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 pamish on
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The 'hour in the library' could also be the Neighbourhood Forum. Not a lot of opportunity for roots-led discussion there, but still I'm looking forward to the next one for St Anns, and for all the other Hoods, as they give a glimmer of a chance to ask very limited questions of councillors in a public-ish space.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Speaking at a charity event in London, Mr Miliband said: "The Labour Party I lead will select its candidates in a fair and transparent way. We will act without fear or favour.
In an apparent indication that he regards the row as a chance to show that control of the party is in his hands, and not those of the union bosses, Mr Miliband said: "Let nobody be in any doubt, there is only going to be one outcome to this: the Labour Party will act in a way that upholds the integrity of our party, the integrity of our party members and the integrity of ordinary trade union members.
"I will not allow the good name of the Labour Party to be undermined by the behaviour of a few individuals."
Yeah right.
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cfThe Labour party are apparently tolerating entryism in a bid to get new members. Although the addresses given on the memberships of three of the five people who voted are commercial premises on Green Lanes, and they shouldn't be tolerating this. One is 73 Grand Parade (Med-Chem Pharmacy) and the other is 40 Grand Parade (King Estates). These should have been glaring issues to the Ward Secretary and indeed the candidates themselves according to another Labour councillor. I don't hold out much hope for an appeal to the NEC, I think that their stance is that Zena and David brought it upon themselves by not checking carefully enough. What they didn't know is that their Ward Secretary (elected in a coup in July) had allowed these new members and used them to get his bloc vote high enough to oust the existing councillors.
In the end it was a close run thing. Only three of the 26 voters had gone into the meeting with an open mind. The victorious bloc included the five members signed up by Ali Ozbek, Charles Adje's three, and five others (so half the room). In the first round it was the three women and only one vote each. Voting went 14/10/1 in favour of Barbara Blake. I suspect that the chairman of the St Ann's ward was the person who withheld their vote and of the other two floating voters one voted for the candidate who received a single vote, the other for Barbara Blake (although when I asked him how he voted he couldn't remember and interestingly switched to voting for Zena in subsequent rounds). This is just speculation as the Ward Secretary is refusing to release the attendance records to the Constituency Secretary to check but the maths don't really work any other way given the information that I do have.
The second official along with the Ward Secretary who ran the meeting, Steve Hart, was implicated in the Falkirk Unite scandal. The think that the other official owes his ward an apology and a resignation.
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I have been asked on more than one occasion to keep his name out of it. He seems to be the only name anybody cares about and their justification is that he is not running for office.
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The St Ann's Ward Labour party seem to have taken a view that they will not contribute to the debate on here.
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Permalink Reply by Keith Waterhouse on
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Toxic
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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I'm not expecting a body called the St Ann's Ward Labour Party to post on HoL.
As a former Labour Party branch secretary, or at times a branch chair, I would never see my role as speaking on behalf of the entire branch unless something was put on the agenda and properly discussed at a meeting. And certainly I'd have discussed anything like this with the three sitting councillors.
In fact, it can easily be a cop-out for individuals to say: "'Not my role to stand up and speak out. I leave that to the branch officers".
In my view we all have a moral duty to speak out about misconduct in voluntary organisations we belong to. Or at the very least, keeping an open mind, to put serious questions and ask for evidence if such allegations are made by other people.
I'm not asking anyone to disprove speculation or opinion. I'm interested in facts. So, if anyone wants to correct errors of fact in anything I've posted online about the St Ann's Labour Party ward selection process, they are very welcome to contact me and point out where I've got things wrong.
If I have made a mistake then I will issue a public correction and a full apology.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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I got something wrong this morning and have edited having been passed the correct information indirectly by Nora Mulready.
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A few years back I collaborated with Nora Mulready on the "Certificates of Lawfulness" (COL) issue. People can apply for a COL from a planning department to confirm that an existing development or use is lawful - usually because it has been in existence for a certain length of time and therefore becomes lawful by default.
Nora, Bushy, Vix, me and some other HoL members shared the work of checking COL applications by a number of local property owners who had falsified documentation to try to persuade Haringey Planning Service that certain properties had been converted into separate flats more than four years previously. The "evidence" included for example: fake utility bills and tenancy agreements; and in one case a forged Statutory Declaration.
Nora was committed and enthusiastic abut this work. It resulted in a significant tightening-up of the lackadaisical and slapdash way in which Haringey then processed these applications.
To be clear, the point I'm making is not about "members" of St Ann's Labour Party being involved with COLs. It's about testing evidence.
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Alan-take a deep breath, a step back and let the St Anns Ward Labour Party speak for themselves. Lets' hear from them.
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About 3.5 years ago, a certain John Blake of the history-teaching trade wrote a tract inveighing against a member of the Harringay public whom he thought had impugned his family's privacy. Could this be the self-same John Blake? Is he related to Ms Barbara Blake? Or are they both just descendants of the romantic movement's New Jerusalem Blakes, settled in New Labour's Green and Peasant Land?
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