Europhile ‘Sir’ Jeremy Beacham, a leading Labour Party figure in local government in the north of England, denied on BBC 2 Television’s Newsnight on 24.11.2006 that his party had done anything wrong in changing its rules about levies from its local councillors.

Beacham has been instrumental in promoting ‘regional’ assemblies in England based on boundaries drawn up by the EU (which seeks to divide England up into small statelets which it would find easier to boss about).Beacham is a close ally of the ridiculous Prescott, the failed Deputy Prime Minister in the Blair regime, who was stripped of most of his Governmental powers after poor results for Labour in the May 2006 local elections. Beacham and Prescott – both keen supporters of the EU – worked for years on pushing the EU Committee of the Regions ‘Break up England’ policy inside the Labour Party when it was in opposition.

Labour Party spokesmen maintained that money from Labour councillors had been given to support its “local group activities”. However the Conservatives said that a leaked memo allegedly showed that funds donated by Labour Party councillors from their allowances had been sent to the headquarters of the Labour Party rather than go on events organised by local branches of the Labour Party.

The Labour Party is heavily in debt and has had to get rid of staff in recent months. Information was leaked from a recent meeting the Labour Party National Executive Committee showing that Labour membership was down to 188, 000. When Blair got elected as Prime Minister in May 1997, Labour claimed to have 408, 000 members. There is no suggestion in this report that Beacham or any other Labour Party members have done anything illegal or wrong.
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Private Eye a few weeks ago (ie in December or early Jan, I think) carried a brief item saying that a Labour councillor in the North of England had been summoned to a party disciplinary hearing for refusing on principle to pay this percentage of his allowance to Labour HQ.

I'd be interested to know: IF it is true that Labour are forcing all their local councillors to hand over a percentage from their allowances to help fund head office, is that illegal or not?
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