Two Labour members thrown out for backing a tactical Lib Dem vote in Lewes

In what Mark Perryman on Labour Hub calls "a sorry tale of hypocrisy and snitching", two members of Labour's constituency party in Lewes have been expelled for advocating a tactical vote for the Liberal Democrats there in last year's general election. 

The Lewes seat, which was held by Norman Baker between 1997 and 2015, was recaptured from the Tories last year by James MacCleary.

Perryman calls it hypocrisy because:

Labour publicly identified Lewes as a ‘non battleground’ seat .... The candidate and his team were instructed to minimise campaigning; instead they were sent to seats where Labour could win. Which party precisely did they think this would benefit?

And the snitching?

The 2024 tactical voting campaign in Lewes was organised by the local Lewes Compass Group. Compass nationally, despite, its very public support for tactical voting, is not a Labour Party-proscribed organisation. 

It is cross-party, yet at its core are a whole host of Labour members, including councillors. At least three Cabinet members I can think of have spoken on Compass platforms.

The local campaign went beyond what is permitted under Labour rules. I have never displayed a poster advocating a vote for any party other than Labour ....

But not everyone is as tuned in to navigating the Labour rule book as me.  Our ‘snitch’ didn’t  have the good sense to give a friendly piece of advice to his or her fellow members that they were breaking Party rules. Instead they were busy compiling their evidence to secure expulsions.

Nobody has ever owned up to this cowardly behaviour, so in our local Labour Party we have a snitch entirely unwilling to justify their actions politically. 

Labour List also has the story - apparently Clause I.5.B.vi of the Labour Party Rule Book is the one you have to watch out for.

I voted Labour in Harborough, Oadby and Wigston last year. That was partly from a slim hope that they might defeat our very online and increasingly radicalised Conservative MP.

But it was more from a feeling that it was hypocritical of me to be so keen that Labour voters should back the Liberal Democrats in places like Lewes if I wasn't prepared to reciprocate myself.