By Editor
It is a disgrace that a loyal Labour Party member should be suspended on spurious and vague charges at all, but it is a complete outrage that this member should be left hanging for FOUR YEARS with still no indication of if or when he will ever get a hearing to answer allegations made against him. We would urge all readers of Left Horizons not only to sign the petition at Change.org, but to formulate appropriate resolutions in their Constituency Labour Parties and to send letters to the Labour Party general secretary, Jennie Formby. If this had been the treatment given to a right-winger, it would be on the BBC and be headline news. Let us all support Darrall in demanding justice!
Petition:
We, the undersigned, call upon the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Labour Party (LP) to grant Labour Party member Darrall Cozens a full hearing into his four-year-long suspension from the Party.
On March 12th 2016 Darrall received a letter, dated March 9th, from John Stolliday as Head of the Constitutional Unit suspending him from the Labour Party for “allegations of allegations (sic) of intimidating and threatening behaviour toward other party members”. The letter also banned him from attending Party meetings, from seeking office or from standing as a Party candidate in any capacity. The letter stated that the NEC would be asked to authorise a full report and that a regional officer, George Sinnott, would be asked to arrange an investigation and would contact him about the matter.
Fifty items of correspondence
Darrall was shocked by the letter. He has been a very active member since joining the Labour Party in October 1964. He immediately wrote back asking for details of the allegations. What was it that he was alleged to have said or done, when and where did these alleged events take place, who was it that he was alleged to have intimidated or threatened and who was it who was making the allegations?
Despite more than 50 items of correspondence on the issue over the past four years, paid officials of the Party have consistently refused to give him the requested details and without them he has not been able to defend himself nor call others, if necessary, who may have been witnesses to the alleged events.
Members have a right to know of allegations
Even worse, in 2016 the NEC approved in full the Chakrabarti report which states among other things that an accused Labour Party member should have the right to know the details of any accusations/allegations made against them and also the names of those making the allegations.
The Labour Party locally, regionally and nationally has consistently failed to follow its own rules and procedures in these matters and has therefore stolen from Darrall four years of his political life.
Continued to pay full party subscription
During these years of suspension he has continued to pay the full subscription to the Labour Party despite being retired and has turned out at every election to campaign for the Party by delivering leaflets, canvassing and encouraging people to join the Party.
In all of his active years in the Labour Party he has campaigned within the Party for socialist policies that would benefit working class people and for the right of Party members to participate in the formulation of those policies and to elect political representatives at all levels who would carry out those policies. He has fought to defend and enhance internal Labour Party democracy.
For the past four years Darrall has sought to resolve his suspension within the Labour Party to avoid bringing the issue into the public domain which could have brought the Party into disrepute. He has not been successful and is therefore still suspended. So now the issue is public.
Decades of work for the Party
Despite his decades of political work for the Labour Party, Darrall has been treated as a pariah by unnamed paid Party officials and this has affected him physically and psychologically.
His request to the NEC is simple. Give him a full hearing into his suspension so that he has the right to challenge allegations made against him in order to remove the slur on his character and also in the name of natural justice.
Please sign the petition at Change. org.
March 10, 2020
