After three years, the Labour Party has overturned its expulsion of life-long member David White over disputed allegations of anti-semitism on grounds of “insufficient evidence”.
Victim of a witch-hunt: David White’s expulsion by the Labour NEC has been dismissed as ‘unreasonable’
“It’s another admission that the Labour NEC under Secretary General David Evans was operating a kangaroo court to purge the party of socialists and figures of the left of the party,” a friend and supporter of White told Inside Croydon today.
White has spent more than half a century campaigning for social justice, and as a member of the Labour Party, having served as a councillor on the Greater London Council with Ken Livingstone and John McDonnell. For many years he was a senior official running what was then the Croydon Central Constituency Labour Party. He did much campaign work to get Sarah Jones elected as an MP in 2017.
In 2022, the Labour Party used two tweets by White from 2014 to smear him with allegations of anti-semitism. This was even though, in 2016, Labour had cleared White of similar charges based on the same tweets.
“This accusation is hurtful as I have spent my whole adult life campaigning against antisemitism and all other forms of racism,” White said when expelled.
White’s tweets had included support for Palestinian rights and criticisms of the Israeli government.
The expulsion came without White being informed who it was who brought the charges against him and being denied a hearing at which to make his case. The decision to expel White was made by a panel of NEC members that has never been identified. The decision was conveyed in an unsigned email.
Purge: David Evans’ time as Labour General Secretary has been rewarded with a seat in the Lords
Members of the NEC in 2022 included Starmerites such as Luke Akhurst (now an MP) and Johanna Baxter (now an MP), as well as General Secretary David Evans (now Lord Evans of Penge), a former Croydon councillor who will have known White very well.
“It grieves me that the party I joined so many years ago has moved so far away from basic notions of natural justice, fairness and freedom of speech,” White, a retired solicitor, said at the time of his expulsion.
White had had his membership suspended in September, on the eve of the 2021 Labour Party Conference in Brighton. The move meant that White, together with hundreds of other delegates who were subject to an eve-of-conference purge, were not allowed to attend the policy-setting event and exercise their delegated votes on behalf of Croydon Central CLP.
The purge of the left was said to have been engineered by Evans, who had been hand-picked as party General Secretary by Keir Starmer and whose appointment to that all-powerful position was due to be subject to a confirmation ballot at that 2021 Labour Conference in Brighton.
White’s initial suspension for a three-month period also saw him barred from attending crucial meetings of the Local Campaign Forum in Croydon, as it was selecting Labour candidates to stand in the 2022 local elections. White was Croydon LCF’s vice-chair.
Yesterday, White received an email from a panel of Labour’s Independent Complaints Board which told him that it had “decided there was insufficient evidence to justify the sanction imposed by the NEC”.
In their ruling, the ICB gave the following reasons (we have added italics for emphasis):
i. The NEC Panel [which has never been identified] concluded that you had not expressed contrition and regret and that you had not understood the concerns of the party. This decision is unreasonable because in your written submissions you stated that you had thought about whether any of his postings inadvertently contained antisemitic tropes. You stated that you were willing to attend a course of education or training if the Party thought that you had misunderstood any the matters relating to tropes. You demonstrated a willingness to learn.
ii.The charge was proved in respect of two posts, which were found to have undermined the Labour Party’s ability to campaign against racism. The gravity of this conduct did not appear to have been assessed in the context of the explanation you put forward. Alternatively, if your explanation was rejected by the NEC Panel, this was not adequately explained in the NEC Panel decision.
iii. When considering the appropriate sanction the NEC Panel decision referred to the two social media posts which were found proved, but it also referred to the language used by you in the “other tweets”, stating that the language used in them was “clear”. It therefore appears that the NEC took into account an irrelevant matter, when it considered sanction. The charge was not proved in relation to the other tweets and the other tweets should have been disregarded when the NEC Panel considered the appropriate sanction for the conduct that was proved.
And they concluded: “The ICB therefore determined under Chapter 1 XI.2.B.ii of the Labour Party Rule Book that the case should be remitted to a differently constituted NEC Complaints and Disciplinary Sub-Committee for fresh determination on sanction.”
Today, White, who is 76, told Inside Croydon: “My appeal is successful on technical issues. Not the central issue that nothing I said was antisemitic. Labour Party rules didn’t allow that aspect to be appealed.
“Labour’s disciplinary procedures are corrupt. I was one of hundreds, if not thousands, who were hounded out of the party as part of a witch-hunt against anyone on the left.
“So although I take today’s email as a partial vindication, it also highlights the deficiencies of the Labour Party’s disciplinary system. Action is motivated by political factors, those accused have no right (usually) to be heard, the complainant is not revealed and appeals are only allowed on limited procedural grounds.
“Appeals, as in my case, can receive no result for more than three years, despite pressing emails from the accused. That, of itself, is justice denied.”
Read more: Labour councillor submits bullying complaint to Labour Party
Read more: The Buck stops here: Labour campaign disarray after fixer quits
Read more: Anti-racism campaigner Wadsworth wins High Court libel case
- Inside Croydon has moved to Bluesky. Click here to join us there for latest updates and insights
Check out our archive of podcasts on Spotify, including our monthly news discussion panel show thingy, the Croydon Insider, and The Andrew Fisher Interview
FREE ADS: Paid-up subscribers to Inside Croydon qualify for a free ad for their business, residents’ association or community group, just one of the benefits of being part of our online community. For more information about being an iC subscriber, click here for our Patreon page
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
You don’t have to be mad to join the Labour Party but it helps. Now that they’ve cleared David White having framed him to begin with, they can get around to reviewing their expulsion of Jeremy Corbyn and getting busy with the “administrative suspension” of Tony Newman (remember him?)
Is the anonymous rejection of a conviction process the same as its reversal?
While an associate of Jeffrey Epstein is the de facto manager of the Labour Party it will not escape being dirty. Peter Mandelson may offer it a pragmatic accommodation with big business and the super rich who seem to dominate our lives. It does not offer it the purpose it was formed to serve or even pragmatic political success over the medium to long run. They may creates successful narratives to rid themselves of inconvenient members who upset their corporate mission, but where does it go when everyone can see your dirty.