Branches in West Ham CLP are first between 29th January and 8th February

  • Mon 29th Jan – 7.30pm – WEST HAM – 306 High Street E15 1AJ
  • Tue 30th Jan – 7.30pm – CANNING TOWN NORTH – Neighbourhood Centre, 18 Rathbone Market E16 1EH
  • Tue 30th Jan – 7.30pm- CUSTOM HOUSE – Main Hall, Ascension Church, Baxter Road E16 3HJ
  • Wed 31st Jan – 7 pm – PLAISTOW SOUTH – Barking Road Centre 627 – 633 Barking Road E13 9EZ
  • Wed 31st Jan – 8 pm – PLAISTOW NORTH – Harold Road Community Centre, 170 Harold Rd, London E13 0SE
  • Thur 1st Feb – 7.30pm – FOREST GATE SOUTH – Durning Hall, Resident’s Lounge, Earlham Grove, London E7 9AB
  • Thur 1st Feb – 8 pm – FOREST GATE NORTH – Durning Hall, Earlham Grove, London E7 9AB
  • Thur 1st Feb – TBC – GREEN STREET WEST – venue TBC
  • Thur 1st Feb- 7.30pm – STRATFORD & NEW TOWN – 306 High Street E15 1AJ
  • Thur 8th Feb – 7 pm – CANNING TOWN SOUTH – Cafe Eat 16, 89 Tarling Road, E26 1HN (Old St Luke’s church)

All the East Ham CLP branches will all meet on Sat 10th February at East Ham Town Hall, 328 Barking Road E6 2RP at the following times:

  • 10.00am – BOLEYN
  • 10.30am – BECKTON
  • 11.30am – EAST HAM CENTRAL
  • 12.30pm – EAST HAM NORTH
  • 1.30pm – EAST HAM SOUTH
  • 2.30pm – LITLLE ILFORD
  • 3.00pm – ROYAL DOCKS
  • 3.30pm – GREEN STREET EAST
  • 4.00pm – MANOR PARK
  • 4.30pm – WALL END

West Ham Women’s Forum will meet on the deadline day of Sun 11th Feb at 18.30 at Vicarage Lane Community Centre, Govier Close E15 4HW

If you are a Labour member, please attend your branch meeting and vote NO, which is a vote for an open selection. You are advised to arrive in good time (half an hour early) as late-comers will be turned away. You need to take your Labour Party membership card or another form of ID.

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Downfall

28 Jan

Hat-tip to @newhamlabourwtf on Twitter for linking to this.

The uploader calls himself Ken Clark, though I suspect that may be a pseudonym!

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Re-triggered

25 Jan

Newham for an open seelction campaign leaflet

Branch meetings for the re-run trigger ballot start next week. To avoid the (ahem) ‘problems’ with the original process in 2016 this is being managed by the London Labour Party rather than the local campaign forum.

Wards in West Ham are organising their own meetings, while those in the other half of the borough are under the direct supervision of the regional party because East Ham CLP is in ‘special measures.’

I understand that the agreement between the Labour party and the members who took legal action over the 2016 process includes a full list of affiliated trade union branches and others able to vote. Newham Fabians, the Co-operative Party and Bectu won’t be taking part this time.

Sir Robin has been in power since 1995, as leader of the council and as mayor. It’s time the Labour party gave itself the chance to consider an alternative. If you have a vote, vote ‘No’ to automatic re-selection.

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Signs of the times

25 Jan

New signs to East London Rugby Club have appeared in West Ham

Cllr Julianne Marriott tweeted the montage above yesterday, observing

Six signs for East London Rugby Club appeared this morning. Seems overkill in an era of sat navs… #WestHam #Newham #eyesore

East London RFC play in a league that is at the eighth level of the English rugby union system and is limited to club sides based in Essex and north-east London, so it is unlikely that hordes of fans will be flocking to their games, in desperate need of directions.

So why the sudden appearance of so many signs?

Perhaps the club’s president Sir Robin Wales knows. Or maybe the chairman Nick Bracken, who is also chief operating officer of Newham council.

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Fabians a-go-go

25 Jan

Amna Abdul addresses the Newham Fabians AGM

The recently re-formed and reinvigorated local branch of the Fabian Society held its AGM last night at Durning Hall.

It was, by Newham standards, a warm and comradely affair. Perhaps that was due to the presence of national Fabian officers supervising proceedings. Or perhaps it was down to the absence of Team Robin. 

During discussion of the annual report it was disclosed that there had been a very large influx of new members just prior to the AGM – as many as 150 people had signed up in the past month or so – coincidentally around the same time as the Labour party announced the mayoral trigger ballot would be re-run. Those applications are being processed by the national Fabian Society and they decided to impose a freeze date to prevent these recent joiners from voting or standing for election. In any event, Newham Fabians won’t be participating in the re-run trigger.

