The Labour Party is being taken to court by Angela Rayner’s ex-partner because he believes there was cheating with votes. Sam Tarry, who is a Member of Parliament, says the Labour Party used an online voting system called Anonyvoter unfairly. He thinks this system was used to make it harder for him to be chosen as a candidate again. Anonyvoter is software that many local Labour Party groups use to decide who will run for election next.
Argument about the result
Mr. Tarry lost to Jas Athwal in a vote to choose a candidate in October 2022, but he’s been arguing about the result ever since then. Now, he’s thinking about taking legal action to make the Labour Party show the records of the votes made using Anonyvoter during his selection process. He might even try to stop Jas Athwal from becoming the official candidate for Ilford South.
Trade unions are helping Mr. Tarry gather money to pay for legal action if the party doesn’t agree to his requests. Meanwhile, another Labour Member of Parliament, Beth Winter from Cynon Valley, has been sending letters back and forth with the party about how Anonyvoter was used in her selection process.
Last summer, Ms. Winter tried to become the candidate for a new Welsh area but she didn’t win. Her lawyers sent a letter to the party expressing concerns about how the Anonyvoter system was used, both before and after the voting result.
Now, she’s written to important people in Welsh Labour, expanding her complaint beyond just online voting and asking for an investigation. Details of the votes show that both Ms. Winter and Mr. Tarry got more support from people who voted in person or by post compared to those who voted online using Anonyvoter. However, these detailed records aren’t shared with the public. Both Mr. Tarry and Ms. Winter are part of the Socialist Campaign Group in Parliament, which is a significant Left-wing group that includes Jeremy Corbyn.
Since becoming the leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer has often been criticized for not giving as much attention to Left-wing politicians. Now, there are accusations that data from the Anonyvoter system is sometimes used to support moderate candidates in getting chosen as election candidates. In one instance, a moderate candidate won only 10 percent of the votes from people who voted in person, but they got 62 percent of the votes from Anonyvoter, as reported by local party members.
Labor deserves better, as do the British people
In a statement to The Telegraph, Mr. Tarry said: “The Labour Party leadership hasn’t resolved this issue, even though I formally appealed over a year ago. I didn’t want to resort to legal action because we should be concentrating all our efforts and resources on the upcoming general election. But this situation can’t go unaddressed.
“Important figures in the Labour Party and the Labour movement, including top leaders, have seen the evidence and are supporting me in seeking a fair solution. However, what happened in Ilford South, and apparently in other selections as well, is unlike anything I’ve witnessed in my 20 years in the Labour Party, across various elected positions under four different party leaders.
“The Labour Party and the British people deserve better. They need to trust our party. As a party aiming to lead the next government, which I fully support, we should be operating with the highest standards of fairness and ethics.
Records of those present must be relied on
To choose candidates for a general election, each local Labour group decides whether they want to use in-person voting, postal voting, online voting with Anonyvoter, or a mix of all three. Details of the candidate selection results aren’t made public, but they’re usually announced during the count, so the information relies on the records of those who were present.
Mr. Tarry, who used to work as a political officer at the TSSA trade union, has been the Member of Parliament for Ilford South since 2019. In the summer of 2022, he had to go through a trigger ballot, a process in the Labour Party that allows local groups to call for a new vote to choose their candidate. Unfortunately for Mr. Tarry, he lost that subsequent vote in October.
Mr. Tarry is said to have received 57 percent of the votes from people who voted in person during the selection process. However, he only got 35 percent of the votes from Anonyvoter, along with a small number of postal votes. On the other hand, Mr. Athwal received 43 percent of the in-person votes but secured 65 percent of the votes from Anonyvoter and postal votes combined.