“Abuse of disciplinary procedures” in the Labour Party led to expulsion of Croydon members 

By Claudia Lee

Labour Party members from Croydon claim they have been exposed to a climate of “extreme discipline” under Keir Starmer’s leadership.

Andrew Pelling and David White, both former Croydon Labour councillors, claim they were expelled from the party as part of a campaign within Labour to discredit and drive out unwanted members.

Mr Pelling, a Conservative Party member-turned Labour councillor, was removed from the party in February.

He claims his removal was based on talking to the press, campaigning for a directly-elected mayor and voting against the party line to cut council tax support.

Mr Pelling said: “It was a process of marginalising those of us who were concerned about the governance of the party.”

Mr Pelling said he was a strong critic of the Labour council leadership under Tony Newman in 2020 that led the borough to issue a Section 114 notice, declaring bankruptcy.

Another removed member of the party was David White, one of Labour’s longest serving officials in Croydon.

Mr White was suspended by the party on the eve of the annual Labour conference in 2021, and later expelled based on a handful of tweets dating back to 2014.

The party accused Mr White of “breaching Labour Party rules” regarding Tweets that supported Palestine and expressing his view that the extent of antisemitism in the party had been exaggerated for political purposes during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as leader.

One of the tweets was from June 1, 2016, in which Mr White said: “There’s a witch-hunt vs left wing Labour members, driven by pro-Israeli Govt elements, and using (usually false) antisemitism allegations.”

The letter of suspension stated that Mr White would be given an opportunity to respond. He replied refuting the allegations but received no acknowledgement of this from the party. 

He said: “The atmosphere was very tense and a lot of people now feel politically homeless.”

Before his suspension Mr White claimed he had recorded irregularities he found in the 2022 Croydon council elections when he was vice-chairman of the Local Campaign Forum (LCF).

Mr White claimed he found some candidates on the left of the party had been rejected by their interview panel despite their wealth of experience in the trade union movement and active history in Croydon Labour Party.

However, some applicants who were not trade union members were accepted, contrary to the rules for eligibility on council candidacy. 

Mr White claims that at least two applicants were rejected partly on the basis of having supported local campaigns.

One of these cases involved a campaign to save a local library from possible closure and another backed the campaign to move to a directly-elected mayor in the 2022 local elections.

Despite the ultimate success of both campaigns, they were regarded by interviewing panels as “anti-council” or “anti-Labour”, said Mr White.

Mr White raised these irregularities with the other LCF members, but no investigations were organised into these issues.

In 2019, Mr White was involved in the organisation of an independent inquiry into the removal of Jose Joseph.

Mr Joseph was selected by members of Fairfield ward Labour Party on October 10, 2019, for the upcoming by-election.

He was removed as a candidate the following day and nomination papers were submitted for another candidate who was subsequently elected.

Mr Joseph’s removal was claimed to be on the basis of debts he owed to the council, an allegation that was later found to be untrue.

Mr Joseph said: “When I was selected as a candidate my kids were in the room, the next day when they removed me like that my kids keep asking me ‘why have they removed you?’

“They keep asking and sometimes I don’t have a proper answer to tell them.”

The independent inquiry found Mr Joseph’s removal to be unfair and he received an apology from the LCF.

Mr Joseph continues to run for Croydon council.

The Labour Party has not responded to requests for comment.

Pictured top: Former leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, with David White (Picture: David White)