Labour has expelled three senior members in Surrey for trying to unseat the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, by forming a progressive alliance with local Greens and Liberal Democrats to unite behind an NHS doctor standing against him.
Kate Townsend, the South West Surrey party secretary who stood in last week’s local elections, and Steve Williams, a party member for 46 years who sits on the constituency party’s executive committee, were notified of their expulsion this week.
Robert Park, a Labour member for almost five decades who chaired the Surrey Fabians and ran the regional remain campaign, has also been expelled.
Townsend and Williams have been leading figures in the campaign for a progressive alliance between local parties, where the Conservative cabinet minister has a 28,000 majority.
Williams has been working on behalf of Compass, the centre-left thinktank and champion of grassroots progressive alliance initiative, in defiance of the national party, which has said it will not entertain any notion of local party cooperation at election time. Party rules state that members must not support any other candidate for election who is running against Labour.
“We have massive support from the local party,” Williams told the Guardian. “It is such an overkill reaction to a group of people who are trying to unseat the health secretary. There was a campaign meeting last night, we only found out a few hours before that we had been expelled from the party so we weren’t able to go. People were storming out of the meeting, really very, very upset and angry.”
In a letter from the party’s head of disputes, Sam Matthews, Williams was told: “It has been brought to our attention with supporting evidence that you have publicly stated your support for a party that is standing against the Labour party in the 2017 general election, which is incompatible with membership of the Labour party.”
Williams was “ineligible to remain a member of the Labour party and have been removed from the national membership system”, the letter said, adding that he was no longer entitled to attend local Labour party meetings.
The party will consider an application for readmission only after five years, the letter said, though Williams said he was planning to appeal. The letter included supporting evidence, including Williams’ appeal for signatures for a letter to the Guardian supporting Irvine’s candidacy.
“We have been doing our best to unseat Jeremy Hunt, to hold him to account on his record because of what he has done to the health service over the last five years,” Williams said.
The initiative to back the National Health Action party’s Dr Louise Irvine, who received just over 8% of the vote in 2015, has the backing of local Labour leaders, including Townsend. Irvine, a GP, was the chair of the Save Lewisham hospital campaign, which defeated the government in court over the proposals to downgrade A&E and maternity units.
Williams said Irvine was “able, articulate, very capable of being able to hold Jeremy Hunt to account, when the NHS is such a key issue in his constituency”.
Local Lib Dem activists have also agreed not to campaign, after a meeting in Farncombe organised by Compass with members from progressive parties. The Green party has said it will not field a candidate.
Neal Lawson, chair of Compass, said: “Steve Williams has given 46 years of service to Labour and was backing a local doctor to take on Jeremy Hunt and defend the NHS. For this he got expelled by email. Labour is a tribal party in a non-tribal age.”
Park, who also stood for election for Labour last week, told the Guardian he had been expelled after an interview with the BBC’s Today programme in which he expressed cautious support for Labour standing aside.
“I have to say, I was upset,” he said. “It was a blunt, legalistic email message, I joined the party as student in 1963, I had thought particularly that somebody might have phoned to talk to me first, I’ve spent most adult life helping the cause.
“The irony is that [we are] three most loyal Labour members you could hope to get; when people were attacking [Labour leader Jeremy] Corbyn, we’ve stuck by him. Now we’re all out on our neck.”
Park said he still intended to volunteer to help Labour MPs in marginal seats, as well as considering campaigning to help the Lib Dem former cabinet minister Vince Cable regain his seat in Twickenham, south-west London.
“Whatever we do, the likelihood is that Jeremy Hunt going to win,” he said of his constituency. “Nonetheless we’re tired of having a small share of the vote and we do feel that if we get behind one candidate we can stand some chance of denting his majority.”
Labour has selected IT manager David Black to fight the seat for the party after the CLP chair, Howard Kaye, the party’s candidate in 2015, has said he would not stand again. The Lib Dems have also selected a candidate, Ollie Purkiss.
The Green party co-leader Caroline Lucas has called for talks with Corbyn, and the Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron, to make a “series of electoral alliances” in some areas against the Conservatives before the election, though both have publicly rejected her entreaties.
Local Greens made the decision to stand down in the recent Richmond Park byelection, in which the Lib Dems’ Sarah Olney unseated the former Tory mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith.
The party has also decided to stand aside in several seats at the general election in June, including Ealing Central and Acton, to bolster the chances of Labour’s Rupa Huq in the marginal.
Lucas has called for Labour and the Lib Dems to respond similarly to strengthen her party’s chances of taking the Isle of Wight, where the party hopes to capture the traditionally Conservative seat after its good showing in local elections.
Labour expels three members over attempt to unseat Jeremy Hunt
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