Michael Foster wants high court to assess party’s decision to allow Jeremy Corbyn on to ballot paper in contest

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A Labour donor is to mount a legal challenge against the party’s national executive committee decision to automatically nominate Jeremy Corbyn in the forthcoming leadership contest.

Michael Foster, a former parliamentary candidate, will lodge the application at the high court on Thursday afternoon.

“The issue raised by my application to the court is the proper interpretation of the rules of the party,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, saying that Corbyn being automatically on the ballot paper for the leadership election was “essentially a legal issue”.

The party’s NEC heard three contradicting pieces of legal advice on Tuesday night, including from Michael Mansfield QC, which found only challengers needed nominations, and another from James Goudie QC which found all candidates should seek nominations from MPs.

“There were three bits of legal advice from QCs, all of which were contrarian [sic] and none of the people in the room were unbiased in the view of that advice,” Foster said.

“All I am saying is that the advice that was taken was not given the expert consideration it would receive by a high court judge. Everyone in the room had a different political agenda.”

Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader said Foster’s move was unwelcome: “This legal challenge is very unhelpful and destabilising to the Labour party. The NEC made a decision. They ruled that Jeremy Corbyn is automatically on the ballot paper. We must respect that decision and give our members a choice of candidates as soon as possible.”

Foster said he did not vote for Corbyn in the last leadership election but said the rules should not be bent to a particular political circumstance, and should be arbitrated by a neutral body.

“I did not vote for Jeremy when he stood, but this is not about politics, and at the present time I, too, think that Jeremy should have a right to be on the ballot but not an automatic right,” he said.

The case will be adjudicated in days, not weeks, if the high court decides to hear the arguments, Foster said.

Foster, a former showbiz agent who has given more than £400,000 to the party since 2010, came to prominence during the last Labour party conference, after he confronted Corbyn at a Labour Friends of Israel reception, angered the Labour leader had not mentioned the word “Israel” in his address to the meeting.

“Say the word ‘Israel’,” he shouted at Corbyn, who is a longstanding pro-Palestinian campaigner.