Boost for Corbyn as Labour members win voting court battle

The governing body of Britain’s Labour Party was not entitled to bar 130,000 people who recently became party members from voting in the upcoming leadership election, a high court judge has ruled.

The decision by the party’s national executive committee (NEC) that only members who joined before January 12th were eligible had been challenged by five people who were excluded as a result.

A barrister representing the group has accused the NEC of unlawfully freezing them and many others out of the contest between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith.

A decision to allow the excluded members to vote was seen as more likely to benefit the incumbent, Mr Corbyn, in the increasingly bad-tempered leadership race.

On Monday, Mr Justice Hickinbottom ruled that the NEC was not within its rights to impose such a restriction.

The five members, whose legal fees were crowd-funded, had claimed that Labour’s rulebook made no provision for such a distinction and none had ever been made in any of the party’s previous leadership elections.

They also argued that when the members joined, the Labour website and other communications said they would be “a key part of the team”, and thus eligible to vote in any leadership election.

When the NEC decided that only members who had joined before January 12th could vote, it also allowed newly registered supporters, a lesser category of member, to vote in the election at a cost of £25.

Stephen Cragg QC, appearing for the five, asked Mr Justice Hickinbottom to declare that party rules had been misapplied and that the five were entitled to vote in the poll.

Four named members challenged the decision: Christine Evangelou, the Rev Edward Lair, Hannah Fordham and Chris Granger. The fifth was named in the court papers only as FM because he is under 18.

The judge has ordered Labour’s NEC to repay the claimants’ £25 supporter fee, which they had paid on top of their membership dues in order to vote in the contest.

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