After a three-month wait, those involved in the process to choose a General Election candidate in Croydon East have been told to expect an announcement from officials, reports WALTER CRONXITE, political editor
Labour Party members have been placed on stand-by for some kind of resolution over the stalled selection of their parliamentary candidate in Croydon East.
Some have been told that a selection process could resume next month.
The first “puff of white smoke” came at the weekend, when party selection watcher Michael Crick revealed through his @TomorrowsMPs Twitter account that Ann Black, a senior member of the party’s ruling body, the NEC, had sent a message to secretaries of constituency parties that “almost all the selections for remaining seats will be appointed by NEC panels, without a role for local members”.
Subscribers to Inside Croydon, who get access to our premium content, the Under The Flyover podcast, will recall that this is what Crick predicted would happen in Croydon East when he was our programme’s guest earlier this month.
Then, last night, a meeting of Croydon Labour’s group of councillors was briefed on the latest move from the NEC – the all-powerful National Executive Committee.
Other sources have suggested that Labour’s London Region was preparing to make some kind of announcement “imminently”, though when, and what the form the announcement is likely to take has been kept top secret by the party’s officials.
Croydon East Constituency Labour Party was formed in October 2023, to handle the affairs of the new constituency formed with bits of the previously marginal Croydon Central and parts of Tory stronghold Croydon South, as Croydon gets a fourth MP from the next General Election.
Breaking news: Labour officials have said nothing since they halted their corrupted election process in November
Pollsters at Electoral Calculus reckon that Labour has a 98% chance of winning the Croydon East seat – making it effectively a job for life for whoever it is that Labour puts on the ballot paper.
Even the Labour members in Croydon East might not get any say in the selection of their parliamentary candidate. They have not had a single meeting since the CLP was formed six months ago.
They were just days away from their first meeting, to select the candidate, when Labour’s London Region halted proceedings because of complaints of election fraud, ballot-rigging and fixes going on with the CLP membership lists.
“Several complaints already made to Labour national and London region HQs, especially over use of online votes,” Crick reported at the time.
Members had already been denied any part in the short-listing process, with the four candidates all chosen by an unelected committee of unidentified officials from Labour’s London Region and the NEC.
The four are Olga Fitzroy, a councillor in Lambeth with a reputation for organising successful national campaigns in the music industry, Natasha Irons, a Merton councillor, Johnson Situ, a former Southwark councillor who now works for London Mayor Sadiq Khan, and Joel “Bodger” Bodmer, who has never been elected to any public office.
Some grassroots members fear that they will get saddled with Bodger Bodmer, a close political ally of Croydon North MP Steve Reed and the apparatchik blamed for the poorly run local election campaign in 2022.
And Crick has tweeted a warning about what can happen with dodgy candidates imposed by the NEC: “The experience of 2017 shows how lack of scrutiny by ordinary members can be very dangerous. Two of the MPs imposed on local parties by NEC panels ended up with jail sentences.”
Labour’s selection for its candidate in May’s London elections for the Croydon and Sutton constituency, which was also suspended in November, appears to have been all but forgotten, with the party abandoning the residents of the two south London boroughs to having to endure Tory Neil Garratt as their representative at City Hall for another four years.
In the Croydon East parliamentary election, the Tories – with Jason Cummings, the Conservative councillor who helped push through last year’s 15% Council Tax hike – and the Greens – Peter Underwood – have already chosen their candidates.
To hear the whole of our Under The Flyover interview with Michael Crick sign up as a subscriber now by clicking hereRead more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
Read more: The fix is in: Labour excludes members from Croydon selection
Read more: Croydon Labour’s ‘hidden primary’ will choose a new MP
Read more: Labour’s NEC imposes selection shortlist on Croydon East
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