The officers who have run the local society so successfully this year were all re-elected unopposed. They will be joined by new treasurer David Gilles. He replaces Lester Hudson, who declined to either re-stand or provide any report of his activities over the past year. Judging by the mood of the meeting, he won’t be missed.

The new executive in full: 

  • Chair: Anita Pollack 
  • Vice Chair: Rokhsana Fiaz 
  • Secretary: Rohit DasGupta 
  • Assistant Secretary: James Beckles 
  • Treasurer: David Gilles
  • Women’s Officer: Moniba Khan
  • Events & Fundraising Officer: Jeanette Dye

 

 

 

 

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Alight here for Forest Gate

16 Jan

Screenshot 2018 01 16 16 54 07

According to the latest newsletter from the Barking-Gospel Oak Rail User Group (BGORUG), there will soon be an additional to the signage at Wanstead Park station:

At a meeting with TfL last September BGORUG secured agreement for the platform signs giving the station’s name at Wanstead Park to receive straplines reading ‘Alight here for Forest Gate’. This follows on from a similar success in 2015 when TfL agreed to add ‘Alight here for Walthamstow Town Centre’ to the name boards at Walthamstow Queen’s Road. This station is not even very close to the road it is named after!

BGORUG consulted with the Forest Gate North councillors, meeting with Cllr. Rachel Tripp, who was very supportive of the idea.

It is true that the names of many stations on the Barking – Gospel Oak line do not really reflect their true location. Wanstead Park station is closer to Wanstead Flats than the park it is named after and only a matter of a few minutes walk from Forest Gate station.

The new signs will deliver a message that is consistent with the current version of the Tube map, which shows Wanstead Park and Forest Gate as an official interchange.

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Open it up

15 Jan

The chair of West Ham CLP, Cllr Charlene McLean, has written to Labour’s general secretary asking that they skip the re-run trigger ballot and move straight to an open selection:

As Chair of West Ham CLP and on behalf of its Officers, I am writing with regards to the statement issued by Sir Robin Wales on the 21st December 2017  accepting that the original trigger ballot process for the Newham Mayoral candidacy held between October and December 2016 should be re-run, following widespread criticism and continuing concern amongst Labour Party members in Newham members affiliates about the democratic and accountability issues arising from this process.

You will be aware that in January 2017 West Ham CLP passed a motion of no confidence in the trigger ballot process and this was re-affirmed at the General Committee meeting on the 23rd November 2017.

In addition to concerns raised by the CLP, a number of members and affiliates have lodged multiple complaints about the way the Newham Mayoral trigger ballot was run. Since the outcome of the trigger ballot in February 2017, there has been no constructive engagement with West Ham CLP on these issues raised. 

We are now less than four months from the date of the local elections and are concerned that there is no longer sufficient time in which to re-run the trigger ballot and then potentially hold an open selection process, if that is what the trigger ballot determines. We would note that it is the Labour Party’s delay in addressing our concerns which has created this urgency.

We therefore do not feel that a re-run of the trigger ballot is the practical response at this time and request that the Labour Party immediately hold an open selection for the mayoral candidate.

Furthermore, we have additional concerns about the continuing delay with Newham Local Government candidate selections and would like clarity around when the intended timetable for that will re-commence.

The call has been backed on social media by other councillors, including Julianne Marriott:

I’ve just emailed #Labour NEC asking that #Newham goes straight to an open selection. I don’t believe a re-run of a trigger ballot is in best interests of Newham residents.

Regardless of Labour’s internal politics there is a practical reason for going straight to open selection: with the election being held on 3rd May, the deadline for nominations is 4 pm on 6th April.

In 2016 the original trigger ballot process took about 6 weeks, from late October to the declaration of the result in early December. Even if Labour started the re-run by the end of January (and there’s no sign of that happening) it would be mid-March before the outcome was known. Getting an open selection done in three weeks would then be a challenge.

The answer is clear. Sir Robin has been mayor for 16 years. He has a record to run on. Neither he nor the Labour party should be afraid of an open selection.

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Do over

4 Jan

The acting regional director of the London Labour Party has emailed Newham members:

As you may be aware, an affirmative ballot to determine the re-selection of the sitting directly-elected Mayor Newham was held in December 2016. This ballot, which was administered by the Local Campaign Forum (LCF), confirmed that Sir Robin Wales was selected as Labour’s candidate to fight the Mayoral election in May 2018.

Following the completion of this process, the party received complaints from a group of members with concerns over the eligibility status of some affiliated organisations who took part in the process. The complainants made it clear to the party that they intended to seek legal judgement on these matters in the courts.

The Labour Party maintains that all rules and procedures were applied correctly and that officers of the LCF acted in good faith with the information they were provided with.

