More GLU madness: The case of Pamela Fitzpatrick
JVL Introduction
Pamela Fitzpatrick is a Labour activist and trade unionist in Harrow.
A Councillor, she is Chair of the Labour Group and Chair of the planning committee.
She was Labour Party parliamentary candidate in Harrow East in 2019.
Once upon a time in the distant past – in 2020 – she applied for the position of General Secretary of the Party (see the image above for her main platform).
During her campaign she was interviewed by Socialist Appeal, now a proscribed organisation.
As a result of giving that interview, she is now accused retrospectively of being a member of a banned organisation and therefore up for auto exclusion from the Party!
Here is her story and link to a campaign in her support.
Pamela Fitzpatrick writes (23rd August 2021)
I received a letter by email this morning from the Labour Party compliance unit. Not sadly to tell me the outcome of the complaint I made 3 years ago of sustained and serious harassment. No. The letter was to inform me that the party has reason to believe I am a supporter of Socialist Appeal. It threatens that I am to be ‘auto excluded’ from the party unless within 7 days I provide evidence that I am not such a supporter.
The evidence provided in support of the accusation is a screen shot of me in my home on zoom when I was interviewed by Socialist Appeal in May 2020. At the time I had applied for for the position of General Secretary of the Labour Party. I explained at the interview with socialist appeal that I would want to see the party have a fair complaints and disciplinary process which adhered to the rules we as trade unionists demand of employers and the justice system.
I am an active councillor out on the doorstep every week trying to persuade residents to vote for Labour. I am Chair of the Labour Group and Chair of the planning committee. I am also an active trade unionist, Chair of my union branch and treasurer of Harrow Trades Council. I am co Vice Chair of the LabourRepresentation Committee and just elected to the Labour National Women’s Committee.
I also have a full time job running a busy legal charity in Harrow providing free legal advice to the community. I am a trustee of a local charity working with young people. I have given years of service both to the Labour Party and to the community.
Wearing these various hats I have taken part in many interviews with different groups, charities and religious groups. Sometimes I even have to sit in the same room as Tories. Doing so does not make me a member or supporter of such groups, charities or religions.
Such practices as set out in the Party letter to me would not be tolerated in the work place, nor in the justice system but we are allowing a small group of people in our party to use these practices on our own members.
Clearly it is completely against the rules of natural justice to introduce a rule and then apply it retrospectively. Clearly it is impossible to prove a negative. Clearly it is at odds with article 6 of the Human Rights Act to conduct a trial in this way.
Members need to decide whether they support such appalling practices. If they do they surely are the ones who have no place in our party. So which side are you on?
PS – 27 August 2021
In respect of the Labour Party threat to auto exclude me from the party for giving an interview in 2020 to Socialist Appeal. I have now instructed Solicitors who have today written to the Labour party to put them on notice of potential legal proceedings.
PS – 30 August
Obviously one could not be a member of another political party such as the Greens and expect to continue to be a member of the Labour Party. But what Starmer Evans and some of the NEC are doing goes way beyond this. Their actions in proscribing whole organisations and seeking to expell anyone that has had contact with those organisations past or present is seeking to prohibit who members can associate with. The magnitude of this action cannot be ignored. The banning of people through proscription the punishment of those associating with banned people, dictating who members can be friends with and what we can read are the actions of dictators in facist states. That so many of our MPs are silent on this or even support such actions should be a wake up call to us all. Fascism does not arrive one day with soldiers in trucks with guns, it arrives like this.
This petition was started by members of Harrow West Constituency Labour Party (CLP)
We understand that Pamela Fitzpatrick, a member of our CLP and Labour Councillor for the Headstone South ward in the London Borough of Harrow, has been threatened with “auto-exclusion” from membership of the Labour Party by the party’s Compliance Unit on the grounds that she is allegedly a supporter of Socialist Appeal, an organisation that was proscribed by Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) in July 2021.
