The letter below was authored and sent (email and post) last Saturday 11th November 2017 by Paul Davies.

Paul Davies was until the CLP’s suspension the democratically elected co-Vice Chair of Wallasey Constituency Labour Party.  He has also been personally suspended from the Labour Party for the last eight months.

The letter is a response to Labour’s failure to act correctly upon and respond lawfully to a Subject Access Request for specific Personal Data.  This was placed with them by Paul Davies in February 2017 under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Every UK citizen – as a “data subject” – has a statutory right under the Data Protection Act to request the personal data that an organisation holds on them.  The Labour Party, as a data controller under the Act, has a statutory duty to provide all the relevant, requested information under these terms.  It is an offence to withhold requested information without quoting an ‘exemption’ or without lawful justification.

In the Paul Davies case, there appears to be grave cause for concern.  Despite the data controller’s prominence in the areas of national and local politics, its assumed competence and its access to high-level legal and professional advice, there appear (initially) to be EIGHT serious and substantial omissions;

i.e. information specified and requested, but not being supplied in any form – and not being supplied in accordance with the requirement of a “timely disclosure”, within a period of 40 days.

The data controller’s response seems to have breached the law, not only through multiple omissions but for taking 9 months to fulfil.

The letter is addressed to Iain McNicol, the incumbent General Secretary.

Link to the Paul Davies letter

Mr Iain McNicol

General Secretary

Labour Party Head Office

Southside

105 Victoria Street

London

SW1E 6QT

11.11.2017

Dear Mr McNicol

Application for information under section 7 Data Protection Act

Thank you for the unsigned letter dated 01/11/17 from the Governance and Legal Team which is in response to my Subject Access Request following the instruction to you from the ICO. You had failed to respond to my original Application dated 10.2.2017

Unfortunately the data you have provided is incomplete. I reserve the right to raise further omissions I am aware of with you in the future but of immediate concern are the following omissions:

1. There is a copy of an undated e mail (or possibly letter) Subject Wallasey Investigation which I presume was sent by [redacted] of Wallasey CLP although [the] name has been redacted. This alludes to an e mail I allegedly circulated to the whole Wallasey Membership. Do you have a copy of this alleged email as I have no knowledge of ever sending such an e mail?

2. There is no data dated prior to 11^th July 2016 provided even though there was a complaint about me (by a person or persons unknown) prior to this which is referred to in the documentation by e mails dated 19/07/16 subject FYI. On 23/2/16 (LP ref  A414096) I was sent a letter by John Stolliday  which he sent  in response to a completely spurious complaint about me allegedly misusing Labour Party data. The correspondence between me and Mr Stolliday is not included in the bundle you sent me nor is there any documentation showing that he followed up my response   nor  is there a copy the letter he was sent by my Labour Party Branch officers refuting the allegation about my alleged misuse. This false  allegation is referred to in the bundle email 19/7/16 but with no mention as to my disproving the allegation.

3. There is a record of a second complaint (by a person or persons unnamed but known to me as they copied in the CLP Officers and various media reporters) dated 01/08/16 subject Wallasey Membership Usage and a copy of a redacted letter from the complainants and a letter to me from Katherine Buckingham dated 02/08/16.  There is no documentation included regarding my full response to this allegation which was made to Katherine Buckingham by e mail on 05/08/16  along with evidence that I was in London at the time I was alleged to have been in Wallasey. There is no documentation in note, report or e mail form to indicate that she acted on my evidence in any way whatsoever .

4. There is a record of the fact that I had a telephone interview 11/10/16 with Katherine Buckingham but there is no documentation in the bundle regarding the notes she took of that interview or any report or e mail that was circulated by her within the LP regarding that interview.

5. On 25/1/17 I was interviewed at length by Sam Mathews. I also handed him a 19 page Statement. The Statement I submitted is not included in the bundle nor is his notes of the meeting nor any e mail or report he made internally regarding my interview and Statement.

6. The bundle includes a letter sent by me to Iain McNichol on 24/10/16 but there is no documentation showing how he processed that letter within the Labour Party.

7. In the bundle is a copy of the 100 page CLP Response to the  Labour Party Investigation (co-authored by me)   into Wallasey CLP but there is no documentation showing how this was dealt with once received  either in note or e mail form.

