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 John McMullan on
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Well on Sunday one of the Tottenham residents helping me out on Twitter stopped Ali in the street and accused him of vote rigging. His reaction was apparently "stunned mullet" and he had to be helped out by one of his "minders".
I've also heard that they've had some doors slammed in their faces and note that they ony had about eight people, including the three candidates, out canvassing in St Ann's whereas on the other side of Green Lanes there looked to have been about 30 people, including David Lammy.
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So this is what I got in some DMs from my Twitter helper.
I just ran into Ali on the street. I told him that he needn't bother pounding pavements as residents knew about his selection fraud.
Stunned mullet. Not a word. His off-siders gathered his composure to ask what exactly people knew. I said they knew of the people who did not live in the area voting. His friend said there is a list and it's "out there for anyone to see". I told him that it has not been disclosed and that John Blake and Steve hart have been proven to be liars by several witnesses who attended the meeting.
I wished them all good luck and said that Ali was a disgrace. He remained stunned and silent.
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Permalink Reply by Keith Waterhouse on
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I now live in a Ward where the prospective candidates are so sleezy they need henchmen to accompany them while they doorstep and canvas. It says everything does'nt it?
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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The Times & Sunday Times continue to probe the Falkirk Selection Scandal; and new information was published on 5 December 2013. The item by Laura Pitel and Michael Glakin is headed "False Addresses Counter claim to "No Wrongdoing" in Falkirk.". Which brings it even closer to St Ann's.
The Times investigation has shown that the Party's national membership staff accepted at least two new members in Falkirk "who had no known link to their supposed homes". And that details held by the National Party on six other Falkirk members "don't tally with the electoral roll".
As we now know a total of 21 "members" in St Ann's ward and over a dozen in Harringay ward are confirmed as not residing at the addresses they gave at the date they joined. Nor were they on the Electoral Register in the respective ward where they claimed to live.
In Falkirk a major question now raised by The Times is "why Labour shut down an inquiry into allegations of a stitch-up in the constituency, claiming that there was no evidence of wrongdoing?"
A similar shut-down operated in St Ann's and - just as in Falkirk - it is continuing to damage the reputation of the local party in the run-up to the Elections. In both cases the obvious solution would have been for the Party to do what it pretended to do and act "swiftly and thoroughly to investigate claims of foul play".
In Falkirk The Times has spoken to local people and reports that "none of those interviewed by The Times has been contacted by Labour officials tasked with getting to the bottom of what happened."
Again the parallel with St Ann's is very strong. None of the people complaining have been interviewed. Plainly Labour nationally does not want to get to the bottom of what happened. With some outstanding and honourable exceptions, the same indifference seems to hold sway across much of the Tottenham and Hornsey/Wood Green Labour Parties.
Our own "mini-Falkirk".
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Permalink Reply by Zena Brabazon on
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Dear All
An update on the latest twists and turns.
As I said in my posting on November 25, I wrote to the Labour Party’s Compliance Unit when a witness came forward to say she had challenged the attendance at the selection meeting. I gave them her contact details. She was never contacted, even though lack of challenge was the basis for the party’s excuse for inaction. The so called 'investigative report' from the NEC gave an incorrect account of her efforts to challenge the participants. That witness was Emine Ibrahim.
As I had written to the Labour Party's Compliance Unit informing them that she had come forward I shared their reply with Emine. They never spoke to her, merely accepted the word of Mr Steve Hart. The NEC report stated she was participating as a candidate in another meeting in the same building - WRONG - and that she approached the local party's invigilator, Steve Hart saying that 'a group of people may try to go in to the meeting "without passes". WRONG AGAIN. How they got this version of events is baffling, and even more concerning is why they didn’t check it out. It indicates once more that the ‘investigation’ was shoddy, perfunctory and seemed to get the answer they wanted.
Emine is an experienced party member, and as she said, she would not have made such a ridiculous statement since she knows that a "pass" was not needed to enter such a meeting, just correct ID.
