Exclusive: AWL among three more groups to be proscribed by Labour NEC

The Labour Party is set to proscribe three more organisations – the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL), the Labour Left Alliance (LLA) and the Socialist Labour Network – at a key meeting of the ruling body on Tuesday, LabourList can reveal.

LabourList sources say AWL members are being banned from Labour on the basis that the group has acted as a separate political party, while LLA and Socialist Labour Network are being proscribed due to their close links to already proscribed organisations.

Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) agreed to proscribe four groups – Socialist Appeal, Labour in Exile Network, Labour Against the Witchhunt and Resist – at a meeting in July last year. Supporters of the groups have since been auto-excluded from the party.

There have been some calls for Labour to proscribe the Stop the War Coalition, but NEC sources say the move would not be possible as the ruling body can only proscribe in the case of a clear breach of Labour values such as on antisemitism or in the case of entryism.

LabourList can also confirm that neither Martin Forde QC nor his report, the Forde Report, are expected to come to the Tuesday meeting despite previous assurances. NEC members from across the factional spectrum have expressed frustration over the latest delay.

NEC members were assured at their meeting in November that they could expect a visit by the chair of the Forde Inquiry and for the report itself to be shared at the January meeting. Forde then told the NEC in January that it would not delivered.

The QC chairing the Forde Inquiry said in his January letter that the report was “largely completed” and “we hope to be in a position to deliver it next month”, but no report has been sent and Forde will not be attending the Tuesday meeting.

The Forde Report is the result of an inquiry looking into the so-called ‘Labour leaks’ report, an internal document leaked online in 2020 that explored Labour’s handling of antisemitism complaints and made allegations about former party staff.

LabourList has also been told that a Labour development fund panel decided on Friday that the party will put £1m towards hiring 20 trainee organisers. Labour left members raised concerns that community organisers were being replaced by the new staffers, but those supportive of the leadership say the hires are separate.

The trainee organisers will undertake online and residential training while working as organisers, according to sources. They will be treated as a strategic reserve – while many organisers are locally funded, the new centrally funded ones will be sent wherever they are most needed, giving the party flexibility in the run-up to a general election.

“The community organisers were made redundant but now they have changed the title and are trying to use fund money for staff,” a left NEC member told LabourList. Community organisers were widely considered to be aligned with Corbynites.

Reacting to those who criticised the plans on Friday, one NEC member said: “People were trying to talk down and delay the investment. It felt like they were trying to throw the general election campaign. It was bizarre, incomprehensible and completely inappropriate.”