High court rules there is no basis to challenge NEC’s decision that Labour leader should automatically be on ballot

Jeremy Corbyn has seen off a legal challenge that tried to force him off the Labour leadership ballot, but the party is facing fresh criticism over its decision to announce the winner on the same day as its main annual event for women.

Corbyn’s place on the ballot was ruled to be secure, after Mr Justice Foskett said in the high court that it was “correct in law” for the incumbent leader to have the automatic right to be a candidate.

The case had been brought by Michael Foster, a former parliamentary candidate and party donor, whose counsel argued that Corbyn should be forced to sign up the required number of nominations in order to stand.

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However, Foskett backed the decision of Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) that the leader did not need the backing of 51 MPs or MEPs when facing a challenge.

The ruling means the contest proceeds as a straight fight between Corbyn, the favourite, and Owen Smith, who has the backing of much of the parliamentary party.

However, the process was dogged by a new controversy on Thursday after it emerged that several senior female Labour MPs are furious that the announcement of the winner has been scheduled for the same day as the annual conference for women in the party.

The Guardian understands both Corbyn and Smith are supporting calls from MPs including Meg Hillier and Harriet Harman for the announcement to be moved to another date, but Iain McNicol, the general secretary, is refusing to budge.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Foster, the Labour donor and former candidate who brought the case. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters

The row comes amid continuing anger from female MPs and activists that the party is at risk of ignoring the importance of encouraging women into politics just as the Conservatives named their second female leader and prime minister.

The NEC ruled earlier this month that the leadership result would be announced at a special conference on Saturday 24 September in Liverpool, the day before the full Labour conference begins. However, senior female MPs have highlighted a clash with the National Women’s Conference, scheduled to take place on the same day with more than 1,000 delegates.

Friends of Harman, who has twice been acting leader of the party, said she is concerned that the women’s conference will be “truncated and overshadowed” if the leadership announcement takes place on the same day.



Hillier, the Labour chair of the public accounts committee and former minister, said: “The women’s conference has been a phenomenal success. It has grown with over 1,000 women members attending and is notable for its constructive discussions and opportunities to network. We shouldn’t have to fight to save this important event.”

It would not be the first time a women’s conference has been shortened to make way for a leadership announcement. Former delegates remember this happened when Ed Miliband beat his brother to the leadership in September 2010.



It did not happen last year when Corbyn won the contest by a landslide because the party organised a separate event in central London.

A Labour spokesperson said the leadership announcement would come before the start of the conference. “The procedures committee was absolutely clear that the timing of the leadership announcement would not affect [the] women’s conference.”

A spokesman for Corbyn said he supported the move to another date while Smith submitted a request to McNicol for the announcement to be postponed.

Corbyn, who was not in court, welcomed the judge’s decision, denouncing the case brought by Foster as “a waste of time and resources when our party should have been holding the government to account”.

He added: “There should have been no question of the right of half a million Labour party members to choose their own leader being overturned. If anything, the aim should be to expand the number of voters in this election. I hope all candidates and supporters will reject any attempt to prolong this process, and that we can now proceed with the election in a comradely and respectful manner.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ed Miliband’s election as Labour leader also happened at same time as women’s conference. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

Smith also welcomed the ruling, saying he was “pleased the court has done the right thing and ruled that Jeremy should be on the ballot”. He added: “This now puts to bed any questions about the process, so we can get on with discussing the issues that really matter.”



Foster said his legal team had told the court they did not plan to appeal against the ruling. “We wanted the courts to adjudicate. They have,” he said.

A ruling against Corbyn would have plunged the party even further into civil war and left MPs with a difficult decision about whether to nominate him to give the membership a choice, even though 172 have said they do not have confidence in the current leadership, with only 40 backing him.

Foskett’s summary judgment said the “natural impression” of a Labour member of the party rules was that, without a leadership vacancy, an incumbent did not need the nominations.



He wrote: “Accordingly, the judge accepted that the decision of the NEC was correct and that Mr Corbyn was entitled to be a candidate in the forthcoming election without the need for nominations.”



After a lengthy discussion on costs, Foskett ruled that Foster must meet those of both opposing legal teams – those of the Labour party, the original defendant, and lawyers for Corbyn, who asked to become a party to the case.



Foskett said that while it was unusual to see two such overlapping sides have separate lawyers, it was “entirely appropriate” for Corbyn to have been represented, especially given the rapid progress of the case. It was, the judge said, “about as unusual a case as can be imagined” for the Queen’s bench division of the high court.

The case hinged on a handful of paragraphs within Labour’s rules, changed under the leadership of Miliband, which state that any challenger against a sitting leader must get nominations from 20% of the party’s MPs or MEPs, currently a minimum of 51.

The difference of opinion came on whether an incumbent leader like Corbyn was required to reach the 20% nomination threshold, or be automatically on any ballot. The NEC decided the latter, which Foster challenged.

But in his full ruling Foskett said examination of the relevant clauses “reveals a natural and ordinary meaning that seems to me to be entirely clear”, one which favoured Corbyn’s position.

“The leader would not, in that situation [where there is no vacancy], be someone who was a ‘challenger’ for the leadership and, accordingly, would require no nominations in order to compete in the ballot to retain his/her position as leader,” he ruled.

Foskett stressed he was ruling on purely a legal point, and that “such political consequences or implications as there may be are of no relevance to the legal analysis asked of the court”.