Dear Friends,

A very Happy New Year to all our supporters and we are pleased to be able to share some great news!

Today marks a significant moment in the case for democracy, fairness and political accountability in the Labour Party; and our deep thanks for your unstinting commitment to our campaign over the past year and especially over recent months.

We are thrilled to announce that we have achieved a great victory for our campaign to democratically elect the Labour Party Mayoral candidate for May 2018. 

Since our last message to you on the 18^th November 2017, when we reached our initial target of £10,000, we’ve been in a period of detailed preparations and discussions with our legal team; who in turn have been liaising with the defendant’s lawyers.

We had prepared all the legal papers for our case which your donations contributed to, including ‘Particulars of Claim’ and witness statements which we were intending to submit to the High Court on Friday 22^nd December 2017.

However, prior to that deadline, a series of developments were triggered when we received a letter from the Labour Party’s lawyer on Thursday 21^st December 2017 offering to settle our case. After negotiations by our lawyer, Ravi Naik from ITN Solicitors, a settlement was agreed on Friday 22^nd December 2017 which we are able to announce today.

The terms of this settlement are that:

1. The Trigger Ballot will be re-run. A formal announcement to eligible members and affiliate organisations will be made by the Labour Party shortly, followed by publication of a timetable; 

2. The Freeze Date of the new Trigger Ballot will be 25^th October 2016 (i.e. the same freeze date that applied when the original Trigger Ballot process was run); 

3. The new Trigger Ballot process will be overseen by the London Regional Labour Party, and not the ‘Newham Labour Party’s’ Local Campaign Forum based on a list of affiliated organisations agreed by both parties. 

The re-run of the 2016 Trigger Ballot is without prejudice to our right to continue to lobby the NEC to move straight to an open selection, so that Labour Party members in Newham can immediately choose from a range of candidates.

Note that the current Mayor of Newham, Robin Wales, has not been involved in any of the negotiations between the parties, so any public comments he has made to the media or party members locally are without substance.    

From the outset, we said that we did not want to take the Labour Party to court or have party funds spent defending our claim. However, because we were ignored by the Labour Party at that time, we had little choice but to mount this legal campaign. Any democratic selection or election process in the Labour Party must be run properly, openly and fairly – and in line with its rules.

We are therefore delighted that the Labour Party has agreed to settle. This means that going to court is no longer necessary. This is a real win for both parties. 

We intend to keep you updated with developments over the coming weeks, including our planned campaign encouraging members to vote for an open selection at their Trigger Ballot meetings, so please sign up to our regular mailings by sending us an email to [email protected], so you can be added to our database.  

We will also need to keep fundraising to meet outstanding legal costs of £2500 so please consider making another donation here. Every amount will help! Every amount will help! Please forward this email to all your contacts or share via Facebook and Twitter! 

Finally, our deepest thanks once again for all your support over recent months and we'll be in touch soon with further updates including details about our campaign for an Open Selection.

Best,

Newham Mayor Trigger Ballot Legal Challenge Campaign

Firstly,  a BIG thank you to all our supporters! We have been blown away by the amounts pledged so far, alongside the massive support our legal challenge campaign has received from you and others interested in political accountability and democracy in the Labour Party in Newham. 

Thanks to your support we have now reached our first stage fundraising target of £10,000 (and over!), so wanted to provide you with some details of what that will cover and what will happen next: 

1. Now the target has been reached, we have entered our 'stretch' target phase of £30,000, which reflects the second stage of our legal action if we need to proceed that far. We are hoping that we don't need to get to the second stage with the Labour Party, as over the past several months we have been urging their lawyers to resolve this matter through a binding mediation process. Unfortunately, we were unable to get them to do so which left us no alternative but pursue the matter through legal means. 
2. If the case does go to court, their lawyers will realise that: (i) our case is very strong, (ii) disclosure to the court will cause the Party huge political embarrassment once, and (iii) the truth about what really happened during last year's Newham Trigger Ballot finally becomes public. That will highlight the many failings in the process and how local members were denied the opportunity to choose from a range of candidates in a fair Open Selection process. 
3. In the meantime, CrowdJustice will release the money raised to our lawyer's 'Client' account. The initial amount will enable us to issue our Statement of Claim which sets out the grounds on which we believe the Labour Party has behaved improperly during Newham's Trigger Ballot last year. 
4. This will be done by our lawyers ITN Solicitors alongside our Counsel team led by Tim Johnston from Brick Court Chambers, whose recent public law cases included the successful Miller "Article 50" litigation that forced Theresa May to get parliamentary approval for triggering Article 50.  They will finalise the Pleadings documents that will be issued to the Labour Party next week. 
5. Once received, lawyers representing the Labour Party will have 14 days to respond. Our lawyers and Counsel will examine carefully their defence following which a 'Case Management Conference' will take place between the two legal teams. 
6. It is at this stage, and following the assessment of the 'defence' by our lawyers and Counsel team, that we will decide how to pursue our claim. 

We will of course keep all our supporters updated over the course of the coming week, and our deepest thanks once again for supporting us in this important case. 

Democracy, fairness and political accountability in the Labour Party has to be honoured, and your support with this case is helping us achieve that for every single Labour Party member in Newham and beyond.