The police’s decision not to launch a criminal investigation into Unite over its alleged manipulation of the Falkirk selection contest has achieved the rare feat of uniting the Conservatives and Len McCluskey in agreement. Both are demanding that Ed Miliband publish Labour’s internal inquiry into the affair (which was passed to the police), as are Labour figures, including Tom Watson and David Blunkett. The party, however, which is now pursuing disciplinary action against Stephen Deans and Karie Murphy (the two suspended Unite members) “as a matter of urgency”, is insistent that it will do no such thing.
So why the obstinacy? Among Labour figures there are two main theories. The first is that the evidence against Unite is embarrassingly thin. The Guardian’s Seumas Milne, one of the few (perhaps only) journalists to have seen the report, recently wrote that while “a handful of members were signed up without their knowledge (by family members)” and there were “‘discrepancies in the signatures’ of four others (suggesting some may have been forged)”, “the union isn’t held directly responsible”.
The second is that the report would implicate others in the party and spark a new scandal. Diane Abbott recently commented that “one of the things the report might reveal is that Unite weren’t the only ones signing up members in the run-up to this selection”. Suspicion has fallen on Gregor Poynton, one of the other Falkirk candidates and the husband of Labour MP Gemma Doyle, who is alleged to have handed over a cheque for £137 in June 2012 to pay the membership fees of 11 people. Milne, however, reported that Poynton, like Unite, was not held “directly responsible” in the inquiry.
How this debacle will end remains unclear. But the most striking thing today is how Labour unity is fraying. Abbott, who is Labour’s shadow public minister, earlier retweeted Michael Crick’s claim that “Miliband won’t publish cos evidence agst Unite is weak, and others implicated too”, while in response to Ian Austin, who noted the Tories’ failure to publish their report into Aidan Burley’s stag party antics, Tom Watson simply replied: “publish both”. The longer the cloud of suspicion continues to hang over Unite, the greater the pressure for transparency is likely to become.
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