Labour at loggerheads with leadership as party appeals High Court ruling

Labour officials have vowed to appeal a controversial High Court ruling which scrapped the January cut-off for new members to vote in the leadership contest.

The party confirmed it would seek to overturn a judge’s shock decision in a move that set it on a collision course with shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.

Earlier today Mr Justice Hickinbottom said it would be a “breach of contract” to exclude the new members.

Within minutes McDonnell said any decision to mount an appeal would be “unacceptable” and claimed the judge’s decision was a “huge victory” for Labour Party democracy. The ruling could add well over 100,000 to the number eligible to vote.

Later, however, a party spokesperson confirmed said today that it would “defend vigorously decisions of the National Executive Committee”. Labour HQ confirmed that it would appeal the decision. A hearing is likely to take place on Thursday.

Speaking this afternoon, a Labour spokesman said: “The Procedures Committee of the NEC has decided that the Labour Party will appeal this ruling in order to defend the NEC’s right, as Labour’s governing body, to uphold the rule book, including the use of freeze dates.”

This puts the party machine at odds with Corbyn and his allies.

**5.15pm update**

McDonnell today issued a statement attacking the decision of the party to fight the ruling.

“This is a deeply disappointing decision by a small clique of people behind closed doors, many of whom have openly expressed their opposition to Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, who are now trying to use Labour members’ money to fund what they think is a further attack on Jeremy,” he said.

“However, this is just an attack on the basic democratic rights of members in our party.

“We are a democratic socialist party, you cannot have one without the other. I hope that Labour HQ rethinks this decision as it could leave a legal bill in the hundreds of thousands of pounds that we could be spending instead on campaigning to hold this Tory government to account, instead of subverting our own democratic processes.

“Due this decision, we are now in the absurd position that Labour HQ is wasting members’ money to prevent members having a democratic vote on the leader of their choice, which has already been firmly upheld by a High Court judgement.”