LABOUR is facing a crisis over parliamentary selections amid evidence of vote-rigging in at least one key constituency.

Veteran investigative journalist Michael Crick has exposed details of tampering with online voting in the selection of a candidate in Croydon East, a new seat certain to be won by Labour.

Mr Crick’s probe has found evidence of members and ex-members being registered to vote online without their knowledge and of systematic falsification of addresses. 

The Labour Party has paused the selection process and is investigating.

Mr Crick wrote that “there are suggestions that this could be part of a much wider campaign that involves senior party figures, a systematic programme of data protection offences and interference in Labour’s supposedly democratic procedures.”

The Labour apparatus has worked overtime to ensure that only candidates favoured by Starmer are chosen in winnable seats, usually by refusing to shortlist popular left candidates. However, vote-rigging would take the fixing to a whole new level.

Other selections where there was a huge discrepancy between in-person and online votes include the revised Merthyr seat in Wales, where sitting left MP Beth Winter was deselected and Sam Tarry’s Ilford South seat.