The Compliance Unit’s evidence for Pamela being a “supporter” of Socialist Appeal is, in its entirety, that she gave an interview to Socialist Appeal in May 2020. This is not a valid basis for exclusion, for two reasons.
First, the conduct that may amount to “support” for a proscribed organisation, as defined by the NEC, is clearly set out in the updated Labour Party Complaints Policy. Pamela is not alleged to have done any of these things listed there. Giving an interview to Socialist Appeal does not amount to any of those things. Therefore the Compliance Unit has provided no evidence that Pamela has supported Socialist Appeal as defined by the NEC.
Second, the interview took place more than a year before the NEC made the decision to proscribe Socialist Appeal. Anything a member is alleged to have done at a time when an organisation is not proscribed cannot possibly be a basis for auto-exclusion on grounds of support for that organisation.
Pamela’s conduct did not amount to supporting Socialist Appeal as defined by NEC, and even if it had, it took place at a time when Socialist Appeal was not proscribed. Therefore there are no grounds on which to auto-exclude Pamela from membership of the Labour Party. The Compliance Unit’s purported action against her is contrary to Labour Party rules, the decision of the NEC and the principles of natural justice.
In the light of the above, we urge the Compliance Unit to immediately cease its purported action against Pamela and confirm in writing that she will not be auto-excluded from Labour membership.
“It threatens that I am to be ‘auto excluded’ from the party unless within 7 days I provide evidence that I am not such a supporter.”
How could anybody possibly prove such a thing.
Threatening legal action seems like a prudent response to such bullying.
How is a person supposed to prove they are NOT a member of an organisation in any case? Provide a photo of a blank wall where the membership certificate would be if they were?
The whole thing is a fiasco, including such organisations being proscribed in the first place which sets a very dangerous precedent if we nod through defences against auto-exclusion purely through denial of association.
I suspect what we will see will be the withdrawal of this threat from any member ready to escalate it with some pro-forma response to the effect of ‘We are satisfied you have no alliance with this organisation.’ It’s a numbers game. Provided most leave quietly or in disgust they will be content, and those who don’t go will find themselves in a hostile environment.
My partner and I worked with Pamela in her election campaign (unsuccessful unfortunately) December 2019. We thought she was lovely and that this is an outrage.
Are we all living in fear of a knock on the door at midnight? Does the Compliance Unit have unlimited powers to make up the rules? Who are the member of the CU? How are they chosen? Are potential names run past the Board of Deputies and/or JLM? Who betrayed such a true Socialist as Pamela? Fear it’s my turn next.
Retrospecive penalties are antidemocratic. A last resort of tyrrany.
Please sign her petition!
This is totally ridiculous!
Think how members of the PLP have got together with members of other parties – with the following examples coming immediately to mind:
(1) the 2014 Scottish referendum and (2) the 2016 EU referendum.
(I remember that Jeremy Corbyn refused to do this in the case of (2) because he thought it counter productive – and was massively criticised for it.)
Further collaborations took place in 2019 over a Brexit deal with – (god forbid!) members of the Tory Party such as Grieve and Soubry. Discussions took place – plus negotiations led by both Corbyn and Starmer with the other parties. Corbyn walked out of one “meeting of party leaders” because Chuka Umunna was there as leader of TIG or whatever it was called at that time. The object of all this was to stop the ERG forcing a “no deal” Brexit.
Of course none this indicated “support” of any other party – just a desire to do what was best for democracy in the UK.
Aside of all this – none of us – I think – know what it was about the proscribed groups which was so objectionable to the NEC – just hints and insinuations ..
In law people are presumed innocent until proven guilty……
I have read somewhere that when the law ends, tyranny begins.
I stand in solidarity with Pamela.
What party would not do everything in its power to retain a member with a “CV” like Pamela’s and such roots in the constituency – whatever the point at issue? To threaten to expel her without any semblance of due process? Only a party with no regard of the outcome of the next, supremely difficult upcoming local elections – the 2023/4 General Election could do this.
