Part 5

This posting includes, allegations,rumour,observations,anecdote, historical memory/fact and written evidence.

At the Eastbury ward EGM we are told that further statements were read out from a number of ward members who had been visited by Mr Riaz and they too were asked to sign bits of paper, some were asked to sign a paper to support Mr Riaz in his bid to become a councillor.

Several statements told how they were not only visited by Mr Riaz, but, he was accompanied by Laila Butt and Mr Aziz, we are told that evidence was provided to confirm this as the two of them left their business cards. It seems that the approach when visited by the 3 of them was different. Ward members were told that it was believed that members at Eastbury ward were racist and would not put forward any BME candidates to be councillors.

Of course the 3 of them were very selective which of the ward members they visited together.

At the finish Eastbury ward we are told voted to write a letter of complaint to the General Secretary of the Labour Party asking him to investigate these matters. Ward members were pretty confident that this would all be sorted out it is said.

We have been told that meanwhile the Chairman of Eastbury Ward wrote a letter to Ken Clark at London region telling him that he would be raising this matter at the Barking CLP AGM.

Many of our readers and supporters will be very much aware of what happened on that evening, not only were Eastbury ward members banned from entering the building where the AGM was being held, but, so were many union delegates and long term members of the party who only the week before had received a letter inviting them to the AGM.

Ken Clark wrote back to the Eastbury Ward members telling them that as far as he was concerned the AGM had to be re-run and it would be managed by London Region, although we hear he did remove Mr Riaz from the membership list of Eastbury.

Eastbury ward members were not at all happy with the response received from Ken Clark, but to move on they agreed to take part in yet another AGM, where we are told the outcomes were exactly the same as before, other than of course none of the nominations that Eastbury had put forward to Barking CLP were taken into consideration.

We are reliably informed that Rob Chapman had a very uncomfortable evening at the meeting.

Now the complaints from Eastbury Ward members is still ongoing as with all things there is a twist in the tail.

It seems Mr Riaz telephoned one of the ward members to thank him for all of his help in getting rid of the ward secretary and further damaging her prospects of being re-selected as a councillor, we know that this member has made a further written statement on this.

But, this is not the biggest twist in this, now if you go back over the time frame we have laid out for you, and bear in mind that it is alleged that Mr Riaz was a very active party member, working in M Hodge office as a part of her Action Team.

Then why??in early January did Mr Riaz call at the home of the Leader of the Lib Dems in Barking and Dagenham and tell her that he was a very active member of the Lib Dem party in the borough, he had spoken to a senior officer in the parties head office and they had agreed that he would be 1 of the candidates for the Lib Dems in Eastbury ward for the 2010 Local elections.

We are told that the Lib Dem Leader was not at all comfortable with his approach and indeed did check him out with senior party officials who told her, yes Mr Riaz is very active in the borough especially in Eastbury ward and he was just what they needed and wanted as a candidate in the next local elections.

We are told that this information has been passed back to Eastbury members and they have insisted that a further letter be sent to the General Secretary drawing his attention to this and again putting forward their concerns about the data protection act.

Now we are not making any judgements on this further news, it has been passed onto us and we will leave it up to our friends and supporters to make their own judgements, but, just how much of all of this were Laila Butt and Mr Aziz involved in? please bear in mind the relationships between them that we have outlined at the begining.

Also another very important question to be answered - Why? were so many members banned from attending the Barking CLP AGM, despite we are told many of them attending for years in the past, and despite many of the receiving a letter from the CLP Secretary only the week before inviting them to attend.

This post contains allegations,rumour,observations,anecdote,historical memory/fact and lots of written evidence.