The increasingly dysfunctional Croydon Labour Party yesterday tweeted that Purley resident Jess Hammersley-Rich is to be their candidate in the forthcoming Woodside ward council by-election.
Selected by no one: Jess Hammersley-Rich has been foisted onto Labour members in Woodside
The social media announcement was the first that grassroots members in Woodside heard about the “selection”: there had been no democratic selection meeting, and party officials did not even have the courtesy of emailing members with the fait accompli decision.
Woodside is part of the Croydon East Constituency Labour Party mired in a selection-fixing scandal that, as Inside Croydon revealed exclusively, is now subject to a fraud investigation by the Met’s cyber crime unit.
The troubles within the CLP have impacted the management of the ward and the councillor selection. Carole Bonner, the interim chair of Croydon East, is also the branch secretary for Woodside ward (where her former close colleagues Tony Newman and Paul Scott used to be councillors).
Last week, Labour’s London Region invited applications for selection as a council candidate for the very safe Labour ward. The invitation made it clear that the regional executive would select the candidate, and not the members in the ward, as would normally, and democratically, be the case.
No explanation has ever been offered by officials for Woodside members being denied this important part in local and party democracy – although London Region had also imposed the selection shortlist in the now notorious Croydon East parliamentary selection, again bypassing normal procedures.
The selection was made without even the nicety of an in-person interview, never mind a members’ meeting to hear from the candidates. Instead, Zoom interviews were conducted on Monday night, the decision – by whom? on behalf of whom? Labour ain’t saying – rushed out the following day.
At 2.37pm yesterday, the usually muted Twitter account of Croydon Labour sparked into life with the like-it-or-lump-it decision: “We are delighted to announce Jess Rich will be Labour’s candidate in the forthcoming Woodside by-election.
“Jess will be a hardworking and strong voice for Woodside, working alongside current councillors Amy Foster and Brigitte Graham.”
This was the first that members in Woodside had heard of the selection.
As well as being denied a say in the selection, they had not been written to with the information, again as would normally be expected in a properly functioning organisation.
Members have told Inside Croydon that they have not received any emails from the local party about the selection even today. Presumably, those paid-up members of Labour who are not on Twitter still won’t know who is being put up for election in their name. Unless they read about it on Inside Croydon.
Inside Croydon understands that Tom Bowell (a Broad Green resident) and Julie Setchfield (Fairfield) had put themselves forward for Woodside selection, although Setchfield has said that she did not apply, according to one source “due to the toxic situation in the area”.
Safe seat: results from May 2022 suggest that whoever Labour picks is going to get a cushty seat on Croydon Council
Bowell (and his mother) and Setchfield, together with Hammersley-Rich, had been busy on social media in the past week or so, virtue-signalling their abilities with grinning pics of themselves holding up Labour banners, eating meals at party fund-raisers or delivering Labour leaflets, none of which are required skills of a competent local authority councillor, but all of which appears to be of prime importance for the Labour Party.
Hammersley-Rich, who works in the charity sector, had been an unsuccessful candidate for parliamentary selection in her own CLP, Croydon South, in 2022, when she was the least popular of the four shortlisted candidates. When she was last a Labour council candidate, in May 2022, Hammersley-Rich lost a Labour-held council seat to the Tories.
The councillor vacancy in Woodside has arisen because Mike Bonello resigned his position in January, due to pressure of his job as a social worker.
No date has yet been fixed for the by-election, which in the absence of any petitioners demanding it be held sooner (at an estimated cost of £10,000 to the cash-strapped council), is now expected to be staged on the same day as the London elections on May 2.
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There was a by-election in Woodside ward in May 2021, following the resignation of former Council Leader Tony Newman. It was one of 5 by-elections to be held on the same day. I was partly responsible for organising selection of candidates as Secretary of Labour’s Local Campaign Forum.
Time was short but on that occasion Croydon Labour emailed all members of the party in the borough inviting applications to join the approved panel of candidates. Following that there were 24 interviews of prospective applicants plus full ward shortlisting and selection meetings, to which all members of the branches concerned were invited, all in the space of 8 days. The by-election in Woodside was subsequently won by Labour’s Mike Bonello.
There is in my opinion no reason why a similar democratic process could not have been carried out this time by Labour in Woodside.
Now I understand why they got rid of you David. You were competent, diligent and fair, making sure that the whole process was transparent and truly democratic.
With you out of the way, they are free to stitch things up, as has been repeatedly demonstrated
Croydon Labour know very well that it makes no difference who stands here, they are certain to win. They can treat the party members and voters with contempt.
Jess has also been imposed on Surrey residents as “their” Parliamentary candidate to run against Gove. Without any involvement or consultation of local members to my knowledge.
Hmm… Have you anything to back this up, Bill? There’s no mention of parliamentary selection on Hammersely-Rich’s social media, which would seem a bit remiss.
And of course, given the way the polls have been going, Surrey Heath, Gove’s seat, is a Labour “winnable”.
It’s true – she is the Surrey Heath candidate. Was planning to vote Labour but this has put me off. Not from the area and just seems to be shunted around.
Suffice to say we have been reporting Rich/Hammersley-Rich’s selection for Surrey Heath since it was confirmed.
It is notable that Rich/Hammersley-Rich has been busy on the election campaign trail… in Croydon South.
There’s an arrogance about political parties that take voters for granted in this manner. Labour has clearly determined that in Surrey Heath, the anti-Tory vote is best-placed with the FibDems.