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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I don't know for sure but I think the National Executive Committee just passed David and Zena's complaint back to the compliance unit that they were complaining about in the first place and the Police have just assured me that they are speaking to top people...
You could not make it up.
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The main article/post here has again been updated. This time with details of Nilgun Canver's arrest which is actually integral to what went on here for without it, there would have been no selection meeting in St Ann's.
If I have anything wrong I presume the Labour Party will be in contact with SiteAdmin to get it corrected...
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There is an article in today's Telegraph (here) which goes some way to explaining why the Labour Party have behaved the way they have in the cover up of what went on in St Ann's. The mass signing up of members in Falkirk was approved at the highest levels and all they wanted from it was the membership fees. Their strategy for dealing with St Ann's was to KEEP the membership fees (even though they had mostly joined as unwaged) and just move the members back to where they really lived. They are doing this because they need money. In the case of St Ann's it is not just membership money but the donations that Ali Gul Ozbek has made and will presumeably continue to make to the party.
Even when the truth is on your side, it's pretty bloody hard to go up against the money.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Dan Hodges' article on 13 November was just as revealing. It highlighted the role of the Compliance Unit of the National Labour Party. (Hodges calls them the "Compliance Team".) He suggests they:"had been made aware that unusual numbers of new membership applications had been received in Falkirk". Also that the Unit has access to Ed Miliband.
Which may suggest that the shenanigans in St Ann's and Harringay wards in the run-up to council candidate selections would hardly have been any great surprise to anyone at the National Party.
Though a key difference is that - as far as I know - there were no allegations that the new members in Falkirk were not residents nor on the Electoral Register for West Falkirk Constituency. To my mind, giving false addresses makes things worse.
Is the cover-up in St Ann's simply about money, as you speculate, John? I don't think so. Especially as many of the new "members" signed-up as unwaged. (So it's possible they may even cost the Party not much less in administration/postage etc than they pay.) A more likely explanation is that Labour Party apparatchiks thought it was a tiny issue in an unimportant small ward. Not worth the hassle; and which would probably go away if ignored.
They just didn't count on people inside the Party refusing to keep quiet. Nor on John McMullan and other local residents expressing their anger and disgust online.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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On 14 November I posted in this thread that in the Falkirk dispute - or so it seemed - the new Labour Party members recruited did live in the Falkirk Constituency.
But now Eric Joyce, the retiring MP, says this is not accurate. He claims to have: "identified at least 15 voters on the party's membership list who do not live at their registered addresses". (Source: Telegraph)
Of course, this may not be as serious as the Telegraph suggests. People do move home after joining political parties. And for all sorts of reasons which may be entirely unconnected with the selection process.
The Telegraph quotes a Labour Party spokesperson saying that in Falkirk they: " have taken swift and thorough measures throughout this to uphold the integrity of the Labour Party". Which, while it may be completely accurate, isn't a good enough response.
The best way to uphold the integrity of any political party is to look into serious allegations very thoroughly, and then issue a statement which tells the truth. Including - if there is a problem - how you're going to fix it.
(Tottemham Hale ward councillor)
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Permalink Reply by PinkHeartSticker on
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Its sad you should even have to point out the proper course of action, that most would expect the proper course of action to have been taken not have to repeatedly asked for.
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Has anyone got yesterday's Sunday Times? I missed it, but have now seen the latest Dan Hodges article in the Telegraph which refers to new material from the leaks on the Labour selection in Falkirk.
According to Hodges the Sunday Times has published material from Labour's secret investigation report on Falkirk. There are more parallels to the signing-up of new members in St Ann's and Harringay wards.
We're told the leaked report states: “It is not unusual for complaints to be made about all aspects of the selection procedure but these complaints are of particular concern because of the number of members involved.”
As we know, in St Ann's ward the number was significant because it affected the outcome. But also because, had the signing-up been done earlier, it would have been possible for a majority of people at the shortlisting and selection meetings to live and be registered to vote elsewhere.
The secret report raises the vital question of why people actually join a particular political party. It says: “There is a line to be drawn between recruiting members who support the aims of the party and the recruitment of large numbers of paper members who have no wish to participate except at the behest of others in an attempt to manipulate party processes.”
To me it seems very likely that line was crossed in St Ann's.
Labour's secret Falkirk Report raises other issues which may also have been relevant in St Anns. For example, was there evidence of what the Labour Party calls "third party payments”, where the subscriptions are paid by someone other than the person signed up? (Which is against Party rules.) In Falkirk it seems that some people may not have known clearly what they were signing-up to. In St Ann's and Harringay wards did the new members themselves enter false residential addresses. And if so why?
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor. My partner, Zena Brabazon is one of the two deselected councillors in St Ann's. The other is David Browne.)
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I notice that Dianne Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn (ex Lausanne Rd) were out campaigning on the ladder yesterday. I suspect they will want to stay away from St Ann's though.
Has anyone been doorstepped and able to bring this up? I'm curious as to what they say.
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Permalink Reply by ant on
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Gina Adamou came to my door yesterday asking if i had any issues and who i might vote for. I did say this St Anns thing would put me off voting Labour, she said it was nothing to to with the Harringay ward and had all been investigated and sorted out now anyway. When i said thats not what i'd been hearing on HoL it didn't sound like she had a terribly high regarded for the quality of HoL info, but she did point out that she was quite busy so didn't get to follow all the discussion here.
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Interesting that nobody is asking me to stop writing about it here and the arrogance with which your concerns were dismissed does not surprise me. In actual fact Ali Gul Ozbek was originally slated to run in Harringay and there was mass entryism from business addresses on Green Lanes that Gina and Jon Vellapah spotted and dealt with.
By the way, the Labour doorstep thing is not to hear what your issues are, although that's what they say they are doing. They are dividing the ward into people who will vote Labour, people who may and people who will not. Get yourself in the "people who may" category and they will pay you a lot of attention. If enough people in the ward are in this category then we as residents can win from this. Nothing can be gained by saying your will or will not vote Labour.
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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I'll vote anyone & no-one
The Lib Dem campaign team & the Labour campaign team bumped into each other on Green Lanes yesterday. It was all very polite until someone shouted out the suggestion of a 'coalition', then all hell broke loose
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John McMullan is broadly correct that the
#labourdoorstep stuff is about identifying supporters/possible supporters/opponents.Here's a short piece on Progress website* which describes how a small group walks along the street ringing doorbells with someone ‘running the board’. The title of the article? No prizes for guessing: "Voter ID? There’s an app for that. Yes, of course there is. And they've seen it working in the Obama campaign.
But, also as John suggests, the exercise is not entirely mechanical. The more thoughtful Party members listen to residents' concerns and report these back. So please take the opportunity to express views on any topics you feel strongly about - compliments as well as criticisms.
If the St Ann's scandal is one of your concerns, I completely agree with Emine Ibrahim that "it's really important for [candidates] to speak to local residents" . I hope this happens and if you get the chance, I suggest you ask them for their own view of vote-rigging. Insist on their personal opinion. Not a "line" or "script" the Party may suggest.
If they tell you they're unsure of the facts, please refer them to this thread on HoL. Ask them to get back to you when they've read it.
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