Because Emine has a firm moral compass and knows right from wrong, she wrote to the NEC complaining about the incorrect section of the report. As the Labour Party has claimed all along that there was no challenge to the participants, and used this as the basis for rejecting my, David Browne's, and everyone else’s complaints and evidence of skulduggery, this was very important.
She got a reply by return and guess what - they accept they got it wrong, one response saying ' It seems that your concerns expressed to Steve Hart were misrecorded, ' and they will apparently amend the report. But they don't think the selection should be rerun. No surprise there then!
As a result of this ludicrous ruling I wrote to the NEC asking what would make the party rerun a selection if this wasn’t it. I haven't had a reply.
Zena Brabazon
Cllr, St. Ann’s Ward
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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If anyone cares to comment on the Grauniad/Obsever report today on the Falkirk selection, it could bring new readers to this page....
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I have commented. Various HoL people, not me and not Labour Party members, have tried to involve the national press. When they've actually received a response it has been along the lines of "this is a local issue, the local press should cover it".
To my mind this explains their position above, they don't care because they will win anyway and it will not be embarrassing to them because it's just on this crappy local "message board". From the canvassing they are doing in Harringay and St Ann's they know that they have the numbers to do a clean sweep, dishonestly campaigining on national issues.
Last night I called Steve Hart a liar on Twitter again and said I still haven't heard from his solicitor. Somewhere I hear a tiger snarling but my expectations have not changed from what they were two months ago, this is up to us to deal with.
I will fund the printing of a pamphlet outlining the issues with the St Ann's candidates and in the New Year we need to do a letter drop in St Ann's AND Harringay.
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Oh I miss Birdy already and he's only been gone two weeks. He did some ace pamphlet design work in 2010.
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I can't give relief to the desperate and rightful angst that has been expressed on these pages over many months but i would like to invite anyone looking for a voice and an opportunity to cleanse haringey of just a little bit of the filthy politics and undemocratic smog which sits atop too many of our prized institutions to pop along to the Haringey CAB AGM scheduled to commence at 5.30pm in the Bernie grants Arts Centre this coming Thursday 12th Dec.
The event has been organised as per too many in Haringey - by a small cabal, in virtual secrecy with no publicity with the intent of hiding more than a few murky hometruths which lurk just below eye level at Haringey CAB. With a few additional good people present - with eligibility as per labour party selection mtgs restricted to haringey residents ! - we may just be able to make small statement of intent re the direction many progressives seek to travel in this borough.
I'd invite you to join me on this one night stand and gain some fresh heart by making the maths work for openess and transparency. I'm trying to be discreet !
Please see the forum discussion thread on Haringey CAB for some more background. Happy to take any questions on that site and my apologies to all if this is seen as bad canvassing. Its a genuine attempt to utilise the resources which we have for the values many of us share !
Keep up the good work & Best Wishes to all !
GK, M: 07917 593 404
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Permalink Reply by Finsbury Park Ranger on
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Man I've not read much of this, mainly because I don't expect anything else. From an outsiders perspective, the MP's are voting for a pay rise during a period they are talking about austerity and everyone being in it together. That's audaciously pathological enough, is there really any need to peer any harder into the murky world of career politicians ?
More you vote for them more they try to accommodate you and appease your better judgment to do away with the lot of them. Better to let them obsess with an ever smaller group of unrepresentative voters so they can truly take their eye off the ball and give us a chance to upsurp their whole lie that one person can represent thousands of people of differing viewpoints and develop a new digital democracy where the people simply vote for whatever experts should be in charge of whatever specific department as and when the opportunity arises.
We should vote for the person who Is tasked with rooting out electoral corruption or pay packets for public servants not letting them sit in a house and vote on that kind of important stuff themselves.
Too much worrying about the odd tree, it's worrying about the management of the whole wood that's really the task at hand no ?
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