Labour’s new Barking candidate confirmed bully who tried ‘undue influence’ on scrutiny chair
Labour has announced that Enfield council leader Nesil Caliskan is imposed as the party’s candidate in Barking, the seat that has been vacated by right-winger Margaret Hodge’s retirement.
In 2019, Caliskan was found guilty of bullying a female fellow councillor – a decision upheld on appeal. Her claims that the allegations were racially-motivated smears was rejected. She was also found, in the same month, to have breached standards by attempting to unduly influence the chair of the council’s scrutiny committee, responsible for independent scrutiny of the council’s activities.
Those two, major issues, are far from the end of the issues surrounding Caliskan’s selection. She was the subject of a series of complaints and protests by local Labour members and councillors, as well as of action by the party’s Governance and Legal Unit (GLU), following a series of revelations by the SKWAWKBOX – which were picked up, without credit, by ‘mainstream’ media.
Caliskan was Labour’s local campaign forum (LCF) secretary when she oversaw an array of ‘irregular‘ selections of her allies, who promptly elected her leader of the council after last year’s local elections. The process also saw every BAME councillor in the borough deselected, to the outrage of local community groups.
As a result, half of Enfield’s cabinet demanded an investigation, while all the female Labour group officers resigned except for Caliskan herself in protest at bullying and intimidation.
The subsequent disciplinary process saw the Enfield Labour group placed into special measures – and the election process for a new cabinet delayed after Caliskan was rebuked for ignoring binding instructions issued by Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC). When the election finally went ahead, many of the council’s cabinet members refused to stand, saying they could not work with her.
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LABOUR MPS HAVE ACCEPTED OVER £280,000 FROM ISRAEL LOBBY
https://www.declassifieduk.org/labour-mps-have-accepted-over-280000-from-israel-lobby/
Twenty percent of Labour’s sitting MPs have been funded by pro-Israel groups or individuals – including 15 who have been directly funded by the Israeli state.
- Israel lobbyists have paid for Labour MPs to travel to Israel on over 50 occasions
- Remarkably, the number of MPs supporting Labour Friends of Israel has increased amid the Gaza genocide
Some 41 of Labour’s 197 sitting MPs have accepted money from the Israel lobby, Declassified has found.
The value of the donations amounts to over £280,000, with Israel lobby groups paying for Labour MPs to visit Israel on over 50 occasions since 1999.
The funders include parliamentary group Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), pro-Israel figures such as Trevor Chinn, and governmental bodies including the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Amid Israel’s genocide on Gaza, at least one Labour MP, Margaret Hodge, has continued to accept Israel lobby funds to travel to the country.
Labour Friends of Israel
LFI has described itself as a “Westminster based lobby group working with the British Labour Party to promote the State of Israel”.
The organisation does not disclose its sources of funding, but is closely associated with the Israeli state.
LFI currently counts 75 Labour MPs as parliamentary supporters or officers – a number which, remarkably, has risen since the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza.
One of LFI’s main activities is taking Labour MPs on “fact finding” missions to Israel.
The organisation has paid for 32 of Labour’s sitting MPs to travel to Israel since they were first elected to parliament, Declassified has found.
The value of these donations is over £64,000, with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs often covering additional costs in Israel.
Fifteen Labour MPs have accepted financial assistance directly from the Israeli state for these and other visits.
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Article continues at https://www.declassifieduk.org/labour-mps-have-accepted-over-280000-from-israel-lobby/
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Commentary and analysis of recent UK politics events
Following Home Secretary Theresa May’s refusal to allow MI5 boss Andrew Parker to appear before the parliamentary home affairs select committee the committee has said that it will question Theresa May more thoroughly.
The issue is about oversight of the security services: the home affairs select committee consider that intelligence agencies should be answerable to parliament and ordinary MPs, the government and the Home Secretary do not. Tim Farron, President of the ‘Liberal-Democrats’ is to propose measures to improve scrutiny of the intelligence services at the ‘Liberal-Democrats’ spring conference. The ‘Liberal-Democrat’ leadership has previously ignored directions from their ‘liberal-democratic’ party e.g. student tuition fees.
The public accounts committee has commented on Chancellor George Osborne use of misleading statistics on Britain’s budget deficit.
PAC chair Margaret Hodge said it was “hard to understand why the government debt and deficit highlighted in the whole government accounts differ from those reported in the ONS’s national accounts.”
“According to the former document, compiled on the basis of well-understood accounting standards, the UK’s in-year deficit for 2011-12 was £185bn. The national accounts used by the chancellor put the figure at £90bn.”
George Osborne has said that he wants “billions” more cut from the welfare budget. George Eaton at the New Statesman speculates where the axe might fall:
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What cuts could he have in mind? It’s worth looking back at the speech David Cameron made on the subject in June 2012 when he outlined a series of possible measures, including:
- The restriction of child-related benefits for families with more than two children.
- A lower rate of benefits for the under-21s.
- Preventing school leavers from claiming benefits.
- Paying benefits in kind (like free school meals), rather than in cash.
- Reducing benefit levels for the long-term unemployed. Cameron said: “Instead of US-style time-limits – which remove entitlements altogether – we could perhaps revise the levels of benefits people receive if they are out of work for literally years on end”.
- A lower housing benefit cap. Cameron said that the current limit of £20,000 was still too high.
- The abolition of the “non-dependent deduction”. Those who have an adult child living with them would lose up to £74 a week in housing benefit.
Osborne would also likely reduce the household benefit cap of £26,000 (he said today that “future governments could change the level” and Tory MPs have been pushing for one of £20,000) and maintain the 1% cap on benefit increases (a real-terms cut).
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G4S and Serco are to have their criminals’ electronic tagging contracts transferred to Crapita.
New Statesman has a guide to fast-track processing of asylum-seekers.