Leaked documents show Corbyn rejected YP exec’s unanimous no-confidence vote

On 13 July, Skwawkbox revealed that members of Your Party’s elected executive (CEC) had voted no confidence in three leading CEC figures. The vote was driven by the CEC chair’s suspension of three well-known activists from the CEC for attending a socialist event. Early reports suggested the vote had fallen short of the required two-thirds to remove the officials. But Skwawkbox can now confirm that in fact they were near-unanimous. However, both chair Jenn Forbes and party leader Jeremy Corbyn have refused to implement it.

Procedural excuses

The CEC meeting was quorate — it had the numbers required to be official. The minutes of the meeting confirm that it was arranged in accordance with the rules and that Forbes and CEC secretary Dawn Aspinall had been asked to organise it but didn’t:

Forbes, Aspinall, Corbyn and Membership Officer Cassi Bellingham — also the subject of a no-confidence vote — were listed as ‘apologies’, that is, not present. CEC members present voted to waive a ‘standing order’ that no-confidence votes may be taken at annual meetings.

The minutes then record the discussion of the reasons for the lack of confidence:

And they show that the votes against Forbes and Aspinall were carried unanimously, and one less than unanimous in the vote against Bellingham. Under the rules, this should mean the effective, immediate resignation of those in the roles:

The results were communicated to all relevant parties. However, Forbes refused to accept the outcome — insisting that the meeting was not a CEC meeting at all, because she had not called it, even though she had been asked to do so and had not. In a dismissive email to CEC members, she wrote:

I want to be clear, however, that the gathering which took place on Sunday was not a meeting of the CEC, for the following reasons:

• The meeting was not convened by the Chair or Secretary, as is our responsibility under the Party’s Standing Orders (Clause 6) and under the paper agreed specifying CEC Officer Roles and Responsibilities;
• While meetings may be requested under the Standing Orders, they are for the Chair and Secretary to convene, under clause 5.2;
• Not all CEC members were invited to the meeting;
• Neither the Chair, nor the Secretary, nor the Parliamentary Leader were in attendance, nor the secretariat, leaving key roles such as minuting absent;
• The agenda breached previous votes of the CEC on, for example, the distribution of responsibilities within the organisation, and the holding of AGMs.

Therefore, it is not recognised as a properly constituted meeting of the CEC. The fact that a number of CEC members were present does not of itself make a meeting constitutional. Numbers may be relevant to quorum or voting thresholds at a properly convened meeting, but they do not cure defects in convening, notice, agenda, authority or procedural fairness. A group of CEC members is not automatically the CEC acting as a constitutional body.

The Party can only take formal decisions through its Constitution, Standing Orders and agreed governance procedures. Any purported vote of no confidence in the Chair, Secretary or Membership Officer arising from an informal or improperly convened gathering has no formal standing. Those officers remain in post and continue to discharge their responsibilities…

…We inherited a party in extremely difficult circumstances. Moving forward requires cool heads, discipline, focus and a shared commitment to acting within the constitutional framework we were elected to uphold.

The full CEC meeting will provide the proper forum for these matters to be discussed with the relevant papers, advice and concerns before members. I ask comrades to approach that meeting with care, respect and political responsibility. I would ask for any feedback or suggestions for this meeting to come directly to Dawn and myself, so we can have that discussion collectively in the proper forum.

Where Forbes was dismissive, Corbyn was as close to furious as he ever gets. In a brusque email he accused the CEC members of “destructive behaviour”, being “addicted to infighting”. He claimed that “any sense of natural justice” had been denied to the rejected officers — who, remember, had just suspended three members for attending a socialist event:

Dear members of the CEC,

I am extremely disappointed by some of the destructive behaviour I have witnessed over the last few weeks.

It seems to me that many members of the CEC are not interested in developing Your Party, but are addicted to internal infighting. Rather than actively supporting the party, they undermine those doing the work. Fadel’s email yesterday threatening any member of staff who spoke to a member of the CEC is beyond comprehension.

At my request an email was sent to the CEC to consider contesting the Clacton by-election. Less than a third of CEC members even bothered to respond. Very few CEC members participated in the Trade Union Commission meeting on Friday night. We are a group of people who collectively have deep ties in the trade union movement, but the event seemed of less interest to many than internal politics.

I am very sorry that any sense of natural justice was denied to Jenn, Dawn and Cassi when they were subjected to an illegitimate vote of no confidence, without a right of reply, at a short-notice, ad-hoc meeting to which not all CEC members were even invited.

We need to end this infighting to have any chance of succeeding. We need to remember why we set up this party in the first place, and why we are involved in politics at all. It is about ordinary people and their right to live in a fairer society. It is not about us. Nobody benefits when we tear each other apart.

I suggest we focus on actual things that make a difference rather than on each other. Monday’s meeting of the CEC is the proper place to discuss how the CEC can work more collaboratively, and I suggest broad-based groups supporting the Party’s work on branch formation, housing campaigns and other priorities. Where there are genuine concerns over personal liability or anything else, address those through the proper channels and we can have external reviews and discussion, without all this toxicity.

We need a fundamental change of attitude.

I suggest that for the interests of the party, this correspondence be kept private and confidential to the CEC.

Yours,

Jeremy

Angry CEC members have said that the disinterest in the Clacton by-election was driven by a feeling that Your Party should not stand, to avoid dividing the anti-Farage vote. Also, they feel unwilling to engage with the CEC under its current management and that Corbyn is refusing to acknowledge just how serious the situation is.

Your Party had an opportunity, with hundreds of thousands of people initially signed up to support it, to become a mass socialist movement that the UK desperately needs. Instead, lust for control killed off that hope and what remains is in chaos.

Featured image via the Canary