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Keir Starmer’s Leadership Is Deeply Antidemocratic [1]

['Martin Abrams', 'Tyler Austin Harper', 'Jared Abbott', 'Fred Deveaux', 'Cori Bush', 'Shawn Fain', 'Grace Blakeley', 'Karl Hansen']

Date: 2024-07

On March 18, the Metropolitan Police’s cybercrimes unit announced it had launched an investigation into the Labour Party’s selection process for the new seat of Croydon East. The contest had been suspended following allegations that members’ details had been tampered with — allegations since confirmed by party sources. Joel Bodmer, a candidate on the party’s right, subsequently withdrew before the contest recommenced.

The scandal in Croydon was followed by a jaw-dropping report in the Telegraph suggesting that Labour’s parliamentary selections may have been systematically rigged using Anonyvoter. Anonyvoter is the online voting software used by local Labour Party branches to choose their candidates for the next election.

Leading those complaints is Sam Tarry, the MP for Ilford South and a former shadow minister sacked by Keir Starmer for appearing on a picket line. Tarry, who was deselected in October in favor of a candidate from the party’s right, has since submitted an official complaint to Labour. He alleges tampering with membership lists, raises concerns that the Anonyvoter system was misused in his deselection, and has even threatened legal action against the party.

He isn’t alone. Beth Winter, the socialist MP for Cynon Valley, narrowly lost a reselection battle to a Starmerite shadow minister in June in highly controversial circumstances. Once again, Anonyvoter and alleged membership list tampering featured prominently in complaints. Remarkably, in both cases, Tarry and Winter were winning their selection battles (via hustings and postal votes, respectively) — until Anonyvoter came into play.

The allegations extend beyond sitting MPs. There are growing concerns that Anonyvoter may have been abused on an industrial scale to rig internal Labour contests. It would be astonishingly easy to do so: poll administrators could theoretically add votes during the contests or vote on behalf of members without them knowing. They can also see who has and hasn’t voted. Meanwhile, the safeguards that should be in place aren’t — while Anonyvoter allows independent “tellers” to verify counts, Labour hasn’t allowed them for its parliamentary selections.

It’s no wonder. In one parliamentary selection cited by the Telegraph, a leadership-favored candidate won just 10 percent of votes at the selection hustings but a whopping 62 percent in the online vote. Investigative journalist Michael Crick — no left-winger — has raised the possibility of online voting system being used to rig contests in constituencies across the country. One example flagged by Crick even concerned the selection of the wife of Morgan McSweeney, Labour’s general election campaign manager and an architect of Starmer’s purge of the Left.

That’s not the only eyebrow-raising coincidence in this story. Anonyvoter is co-owned by a married couple who are Labour activists in Croydon on the right of the party. According to Inside Croydon, they were awarded the contract for Labour’s selections by David Evans without tender. Evans himself is a veteran of Croydon Labour politics.

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[1] Url: https://jacobin.com/2024/04/starmer-labour-anonyvoter-scandal-democracy

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