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.
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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