Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Labour Party Selection Fraud in St Ann's
After it was discovered at the St Ann's Labour Party selection candidate selection meeting that there were people present and voting who should not have been, I came home from the pub (where I'd heard about it) and wrote this article. It has subsequently been edited by site admins to remove the names of people who were embarrassed or in the final case where a journalist said it was potentially libellous. Well here I will attempt to summarise what we have subsequently found out and hopefully take people's attention away from my original appalling rant.
Back in May (The Ward AGM):
- The St Ann's Ward AGM was convened on Thursday the 23rd of May instead of the usual first Wednesday of June by the then Ward Secretary, Barbara Blake.
- Protests were made by members about this but they were rebuffed by the Ward Chairman.
- At this meeting The current Ward Secretary resigned and there was bloc voting to decide the new Ward Secretary.
- A person in the bloc opposing John Blake turned up late and was prevented from voting despite there being nothing about this in the Labour Party rules.
- John Blake was elected Ward Secretary by one vote.
The Selection Meeting:
- The meeting was run by The Secretary of the St Ann's Labour Party , and Steve Hart from Hornsey & Wood Green.
- A candidate who arrived early noticed the five members arrive with Ali Gul Ozbek, sensed that something was up and mentioned it to Barbara Blake. When the other candidate seemed unhelpful they mentioned it to Steve Hart. Then the candidate went looking for the five people but was barred from entering the room (3o minutes before the selection) by the Ward Secretary.
- By the time one member I have spoken to arrived, the five members were seated at the back of the room. Four men and one woman (who works in Ali Ozbek's Pharmacy).
- A blonde woman turned up before anyone had started speaking but was barred from entering the room by the Ward Secretary, despite remonstrating with him.
- Barbara Blake won in the first round (to select a female candidate) against Zena Brabazon and Emine Ibrahim by two votes. It was 11/1/14. Everybody voted.
- It is alleged that one candidate knew the questions in advance and had prepared answers.
- At the appropriate point in the meeting the secretary asked if everyone was OK with the others in the room and everybody laughed.
- There were various factions voting together in the room; the five new members, Charles Adje's family, Zena and David's people and the Ward Secretary's people.
- In the final round Ali Ozbek and Peter Morton were selected, beating Zena by one vote.
- Ali is a local chemist and businessman on Green Lanes who seemed very passionate about what should be done with St Ann's and spoke eloquently about the need to reduce business rates. He is also a property developer.
- At the time Peter worked as head of press for the Labour Party.
- Barbara is a trade union official and ex Ward Secretary.
After the Selection Meeting
- A fellow councillor calls David to commiserate with him.
- David Browne and Zena Brabazon did some investigation using the St Ann's Labour Party membership list and the electoral roll.
- They discovered that nineteen new members signed up that year did not actually live in St Ann's and that they had either given Green Lanes business addresses when they signed up or claimed addresses in the ward.
- Not one of these new members, many of whom were recruited on the 8th of July gave an address in the ward at which they are eligible to vote, which is required by party rules.
- Five of these members were "eligible" to vote because they signed up before the cut off date of the 30th of April, however they should have been barred from voting because they do not actually live in the ward.
- Zena and David wrote to their local Labour Party officials who sent their evidence on to the London Labour Party.
- Nobody can tell me for sure where Ali Ozbek lives but he claims an address in Finsbury Park Avenue.
- Ali Ozbek has donated money to the Labour Party.
- According to a twitter exchange with a Labour councillor in another ward, the membership list should have been gone through before the meeting by the person running it to make sure this kind of thing did not happen, it was certainly done in their ward.
- When one of the five members who voted was called at his home his partner informed the caller that he had been in Turkey for a while and was not due back yet.
- In Harringay several new Labour Party members were registered using Green Lanes business addresses but not before the cut off date.
- Barbara Blake has told local traders that it is OK to register as a member in the Labour Party from a business address (it is definitely not) and the Tottenham Membership Secretary has expressed a similar view in a meeting, only to be corrected.
The "Corruption in Haringey Labour" article.
- After I wrote the original article, in which I also made some allegations against Claire Kober, the only phone call to site admins was to remove the Secretary of the St Ann's Labour party's name from the discussion.
- There was a lot of comment on the original thread and as of Saturday the 12th of October it appears to have been viewed more than 7000 times, although I dispute that as a useful metric (I think the actual figure is much lower).
- After some badgering it was picked up by an overworked Stephen Moore at the Tottenham Journal, here.
Trying to get a re-run
- I have pushed the councillor who commiserated David on his loss on Twitter to join calls asking for a re-run of the election but they have resolutely refused, to the point where it's all a bit weird and "la la la, I can't hear you".
- As it stands the London Labour Party have agreed that the five people were not eligible to vote but they say that this was not picked up before or during the meeting so the result stands. Their investigation consisted of speaking to the Ward Secretary and Steve Hart. Steve Hart lied because someone did speak to him before the meeting.
- The London Labour Party have the attendance list and will not release it, presumably because it shows that people were not identified correctly and that at least two of the five were imposters.