8. On 07/3/17 I was informed by e mail sent by Sam Mathews that I am suspended from Labour Party membership. A copy of this e mail is not included and, more importantly, there is no record by way of note, report or e mail to indicate how or why that decision to suspend was reached or who was notified of that decision within the Labour Party.

I would be grateful if you could both acknowledge receipt of this letter and take immediate steps to send me all the data that was omitted from the bundle sent to me on 01/11/17

Yours sincerely

Paul Davies

cc Sam Mathews

By e mail and post

Wirral In It Together Comment:

All the above once again suggests a characteristic lurch to foul play on the part of controlling members of the Labour NEC.

Iain McNicol and his cohorts remain in situ as the malevolent driving force behind recent anti-democratic expulsions, voting bans, interference in / monitoring of social media accounts, and the general stripping away of the democratic rights of thousands of Corbyn supporting members.

These unsavoury, immoral and potentially criminal actions were perceived widely not just as hostile attempts to impede the left, but as bids to unfairly rig both of Jeremy Corbyn’s hugely successful leadership contests against him by stripping away voting rights by thousands of members and affiliated persons.

But despite the meddling, we can all take heart because the strength of the many against a corrupted few has proven to be unstoppable.  Corbyn was swept home as leader twice on huge groundswells of widespread and fervent grass roots support.  From people who demand change.

So McNicol’s louts have now been pushed firmly onto the backfoot.  His panicked team have also been behind a determined and foolhardy refusal to take action and discipline an out of control clique who’ve been busy committing very clear breaches of the Labour Party’s rule book and trashing its “aims and values”.

This treacherous conduct has been freely engaged in by senior right wing Lords, MPs and prominent party members, whose nonsense allegations are then quickly pounced upon and eagerly weaponised by the right wing, 80% billionaire-owned UK mainstream press and media.  In other words, it’s McNicol’s own right wing icons of party and press before whom he bows and scrapes then gladly falls into line behind when they get active.

Amongst the well-known offenders are long-established party entryists Peter Mandelson, Lord Levy, Frank Field and the once powerful, but now with his corrosive career thankfully behind him, the wing-clipped Anthony Charles Lynton Blair  < click the links for reminders of their attacks.  The bogus subject matter of their bile ranges through anti-Semitism, bullying, intimidation and homophobia.

However, this has been readily and repeatedly exposed as nothing more than “cry wolf” desperation, which upon closer examination predictably pales away to nothing.

Iain McNicol, when justifiably challenged, has illogically defended his right wing colleagues’ offensive behaviour, classing it as party members exercising their right to express an opinion.  The problem is, when left-leaning members proffer their opinions and are instantaneously rounded on, disciplined and / or expelled, then the depth of  the official hypocrisy is on show to all.

Such naked duplicity indicates that there remains a grotesque, Stalinesque heart, still beating strongly and circulating its toxic blood around the diseased NEC body.  And although their days are numbered, this is coupled with a desperate and reactionary desire on the part of these outgoing officials to spitefully wreak havoc on the inside, scorching the earth, before time is eventually called upon them.

Throughout summer 2016, Wallasey right winger Angela Eagle MP, along with her obedient 17 fake “whistleblowers (including our Councillor Paul Stuart)” was prominent in the right wing newspapers, alleging phantom bullying, intimidation and  “homophobic acts” – criminal acts – that were strangely never reported to local police – because they sensed a thick bundle of counter charges labelled, “wasting police time” hurtling its way back towards them.

Soon after came the horribly contrived #Brickgate, with Merseyside Police eventually releasing a factual statement six months later, disproving and finally putting this eagerly-flaunted-by-the-MSM-wet-dream to bed.

So in the fullness of time, the bullying, intimidation & homophobia melted away to nothing.  Yet the NEC hard right clings desperately to power, so Wallasey CLP remain suspended.

With Corbyn’s star in the ascendancy and with dishonest and abusive Labour councillors in Wallasey and Birkenhead now feigning support for Corbyn and masquerading as “lefties” (including our Councillor Paul Stuart) –  under the controlling, whip hand of their Svengali gangmaster Frank Field – we sense here on Wirral that Corbyn and his supporters will have their work cut out, and that mucking out the stables and getting rid of these hard right back-stabbers, self-enrichers and careerists may take a little longer than expected.