EXCLUSIVE: Who would choose between the Archangel Gabriel and Harold Shipman? That could be the kind of no-choice ‘choice’ imposed on Labour’s grassroots members in Croydon after a suspiciously lengthy ‘investigation’ into allegations of vote rigging. By STEVEN DOWNES
Bodged: Joel Bodmer (third from right with sign) was a favoured candidate in Labour’s botched Croydon East parliamentary selection
After a three-month wait, a decision on Keir Starmer Labour’s suspended selection for a parliamentary candidate in the new constituency of Croydon East is “imminent”, London MPs were told by Pearleen Sangha, the party’s regional director, at a meeting last week.
But veteran political commentator Michael Crick believes is it unlikely that grassroots Labour members in Croydon will be given much of a choice, if any, in the selection of someone who – given recent polling figures and longer term demographics – could become an MP with a job for life.
Crick predicts an “emergency, fast-track selection” with three contenders: “… the line-up will be Harold Shipman, Peter Sutcliffe and the Archangel Gabriel, therefore they haven’t really got a choice. Or they’ll even impose a candidate.”
Crick was speaking on Under The Flyover, the Inside Croydon podcast.
It was Crick’s dedicated Twitter account, @TomorrowsMPs, together with this website, that revealed serious concerns with the selection process in Croydon East, with allegations of membership lists being tampered with and vote rigging using postal votes and the online voting system, Anonyvoter.
Croydon East will be contested at the General Election on new boundaries which include much of the old Croydon Central seat and areas from Croydon South, and includes Addiscombe, New Addington, Selsdon, Shirley and Woodside.
A Croydon East Constituency Labour Party was formed in October, with CLP officials imposed by Labour’s London Region. The CLP has held no meetings in the four months since, has failed to stage a promised general meeting for members to elect their own officials, and since November it has locked down its own social media pages.
At the end of November, with the key selection meeting just hours away, Labour was forced to suspend the parliamentary selection for Croydon East.
Slow progress: Labour London director Pearleen Sangha
Inside Croydon had been reporting for months serious and mounting concerns about deliberate attempts by some party officials to favour one particular candidate over all others, after excluding members from the shortlisting process altogether.
It was widely suspected that Joel “Bodger” Bodmer, the Croydon official who masterminded the party’s defeat in the 2022 borough Mayoral contest and did much to see Labour lose control of Croydon Town Hall that May, was the favoured candidate, with the backing of Blairite Steve Reed OBE, the MP for Lambeth South.
Bodger and the three other candidates on the Croydon East shortlist – Natasha Irons, Olga Fitzroy and Johnson Situ – have been conspicuous by their absence from gurning selfies from Croydon party events and leafleting blitzes. Labour sources suggest that the quartet have been ordered to stay away from all party activities in Croydon while the selection is suspended.
In his Under The Flyover interview, Crick – the author of books on Militant, Arthur Scargill and a biography of Michael Heseltine – expressed his surprise, and suspicions, that the investigation into the Croydon East vote rigging allegations had not been concluded very quickly.
Crick had seen the evidence of malpractice back in the autumn, which he described as “huge problems, including suspected fraud and allegations of large-scale tampering with membership lists…
“Several complaints already made to Labour national and London region HQs, especially over use of online votes.”
Breaking news: @TomorrowsMPs has provided a level of scrutiny much-needed in local party politics
He said he had seen “evidence the membership list supplied by London office to the four contenders (so they can canvass members) has been tampered with. Dozens of members have had home addresses changed in ways which suggest systematic, not human, error.
“The implications of the online voting story in terms of data protection breaches could be huge, and hugely costly for Labour.”
Speaking to Under The Flyover this week, Crick, the Royal Television Society award-winning former political editor at BBC Newsnight and political correspondent at Channel 4 News, said of Labour’s investigation into the Croydon East voting scandal, “If they’re genuine about this inquiry, it won’t take long.
“There must be a paper trail… or a digital trail. They must know where the membership lists came from originally. It must involve some local official in Croydon or somebody at the London regional office. Or maybe a combination of the two.” Elsewhere in the interview, Crick makes it clear that he has a very dim view of Labour’s London Region.
“If they’re really sincere about doing an inquiry, it should take no time at all,” Crick said.
“I suspect we will never hear from the inquiry until after the General Election. They’ll just let it drag on, drag on…
“Then the election is called by the Prime Minister and the London regional office will say, ‘Oh dear, there isn’t time to sort all this out. We’ll have to have an emergency, fast-track selection – these are the three contenders you’ve got to choose from’, and the line-up will be Harold Shipman, Peter Sutcliffe and the Archangel Gabriel, therefore they haven’t really got a choice.
“Or they’ll even impose a candidate. ‘We’re in charge: here’s your candidate’.”
Labour’s selection for its candidate for the London elections in May – where one of the candidates is the co-owner of the company that supplies Anonyvoter software to the Labour Party – also remains suspended.
To hear the whole of our Michael Crick interview, you’ll need to visit the Inside Croydon Spotify page or sign up as a paying subscriber, as per the details below.
Read more: Labour cancels Croydon selection after voting fraud claims
Read more: ‘Appalling’ and ‘a disgrace’: Crick’s verdict on Labour selection
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
Read more: The fix is in: Labour excludes members from Croydon selection
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Perhaps if voters complain that the options for a Labour candidate are too narrow (one fictional character and two dead serial killers), perhaps the (accommodating?) Labour Party will add some more dead murderers to the list (eg. Dr Crippen and John Christie, and Moors murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley). Myra Hindley could be added, especially if female Labour Party members complain about the all-male list !?!
Radical. Take a leaf from the Conservatives book perhaps tongue in cheek? May Johnson Truss up Sunak – literally?
The fact is numbers dead in care homes put Moors Brady and Hindley in the shade on the death toll.
The impacts in Croydon of the mismanagement and profligacy of Fisher Perry, Newman and Ali and again Perry and Perry all ably assisted by Pickles and Conservative policy has and will impact on the health wealth and longevity of hundreds of thousands in thsi Borough alone.
All of those were elected by voters of both party systems. Selection process being decided by very few and not open to general voyer scrutiny. Our parties have a selection system not much better than the Chinese were we get to vote for those put in front of us.
The difference is that independents can and do run and like the Lottery someone can hit the Jackpot and get elected.
But thats it without 300 more of them they are tokens.
Rights and wrongs? It really is irrelavent
The reality is that most voters give a fig about as much as Adam and Eve wore in the the Garden of Eden.
It is a miracle we actually get people who make good decisions and take the brick bats for doing so as good decisions are usually unpopular.
It is obvious to anyone that Croydon Labour has a long history of the “dark Arts”, manipulation and above all ignoring and excluding members in democratic processes.
Part of that club was Bodmer who was involved in the shortlisting and chaos of selections for the last Local Elections. Yet here he is with no experience in representing the people anywhere, being imposed as a candidate and clearly supported by the imposed Chair namely ex councilor Carole Bonner, an unwavering advocate of Newman and Hall and their activities.
We also see expulsions of members who served the party and the people loyally for decades.
The Labour Party elite regard their fee-paying members with undisguised contempt, see democracy as an inconvenience to be ignored and treat the rest of us as something unpleasant to be scraped from the soles of their jackboots
So the difference between Tory, Lib Dem, Green, and Labour is what exactly?
Degrees of disguising the deceit perhaps?
There is Elitism in all parties and always those that feel they are better. It is what Voters feel that gets them elected.
Choose wisely