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June 2016
CPLD fears that a new wave of expulsions of Corbyn supporters from the Labour Party may indicate that right-wingers and irreconcilables are using bureaucratic means to try to undermine the overwhelming majority decision of the Party to elect Jeremy Corbyn as leader.
Many of the left-wing members recently expelled are of long standing in the Labour Party, and expressed their socialist and Marxist views in the Party openly and without disciplinary reprisals in the Miliband, Brown, or Blair years.
In January 2016 CLPD put itself on record as opposing the expulsions of Labour Party members on grounds of association with the Alliance for Workers Liberty. Since then there has been a steady trickle of further such expulsions, and now also a spate of expulsions of Labour Party members on grounds of association with Socialist Appeal and the Marxist Student Federation.
We are concerned and alarmed about the precedents being set, which could be used to expel members for association with other organised bodies of left-wing opinion in the party.
We reaffirm our objection to the failure, in these cases and also in many recent suspensions, to provide a process which meets the basic principles of natural justice - to know what you are charged with, to have a proper hearing, to be able to challenge evidence presented and to have a right of appeal. In the spirit of inclusiveness following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader, the Labour Party should change its rules to provide a fair process and to welcome as members all those who support the Labour Party.