Pat Rafferty, the top Scottish official in Unite the Union - Labour's biggest donor - has written to UK party general secretary Iain McNicol about the ballot process.
A press release containing his letter has just been circulated. Here it is:
“As you know, the
trade unions and affiliated organisations will play a vital role in the
election of the new leader and deputy for Scotland. So you can imagine my
surprise when I looked at the candidate election booklet to find that my
unions’ nomination, along with all the other trade unions had been omitted from
the publicity material. This strikes me as a gross error of judgement.”
The letter goes on to say:
“To intentionally or
otherwise exclude the nominations of the trades unions feels disrespectful to
all trade union members in Scotland and the role they will play in rejuvenating
the party here.”
“It’s extremely disappointing that as an integral part of
the Labour Party our nominations have been excluded from the publicity material
for the elections sent to all members. We are urgently seeking clarification
from the Labour Party to find out why this has happened and if needs be will
join other unions and affiliated organisations in making a formal complaint."
"Unless the party deals with this situation urgently then
they will stand accused of trying to skew this election for their favoured
candidates.”
