Falkirk: Labour call in police over rigging claim

Mr Miliband called on Unite leader Len McCluskey to condemn malpractice in Falkirk. Picture: Getty

POLICE have been called in to investigate the Labour Party’s biggest trade union donor in an escalating row over alleged candidate-rigging.

The party handed evidence to Police Scotland, setting out claims that the Unite union tried to manipulate a selection process to ensure its favoured candidate was installed for the Falkirk by-election. Unite general secretary Len McCluskey dismissed the allegations as “nonsense” and accused Labour leader Ed Miliband of deliberately seeking a “punch-up” with the unions.

The Conservatives said Labour had been “bounced” into contacting prosecutors after Tory back-bencher Henry Smith wrote to Chief Constable Sir Stephen House asking him to investigate.

And the Tories said they would be handing to police a Unite document they have obtained, which lists 41 constituencies in which the union has supported candidates for selection.

Mr Miliband said he had taken the decision to refer the matter to police after consulting the party’s solicitor about an internal report on the Falkirk row as well as fresh evidence.

The party leader also warned Unite that he would not tolerate “corrupt practice” in the party.

Mr Miliband, who was elected as Labour leader with the support of Unite in 2010, said he wanted the police to “investigate whether criminal activity had taken place” in the Falkirk party.

He also insisted that he did not “care about Len McCluskey” and warned that Labour was “bigger than anyone involved” in the party. Jim Sheridan, who chairs the group of Labour MPs sponsored by Unite, called on Mr Miliband to be clear what those involved were accused of - something which the party has declined to specify on legal advice.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme hat it would be “absolutely wrong” if memberships had been paid by the union in an effort solely to influence the selection or been signed up unknowingly.

“Ed Miliband is absolutely right: no-one but no-one will undermine the integrity of the party and he is quite right to be doing what he’s doing,” he said.

“But what he has also got to do is make clear what the facts are, what the accusations are.

“You can’t go around making claims about people’s activities without giving the people involved the opportunity to see what they actually have been charged for.”

Conservative Party chairman chairman Grant Shapps said if wrongdoing was proved then selection procedures should be suspended “in all the other seats that Unite have been trying to rig” as well.

Former London mayor Ken Livingstone said the party leader had told him he had no plans to break the link.

“Ed Miliband phoned me yesterday, and said he has no intention of breaking the trade union link,” the NEC member said on his LBC 97.3 radio show.

Mr Shapps said: “Publicly, Miliband claims he is angry about Len McCluskey’s takeover of the Labour Party. But, in private, he tells Ken Livingstone he is simply too weak to break Unite’s stranglehold.

“This is serious because it goes right to the heart of the way Labour selects potential MPs. The police are involved, because what has happened represents a fundamental attack on our democracy. People are shocked by the turmoil in the Labour party but Miliband’s response isn’t now just weak, it’s also two-faced.”

Mr Miliband’s clash with the unions came after Mr Smith said in a letter to Sir Stephen that Unite may have committed fraud by signing up members to Labour in Falkirk without their knowledge.

Labour’s former election co-ordinator, Tom Watson, has already been forced to quit the shadow cabinet over the row, with 14 constituency parties across the UK suspended by party chiefs, amid claims of the manipulation of candidate

selection.