'Administrative Error': Labour Party Backtracks on Threat of Misconduct Probe Into Left-Wing MP

Last week Young Labour chair Jess Barnard received a letter saying she was under investigation for a series of tweets she made last year attacking '"transphobic" feminist opinions — only for the party's head office to rescind it a day later.

A left-wing Labour MP has received notice she is under investigation by her own party — only to be told it was all an "administrative error".

Kate Osborne tweeted a statement on Friday, saying she had been "shocked and unnerved" to be served notice that morning of a probe into "serious allegations of breach of party rules" against her.

Osborne was told she could not discuss the contents of the letter with anyone else except suicide prevention charity The Samaritans. However, she contacted a solicitor who wrote a "very strongly worded letter utterly refuting the allegations. The party headquarters quickly backed down and said the investigation was merely an "administrative error".

“This should not have happened," a Labour spokesperson said. "We have rescinded the notice and apologised to Kate."

Statement. pic.twitter.com/BtaibQTcXH

— Kate Osborne MP 💙🌈 (@KateOsborneMP) September 17, 2021

Osborne was elected MP for Jarrow in Tyneside in 2019, one of Labour's remaining 'Red Wall' heartland seats — many of which were lost to the Conservatives in that election. She joined the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs which included suspended former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The north-east England town is steeped in labour movement history. In 1936 some 200 local men marched almost 300 miles to London in protest at unemployment and poverty in what was dubbed the Jarrow Crusade.

Socialist Campaign Group secretary and Leeds East MP Richard Burgon pointed out how Young Labour chair Jess Barnard had been subjected to near-identical treatment by party centre just a week earlier.

Last week, left Young Labour Chair Jess Barnard.

This week, left MP Kate Osborne.

There is a disturbing pattern.

How many more, less well known, left members is this happening to?

This must stop. https://t.co/5x7TkGz2s4

— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) September 17, 2021

Labour List editor Sienna Rodgers also tweeted her own bizarre example of Labour sending a probe notification to a neighbour of hers who no longer lived there, only for them to discover it was meant for another party member of the same name — who had since left the party anyway.

Except! The actual person, who has never lived here and who should have received the notice of investigation… is no longer in the party. So it shouldn’t be sent to them either!

The cases of Jess Barnard and Kate Osborne aren’t the only NOI errors the party is making – clearly.

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) September 17, 2021

Members of two of the biggest Labour-affiliated trade unions working at the party's HQ have voted to strike over plans to make 90 staff redundant — amid a financial crisis caused by mass resignations of members.

But acting Labour general secretary David Evans is meanwhile hiring 30 to 50 "temporary investigation officers" on six-month contracts to dig up evidence to expel more members.

On Friday Leading Labour left-winger John McDonnell offered to compromise with party leader Sir Keir Starmer over moves to block Evans' confirmation as general secretary at the party's conference next week in the Sussex seaside town of Brighton.

John McDonnell on the today programme this morning calling for a meeting with Keir Starmer and the left so that the push to oust David Evans can be averted

Just so unbelievably servile

— Labour Accelerationists (@LabourAccel) September 17, 2021