However, a court case to determine that matter would be costly to the party and be a massive distraction away from campaigning to elect a Labour Mayor for Newham. Therefore, we have agreed to re-run the affirmative nomination process for Newham to determine if Sir Robin Wales is re-selected as Labour’s candidate for the election. The process will be administered by the Greater London Labour Party.

The ballot will be run with the same freeze date as the original process, 25th October 2016. This means that only members with six months membership at this point will be eligible to take part in any branch meetings where the affirmative vote will take place. If you are an eligible member then the party will be in touch with you to give you notice of this meeting.

We aim to complete this process as soon as possible to ensure everyone in the party can come together to play their part in delivering a successful campaign in Newham.

The local campaign forum is not being trusted to run a fair contest, so the regional party will supervise. And there will be a pre-agreed list of affiliates allowed to submit votes, which rather evens up the playing field.

Game on!

Data breach

22 Dec

Branch secretaries across West Ham Labour party have received an email today from Josephine Grahl, the vice chair for membership, about a serious data breach in Green Street West:

Dear Branch Secretary,

I am writing to draw your attention to a recent incident in which personal membership data of individuals may have been misused or accessed by an unauthorised person.

In September 2017, following the third attempt to hold a branch AGM in Green Street West, a number of members in that ward reported to the CLP Secretary and to myself that their Labour Party membership had been resigned without their knowledge ahead of the AGM. Emails were sent to the National Membership team purporting to be from these members, quoting their Labour Party membership numbers and home addresses, and stating that they wished immediately to resign their Labour Party membership.

Most of these members have now been reinstated with their continuity of membership preserved as the National Membership team recognised that the emails were sent maliciously from email addresses which were not the addresses on record for those members.

This has been reported to both the police and the Information Commissioner alleging illegal misuse of personal data. The matter has also been referred to the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit.

This is a cause for concern as in order to make these fraudulent resignations someone must have had access to the name, address and Labour Party membership numbers of the affected members. I am therefore writing to all officers with access to personal data to make them aware of this breach and ensure that they are aware of their responsibilities.

Branch Secretaries should be aware that their access to the personal data of members is governed by the Data Protection Act, and that misuse of this data may put the Labour Party in legal jeopardy. On no account may membership data be used for purposes other than that for which access is granted. If you are aware of any breach, you should contact the National Membership team on labourmembership@labour.org .uk or 0345 092 2299.

For more information the Labour Party’s data protection guidelines are available on Membersnet at https://members.labour.org. uk/rules-and-procedures [ registration required]

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns about the above.

With the obvious caveat that I am not a lawyer, it appears that whoever did this has committed not just an offence under the Data Protection Act but also under the Communications Act 2003. Section 127(2) of that act targets false messages intended to cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, they “shall be liable, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine or to both.”

Someone should be feeling very nervous.

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Blink

21 Dec

Sir Robin Wales calls for Labour to cancel trigger ballot result, reports the Newham Recorder.

While claiming that the process was “endorsed by the Labour Party National Executive Committee” Sir Robin said it has been “attacked by a number of often anonymous individuals.”

“A few of these individuals have filed a court case against the Labour Party itself.

“This can only work to the Tories’ advantage, waste the party’s resources, and undermine our position in Newham, particularly given the upcoming local government elections in May 2018.

“The costs of a court case would be significant, and Labour Party members money should not be used in this way. It also risks jeopardising the hard work of our Labour councillors.

“It is on that basis that I have asked the party to cancel the results from the trigger ballot. I am supporting a new process to be undertaken under the auspices of the national or regional Labour Party.

“It is deeply regrettable that at this late stage in our preparation, and with local elections just a few months away, we have to appease a minority for the sake of their own gain.

“I had hoped that our focus together would have been getting Labour re-elected into Newham to ensure a radical and progressive council.

“However, in my view we should take this issue out of the courts, and back into members’ hands.’”

In a briefing sent out to local members Sir Robin also complains about Trigger Democracy:

You may remember just a few months ago these individuals – through an anonymously run campaign – misused Labour Party members data on significant scale, resulting in correspondence and even home visits.

Of course he fails to mention that one of his own supporters is heavily implicated in mis-using party data to maliciously cancel the memberships of at least four local comrades without their knowledge or consent. 

So has Sir Robin blinked first in his battle with the Trigger Democracy campaigners? Maybe. While he knows he will win a re-run of the trigger ballot, because he can always conjure enough affiliate votes to cancel out any deficit among the local ward parties, he must be a little nervous about what might come out if the case ever got to court.

The honest and brave course of action would be to agree unconditionally to an open selection, with other candidates able to offer their alternative vision for Newham.

PS: hats off to Rita Chada on Twitter for spotting that this announcement was made on National Robin Day – somehow he always manages to make it about him!

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