Legal Action Against The Labour Party
Exeter Labour Briefing, the forerunner of Devon Labour Briefing, began publication in the autumn of 1983. The leadership of Exeter Labour Party almost immediately took disciplinary against the publication on the grounds that the magazine might be confused with an Exeter Labour Party publication. The dispute was temporarily resolved with the magazine being renamed Devon Labour Briefing, following the intervention of Tony Benn MP, a member of the National Executive Committee.
In 1985, the leadership resumed disciplinary action against the editors of the magazine on the grounds that the magazine was ‘prejudicial to interests of the Party.’ The leadership interrogated five writers and three were recommended for expulsion from the Labour Party. Before the Management Committee of Exeter Labour Party could decide the issue, the three obtained a High Court injunction stopping the expulsion process as the whole expulsion process seriously breached the rules of natural justice. After initially stating that they would contest the action, the Labour Party withdrew from the case making them liable for court costs.
In 1987, Exeter Labour Party again began disciplinary action against one person involved with the magazine through the newly formed Labour Party National Constitutional Committee. After a day-long hearing in Exeter the contributor concerned received a formal warning but was not expelled.
Read more about this topic: Devon Labour Briefing
Famous quotes containing the words labour party, legal, action, labour and/or party:
“I know that the right kind of leader for the Labour Party is a kind of desiccated calculating machine.”
—Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960)
“In ‘70 he married again, and I having, voluntarily, assumed the legal guilt of breaking my marriage contract, do cheerfully accept the legal penalty—a life of celibacy—bringing no charge against him who was my husband, save that he was not much better than the average man.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)
“The highest proof of civility is that the whole public action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the greatest number.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“By this also ye must know that women have dominion over you: do ye not labour and toil, and give and bring all to the woman? Yea, a man taketh his sword, and goeth his way to rob and to steal, to sail upon the sea and upon rivers, and looketh upon a lion, and goeth in the darkness; and when he hath stolen, spoiled, and robbed, he bringeth it to his love.”
—Apocrypha. Zorobabel, in Esdras I 4:22-24.
“A baby changes your dinner party conversation from politics to poops.”
—Maurice Johnstone (20th century)