What we are witnessing is a creeping advance of totalitarianism in the Labour Party. Any pretence of democratic accountability is absent. It has all the characteristics of a growth of fascism in our Party, and it is not happening by accident.
Those driving this have a clear agenda to defeat and drive the left out of the Party.
Pamela Fitzpatrick is only the latest victim of this purge.
Her track record as a socialist activist, a trade unionist and a community activist is exemplary.
We must stand in solidarity with Pamela and comrades like her.
If we don’t, then we are next.
And then – Who will stand in solidarity with us ?
On the basis of the Labour Party Retrospective Offences Act 2021 does this mean all those members who campaigned and voted for MP’s who left the LP and formed a rival Party (Smith, Berger, Umuna et al) are now auto excluded from the Party for voting for candidates who (eventually) stood against the Party in retrospective contravention of Party rules?
Love & Solidarity to Pamela.
Good point, Dave Hansell.
And Wes Streeting recently wrote for the Tory-supporting Sun. Does that mean auto-exclusion for supporting a rival party?
Are you or have you ever been interviewed by; sat in a pub quiz near; spoken to; said “hello” in the street to; a member of a proscribed group; or someone you thought might be a member of a proscribed group; now or in the future; or whose late grandparents or late Auntie Adelaide in Florence or Auntie Florence in Adelaide might once have been a member of a proscribed group?
Is someone trying hard to make the Labour Party entirely unelectable on the basis of being a tragic joke or an authoritarian personality cult?
When will people get airbrushed out of group photos?
A number of the above comments echo my own feeling that western civilization is sliding towards totalitarianism. Judging by our current leaders, government and opposition, and the grip exercised over a brainwashed public by media, government and judiciary, I have no confidence that in the event of a resurgence of fascism, Britain would take a stand against it.
This is fascism in all but name. As has already been pointed out several times, one cannot prove a negative so the letter asking for this was effectively a letter of exclusion. This is a very sad time for the Labour Party.
When your enemy is stupid enough to declare war, it would be impolite not to use everything at your disposal to defeat them
Red Tories are in the wrong party
I haven’t, of course, seen the letter Pamela received but my guess is that it was more cautious than JVL’s introduction suggests. My guess is that it does not say that support for Socialist Appeal (however defined) was against Party rules – only that any such support gives rise to the suspicion that the person offering it might today be a supporter (however construed). In this way, the GLU/CU avoid the objection that they are operating retrospective sanctions. It is therefore not true that “she is now accused retrospectively of being a member of a banned organisation”.
Of course, the notion that giving an interview means giving support is ridiculous. And – worse still – the idea that the onus of proof falls on the defendant is likewise grotesque and utterly reactionary. I concur completely with those appalled by the leadership’s squalid persecution of leftists in general and of pro-Palestine activists in particular and have no problem pledging support to Pamela – I am also moving a resolution condemning the witch-hunt at my next CLP meeting – but our case is weakened by a mis-statement of our opponents’ approach.
Shocking!
But the point still remains Andrew Hornung – that they expect you to prove a negative and within 7 days too.
They talk about “support” – do they expect you to cut off contact
with members of the proscripted organisations – friends, neighbours, relatives?
This is the action of a seriously nasty regime .. spying on Labour Party members instead of opposing the Tories!
It seems that the answer to my question (put September 2nd) is
“yes”.
According to skwawkie they have now accused her of an additional
“crime” with respect to a “Do not Leave” meeting viz :
“she spoke at an April 2020 DLO event that more than 600 people attended – and that the audience included expelled former Labour members. “
My first feeling was outrage. then so sad that such things can happen in the Labour Party. And fearful of creeping fascism in this country. Pleased that Pamela Fitzpatrick is able to challenge this.
Margaret West is quite right: “the point still remains … that they expect you to prove a negative and within 7 days too.” My comment was simply to advise Pamela’s supporters (of whom I am one) not to make an – as yet – false accusation of retrospective “crime”.