- Saturday, April 20, 2024
By: Keerthi Mohan
A LABOUR MP who agreed to let Chris Williamson back into the party has called for the decision to be reviewed.
Keith Vaz, who sat on the panel that made the decision to readmit Williamson, on Wednesday (26) wrote to Jennie Formby, the party’s general secretary, saying that the decisions made by the panel “cannot stand.”
He also called for the National Executive Committee panel that made the ruling to be reconvened with different members.
Vaz said: “In my view, having served on the NEC for 15 years I consider the decisions the panel made yesterday cannot stand.
“In order to ensure complete integrity of the process either a new panel should be convened or all the cases from yesterday should be referred to the Disputes Committee for reconsideration.”
Vaz also said he had agreed to be on the panel at the last minute, despite “having medical treatment that day, which continued after the meeting.”
Williamson was readmitted to the party on Wednesday, after being suspended in February for suggesting that Labour had been “too apologetic” over anti-Semitism and was being “demonised as a racist, bigoted party”.
He later apologised for his remarks and said he did not want anyone to think he was “minimising the cancer of anti-Semitism”.
On Thursday, more than 100 Labour MPs and peers signed a letter calling on Jeremy Corbyn to overturn the decision to readmit Williamson.
“Under the Party’s rule book, the General Secretary cannot overturn the decision of an NEC panel,” a Labour source was quoted as saying. “Staff make recommendations to the NEC panel under the delegated authority of the General Secretary but only the NEC panel has the power to make the decision.
“The Leader of the Party is not involved in disciplinary processes or individual cases, which are independent of the Leader. It would be wholly inappropriate for a Leader to pick and choose cases in the way that is being demanded.
“Several of the MPs who have signed have in the past argued against political interference.”
