East London CLPs still suspended after almost four years in limbo

Labour members in three suspended Constituency Labour Parties in east London have been left in limbo for almost four years, LabourList can reveal.

We understand the three CLPs – West Ham and Beckton, East Ham and Stratford and Bow – remain suspended more than 45 months after the decision was first made.

Little has been said publicly by the party about the fate of the CLPs, despite lengthy suspensions hampering the ability of members, officers and MPs to engage with each other, access party systems and democracy, and mobilise for campaigning.

The suspension of the Stratford and Bow seat meant for instance that members were unable to vote on their parliamentary candidate. Uma Kumaran was picked last-minute by the party nationally instead. She pledged shortly before her election to “work hard to lift the suspensions”.

Labour declined to comment when approached by LabourList, and we were unable to secure updates from the CLPs or local MPs themselves, either.

If you live in any of the CLPs, please get in touch to share anything you know or want to share at [email protected]

Mystery over CLPs’ problems

The specific reasons for the suspensions is not entirely clear, with Labour declining to comment on why at the time.

But a London Labour email in 2021 reportedly said the party had been in receipt of a “significant number of serious allegations regarding the conduct of Labour Party members and membership” over East Ham and West Ham.

It included alleged irregularities in new member sign-ups, so a “full audit of the membership” was promised.

The decision also came shortly after a report to the police of alleged “electoral malpractice” in the Newham council area, but the police concluded it did not need to conduct an investigation.

Part of West Ham was transferred into the Stratford and Bow constituency as part of the boundary shakeup at the 2024 election, along with parts of the Bethal Green and Bow constituency.

This appears to have widened the number of activists affected by the suspension, as the new CLP was suspended from birth – so members transferred over from the previously active Bethnal Green and Bow CLP found themselves embroiled in it too.

Meanwhile the nearby constituency of Poplar and Limehouse in east London is also reported to have not met for a number of months.

Labour support took a hit at the election

Fears were reported shortly after the suspension that it would disrupt Labour’s council election preparations in 2022, and similar frustrations are likely to have surfaced in the general election campaign.

Few local Labour figures we approached or spoke to for this piece were willing to speak publicly about the issues, however.

While all of these constituencies returned Labour MPs in the 2024 general election, some saw a drop in support for Labour – begging the question of how far the suspensions hindered the party’s mobilisation, and could still be doing so.

The East Ham constituency saw a 26% drop in support for Labour between 2019 and 2024 with a strong independent challenger coming in second place, although Stephen Timms still won a majority of the vote.

The West Ham and Beckton and Poplar and Limehouse constituencies also saw a notable drop in Labour’s vote share.

While Stratford and Bow is a new constituency, its notional 2019 result – if that had been conducted on current boundaries – was also substantially higher than the vote share received by Labour in 2024. The Greens came in second place, with 17% of the vote.

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