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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Because most of them are millionaires with second jobs.
Back to Labour Party shenanigans (and I'm not saying that's what Mr Keenan is not on about at all).
More than 30 people, including David Lammy, joined the Harringay ward #labourdoorstep at the weekend, just eight turned out in St Ann's. Notably absent were the five ring-ins that do not actually live in St Ann's provided by Mr Gul Ozbek at the selection meeting. Politicians have begged local Turkish Newspaper editors to pull photographs of themselves and Ali. The message is getting through.
If I could just second what Alan said about Emine, she is a good egg and has shown backbone and integrity throughout all of this. Hassle her about other stuff on the doorstep but I think she's a bit fed up hearing about St Ann's given the work she has put in to get something done about it.
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Permalink Reply by Keith Waterhouse on
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The sad thing about this John is that there is no integrety in St Anns Ward where it counts. Emine is standing for Harringay Ward if I am correct, but we in St Anns Ward have no one standing that we feel we can trust. Many voters and potential voters are already stating they will vote for any one EXCEPT a Labour candidate in St Anns Ward. As for photographs not going into papers etc. well its not beyond the wit of man to go to Ozbeks Pharmacy and see what he looks like, is it? Customers and potential voters are doing that every day.
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My point about the photographs and lack of campaign help is that people realise that he is a tainted candidate and do not want to be associated with him. There are plenty of photographs of him on the Internet, even one shaking hands with Ed Milliband.
I do feel very sorry for St Ann's voters and it will of course have a big impact on Harringay ward voters too (because it's all Harringay, innit). All I can say is I'm sorry and I'm doing my best to fix it, so are a lot of other people.
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Tonight is the St Ann's Labour Party fund raiser in the Salisbury... anyone else want to go?
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Well Phil Kennedy and I went. We had a blast. They certainly get more people I know along than at a HarringayOnline drinks these days.
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I did show Nora the list of members who were presumeably signed up by Ali (another member told me that at the shortlisting he had a huge wad of membership forms in his bag all filled out) and the best she could say was "that one wasn't there, neither was that one...". So I had to point out the five that were. She said nothing to that but did say that I was gullible. Priceless.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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[This is an amended posting, as some other linked comments have vanished.)
For newcomers to this thread, I assume "the list" John McMullan showed Nora Mulready is the list of 21 people (the final tally) signed-up as members of St Ann's branch Labour Party who don't live in that ward and are not registered to vote there. Five of whom took part in the selection of Council candidates - enough to change the outcome.
John McMullan tells us that Nora's response to being shown the list was that he is "gullible". Which I take to mean: overtrusting; capable of being duped: unsuspecting: unsuspicious: or unwary.
In my own case this is perfectly true. I trusted that Labour Party Regional and National officials; and my fellow Party members would never allow this sort of behaviour.
I naively believed that where its rules are flagrantly broken, the Party I've belonged to for over forty years would carry out a full and proper investigation. Unwarily I trusted that after the facts were established effective action would be taken.
It never occurred to me the Haringey Labour Parties, London Regional officials; and even Labour's National Executive Committee would collude with and - in effect - cover up such rule-breaking and vote-rigging.
So yes, I was gullible.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Just to be clear, there were some messages here from people who were at the pub and they have been deleted, not at the request of the St Ann's Labour Party as far as I am aware. The reason is that the Tottenham Labour Party are being given a chance to deal with this themselves.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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No John, it's because the publisher of those posts is cautious about libel law, and prejudice of a potential court case. Mine got disappeared and I can see why, even though i was just trying to link this case to Falkirk.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Spot on Pam. Thank you. I'd hoped everyone who'd posted and whose messages were redacted would have the same clarity as you since I sent all a similar explanation for my actions.
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Comment redacted - relates to a police investigation which resulted in no prosecution.
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No Hugh, it relates to an incident that I and many others witnessed at the pub and was backed up by CCTV. The fact that the police got involved was so that the Labour Party could cover it up. It worked!
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