Mayor of Tower Hamlets, John Biggs. Pic: Paden Vaughn
A vote to decide whether Tower Hamlets Mayor John Biggs is re-nominated as Labour’s preferred candidate for the role has been thrown into controversy amidst allegations of ballot rigging.
Three local party members have asked Iain McNicol, Labour’s general secretary, to suspend an internal voting process aimed at deciding whether Biggs must compete in an open selection battle or be the only candidate for the next mayoral election in 2018.
Biggs won the mayoral election in 2015 after the initial result was declared void by an Election Court judge. Then mayor, Lutfar Rahman, was found guilty of corrupt and illegal practices after four Tower Hamlets residents brought a case against him last year.
The appeal to McNicol makes allegations about the conduct of the vote-counting process, after the Tower Hamlets Labour Party Women’s Forum ballot was cancelled. In a dispute over the number of votes cast, organisers claimed that 80 ballots were cast despite only 67 members registering on the night, earlier this month.
Mayor John Biggs and MP for Bethnal Green and Bow Rushanara Ali. Pic: Kara Fox
The Forum is one of 41 branches or affiliates of the local party that are being asked to vote on the selection procedure for the party’s next Mayoral candidate.
The Forum organisers, two of them vote counters, said it was either an administrative error during the registration process or more ballots had purposely been put in during the vote.
Catherine Overton, a 34-year-old lawyer and one of the organisers on the night, said: ‘There are two possibilities. One is that ballot papers were stolen and therefore an excessive number of votes cast. It seems to me likely that in fact it was the signing-in process that was defective and that people came in who we didn’t manage to record.’’
According to the aggrieved members, each woman had to undergo an exhaustive three-stage signing-in procedure before the release of the ballots.
Asana Begum. Pic: Jaheda Begum
Apsana Begum, a 26-year-old education worker and one of the co-authors of the letter of complaint, said: “I’ve been involved at elections at a local level, and sometimes ballots have had to be re-counted two or three times. Sometimes it’s been two or three votes out but it’s never been as big as thirteen.”
The Forum vote was crucial because Biggs currently has 20 out of a possible 41 wards and affiliates, needing one more to be selected unopposed as Labour’s mayoral candidate for 2018.
The members have received no reply from the Labour Party HQ as to whether the ballot will be investigated.
If this article’s accurate, then presumably all that’s needed is to rerun the affected meeting, rather than suspend the whole process?
There don’t appear to have been any complaints from the other 20 meetings you quote? Or do you know something you’re not telling us?
“The Forum vote was crucial because Biggs currently has 20 out of a possible 41 wards and affiliates, needing one more to be selected unopposed as Labour’s mayoral candidate for 2018.”
This is a bit misleading, I think. It makes it sound like Biggs’ reselection hinged on this one vote. But the controversy over the women’s section vote pre-dated most, if not all, of the branch ballots. From what I understand, he’s on course to win fairly comfortably.
It was re-run and the result was 36 to automatic reselection and 46 to open selection. The nays had it.
There are complaints from other meetings, the BAME forum meeting was going to be called off as some smart member through it would be useful to call the fire brigade over absurd health and safety concerns – all the smokers went outside during the count in a designated spot. The result was a defeating 128 to open selection and 88 to automatic reselection and yet there were cries that there had been rigging although there was the handy use of raffle tickets and more than 5 EC members observing the count on the stage.
Biggs’ reselection vote may not have hinged on this one vote from the Women’s Forum but he is not on course to win fairly comfortably if the BAME and Women Forum have rejected his leadership and divisive politics. Would the NEC endorse Biggs for Tower Hamlets where Bangladeshi LP members are overwhelmingly rejecting him? He is a liability electorally in winning for Labour in 2018.