- Appeals to the NEC have all been rebuffed, even with the full acknowledgement of what went on.
The Labour doorstep in Harringay
- The St Ann's Labour Party have a great deal of trouble getting members to help them out with canvassing. A photograph has been tweeted showing more than 20 people out in Harringay Ward above the same session in St Ann's, with just two.
- When David Lammy, after a lot of badgering apparently, stepped out in St Ann's for the Labour doorstep he was met by a picket of local men calling on him not to support the St Ann's fraudsters. As I understand it he will not be going out with them again.
The Police are involved
- On Monday the 10th of February Haringey MPS made a visit to me on behalf of the secretary of the St Ann's Labour Party and his partner.
- It was alleged that I had called him filth on Twitter (which I have not, that was someone else) and that I said "I know I'm hassling you but...". I was served with a Notice of Harassment Letter which will now appear in extended CRB checks.
*An individual has asked that their name be replaced with their function in this post on the grounds that they are not seeking public office. This has been done.
Tags for Forum Posts: election2014, labour, st ann's labour, stanns
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Keith Waterhouse on
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Honestly, after this mess of his making do you really think he will do the decent thing? Under the present set up he knows he doesn't have to and neither do the next one hundred people after him until things change.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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OK then, come on Cllr Kober, instruct him to do the decent thing, for the sake of the credibility of the party. This is not going to wither away. He can always come back in later at a by-election.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Retrospectively correcting their addresses? And presumably they'd have to retrospectively correct their Electoral Registration as well? So instead of "Prospective candidates" are we now to have "retrospective candidates"?
I haven't heard any of this, John. And as far as I know, neither has my partner Zena Brabazon. (She's a J.P. and is sitting in court today, so maybe something has arrived in her inbox?)
Anyway it all sounds quite weird. Maybe someone's idea of a joke? Or perhaps these Labour Party apparatchiks are too young to have seen "All the Presidents Men". And not learned the central lesson: that it was the cover-up, not the break-in, which brought down Nixon.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
(P.S. Any "Deep Throats" around who'd like to help out with the truth? Or a Raskolnikov who feels guilty? We've got seven months for this to play out.)
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Ali Gul Ozbek had previously been told by Nilgun Canver that he was not allowed to register people from business addresses and yet this is exactly what has happened. He knew full well that what he was doing was wrong. Not only do these people not live where they say they live, the addresses they gave the Labour Party are business addresses.
According to tweets I received from another Labour councillor, the person running the meeting should have gone through the list beforehand and excluded people from business addresses. This was done in his ward and two members were excluded. The person who should have done this but didn't was John Blake, the secretary of the St Ann's Labour party.
Sitting downstairs at that meeting were Claire Kober and Joe Goldberg who of course have plausible deniability that they had not seen the membership list.
As I've dug into this I've become more depressed and scared at the level of corruption (there is no other word for it) and the number of people probably involved. Now that the NEC have upheld the selection we are left with no option but to run three anti-corruption candidates in St Ann's and ask the other parties not to run. Agreed?
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yes.
shameful and short-sighted Labour Party.
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Joe Goldberg has pointed out to me that he and Claire were sitting downstairs because it was the Seven Sisters "selection" meeting down there. I stand corrected. Of course I should have mentioned that originally buy funnily enough, I get all this from conversations I overhear in the Salisbury so I'm not perfect.
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I learned a new word today: foot-shootery. Which, if it's not immediately obvious, means shooting yourself in the foot,
"This is the most amazing bit of Labour Party foot-shootery I've seen for years", said a friend who called me after reading John McMullan's latest posting.
Anti-corruption candidates? Surely, John, All Labour Party candidates should automatically be anti-corruption; as well as pro-transparency, honesty, and accountability. And of of course, totally in agreement with Ed Miliband's call for everyone "to speak up for decency in British politics".
So perhaps we could simply invite each Labour candidate - prospective or retrospective - to sign a statement speaking out for decency in Haringey politics and insisting on rerunning selection meetings which have no credibility. Each candidate could have a hygiene rating with a logo to put on their leaflets. Like Scores on the Doors for hygiene in shops, pubs, clubs, take-aways and restaurants.
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I'm sure that they would consider it and I'm awaiting a response from the Tories and Lib Dems. I mean any three willing and independent candidates (Labour Party members cannot stand against one another). I may have one and I'm looking for others. Hopefully they'll be high profile enough to put the chills up the Labour Party and they just relent and rerun their blimmin selection rather than having to go through all of this.
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Permalink Reply by ant on
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I'm not sure of the numbers from the last election
See here for the 2010 results, here for 2006, and here for 2002.
I don't see how this can't be putting of people from voting Labour in wards outside of St Anns. In Harringay last election Gina won by 2159 votes over the next highest Lib Dim who didn't get in with 1800 - a 359 vote difference. So if just 180 people are put off voting Labour because of all this fuss she could lose her seat this time. I'd be worried if i was her.
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The turnout will be half that, there is no general election. Check out 2006. I reckon it will be closer than that, 90.
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