By Robert Price
It would have been nice to have been able to play some part in a selection process for a candidate, to represents this Party of which I am a member. My main concern, however, is the deliberate deviation from democratic process, and the clear and outright lie that there was a lack of local candidates capable of standing.
The first I knew of the resignation of former MP Mike Hill, was the announcement on March 17 that he had apparently quit the day before. I also discovered that applications were supposed to be in by 5pm that same day. The official Hartlepool Labour Party Facebook forum is moderated, so posts cannot appear without first being cleared by the CLP Secretary.
I therefore sent a message to the CLP secretary, using Facebook, and simultaneously sent a post for moderation to that official page, so that he would see the post and know of the message. I was quite pleasantly surprised when he responded, though his response was that he had no part in the decision involving the selection of candidates, contrary to a previous communication that “he was the person to contact”. Apparently, it had been an e-mail from the regional Labour Party that was sent out to members, although I hadn’t received it. Nevertheless, the CLP secretary offered to forward my message.
My refusal came by return mail
I therefore applied to be the candidate, more hoping to see how the system worked and to offer a local left candidate, than in the hope of getting the nomination. But I received notice that I had been unsuccessful, almost by return, in less time than it had taken me to read and complete the application.
I have been involved in politics, in local campaigning, and in local charity work, for three decades, virtually since I first became disabled, breaking my back and neck with the Army. I have a degree in law, and in my mind qualified to at least apply for the candidate’s position. I am admittedly very physically disabled, but I do not believe that that should be a bar to involvement, although unfortunately, too often it is.
I was a member of Labour as a young person, having left in 2003 under Blair, and I remember the feeling of isolation from a core group of decision makers even then. I returned to the Party under Corbyn, but with much difficulty. I found that the local CLP seemed to be blocking me re-joining, on the apparent grounds that I had been expelled from the Party in 2010 some seven years after I had left. This was apparently in error.
It was difficult to know at that stage what they held against me. It was said that I had been a member of another party – the Greens – although the local CLP had welcomed back members who had defected to UKIP. Other than that, the only other thing I could think of was my disability and my situation as a wheelchair user.
Decision to nominate one person was already made
Once I did re-join, I seemed to receive little from my local branch, although did at first from the CLP. When I had previously been a member, my local branch was growing and active under my time as branch chair, but that doesn’t mean it is still: I wouldn’t know.
Now, I don’t seem to have received any e-mails from the CLP for some time, though I am unsure as to the reason for this. Repeated complaints by me in the Facebook Group have made no difference. It was therefore perhaps predictable, but still a shock to me, to find that the decision on the candidate for the Hartlepool by-election had already been made.
A further surprise came when The Guardian leaked an e-mail from the CLP secretary to the Labour officials, urging , “calling on the NEC to ‘find a way’ for Williams to be adopted as the candidate, ‘without delay’”, in other words that the selection should be made in the absence of any other local candidate. I have since discovered I was not the only other person, who had applied.
Williams’ outspoken support for Saudi Arabia
I know little of the candidate Paul Williams. He seems to have supported TV ‘personality’ Rachel Riley, in her attacks on the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn at a crucial time. Labour members deserve to know what part he played in the introduction of a private health insurance scheme in Uganda, one with premiums meaning some of the poorer in the population were excluded.
Labour members ought to also question his support for Saudi Arabia, given the role played by that reactionary state in bombing and genocide in Yemen. Saudi Arabia is implicated in the murder of a journalist in one of its foreign embassies, in the vicious repression of a democratic movement in Bahrain ten years ago and is a by-word for backwardness, not least in women’s rights. Yet according to the Independent, this man described the regime as “modern” and “progressive” – the parliamentary register of MPs (he was an MP for Stockton South then) showing he had a trip to Saudi in 2018, paid for by that state, and costing £8,762.
I still hope for a Labour victory, since I view the alternative as even worse for Hartlepool, but like a lot of Labour Party members in the area, I continue to feel excluded from the process and to say the least, that is somewhat disconcerting.
