 The election was a sham. It should be declared null and void. Where have we heard that before? But far from Donald Trump complaining about the presidential election, this time the claims come from a branch of one of our local political parties. This morning we're talking about the annual general meeting of the Bristol West Constituency Labour Party, which took place last Thursday evening and has been controversial ever since. Kevin Rammage is a Labour member who says the constituency party elections were a shambles and should be declared null and void. Good morning, Kevin. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for coming on the programme. Well, what exactly happened last Thursday? It was the reconvened annual general meeting of Bristol West Labour Party. It was meant to last from seven o'clock till half past eight. As you said, the biggest Labour party in the country over 500 members turned up, and the last ballot papers weren't issued until after half past 11 at night. So people had to wait four and a half, five hours to get their vote. And because of that process, more than 100 people in that meeting did not get to vote. Clearly, a complete unacceptable shambles. There were also other issues with things like people getting ballot papers that had two names beside one box. I mean, it was incredible. And do you think this was a case of the fact that a lot of meetings like this are having to be held virtually these days on Zoom, that they're difficult to organise, that it's quite a logistical challenge? And do you think that the logistics just got in the way and that there were some mistakes made? Or do you actually think this is a bit more sinister than that? Sure, mistakes were made. There were technical difficulties. No one doubts that. But those, you know, that accidents don't happen sometimes for a reason. And the officers of the party in Bristol offered to help the regional Labour Party organise the meeting. But the party in Bristol had been effectively shut down by the region in November for passing a resolution defending Jeremy Corbyn. And as a result, the regional office of the Labour Party refused, point blank, to consult with the officers of the party in Bristol. We had already accumulated previous experience of how to run large Zoom meetings and we could have helped them, but they turned their back on that. And that wasn't an accident. So all the problems that happened on the night were not an accident. They happened for a reason. And the reason was the determination of the officialdom of the Labour Party in Bristol. But their orders come from the top, from the head of the Labour Party, not to listen to the membership on the ground. Do you really think that there was a bit of a conspiracy and this was organised from the top? I've heard you compare it to Myanmar and Belarus. I mean, is Bristol West Labour Party really in that category? Well, let's put it like this. If an election was held in Panama or Myanmar, and 20% of the people who turned up to vote didn't have their votes recorded, if people had ballot papers with two names side by side, and the observers in that meeting were not allowed to see any of the process at any stage and were merely handed the results at the end to acknowledge them, the UN observers would say, this was not a valid election. And exactly the same kind of process has happened in Bristol West. So quite simply saying that the result should be declared, it clearly wasn't satisfactory, it should be declared void. The existing officers should be given back the opportunity to run the party and rearrange annual general meeting as we were preparing to do in November, as we were perfectly capable of doing, and suspended members of the party in Bristol who still haven't had proper hearings should be re-admitted to the party so they can get on with doing their job, which is all of our job, which is fighting this rotten Tory government and looking after the interests of working class people, rather than being shut down by bureaucratic officials at the top of the party. But Kevin, just thinking about the bigger picture, presumably the Labour Party wants to get back into power. And the only way you're going to do that is by persuading people who voted conservative or for other parties last time to vote Labour again. And those kind of voters might be listening this morning thinking, hang on, why are the Labour Party just fighting among themselves again? Well, quite. I mean, you know, we didn't suspend members in Bristol, it was the National Party. It's that we want to fight the Tories, working class people want the Labour Party to be fighting the Tories, you know, dealing with the problems of low pay, dealing with the problems of people who live in insecure housing and things like that. But it's the National Leadership of the Party that's determined to conduct a one-sided civil war. It wasn't the left that suspended Jeremy Corbyn, it wasn't the left that suspended the officers of Bristol West Labour Party and cancelled our annual General Meeting in November. So any responsibility for the Labour Party not fighting the Tories lies squarely on the shoulders of the leadership of the party, which includes Keir Starmer. And it's time they changed course, which is why we're also calling for a recall conference to give members the chance to really break the log jam and determine a better way forward for the Labour Party than where we are at the moment. I suppose Keir Starmer and his supporters would say the changing course back to kind of a Jeremy Corbyn-style politics isn't best advised because Jeremy Corbyn did lose two general elections. Well, let's remember we came with a shade of winning one in 2017 on the most radical transformative programme on unemployment, on housing, health and the environment that the Labour Party stood for many years. And in 2019, the election campaign, frankly, was jeopardised by a whole string of right-wing ex-Labour MPs stabbing the party in the back, setting up some gimmick party called Change UK and things like that. So there's very good reasons why that's happening. But let's remember Keir Starmer was elected as the man who could win Labour back into power. And now, after nine, 10 months of the Tories' incompetent handling of the Covid crisis, lining the pockets of their big business chums' pockets. After all that time, Labour is languishing behind the Tories in the opinion polls. So it's not the responsibility and fault of the rank and final of the party, of the socialist left of the party, that Labour may not be winning in the opinion polls. It lies on the shoulders of the leadership. Just finally, Kevin, I understand some members of Bristol West Labour Party are so unhappy about this. They're considering not campaigning for local Labour candidates in the city council elections in Bristol in May. Is that true? I don't know. If anyone's saying that, I think it's a mistake. But I will fully understand if party members decide where they spend their time and effort working for candidates who they feel represent the interests of working-class people. People voluntarily give their time to work for a party in an election. I think they're entirely entitled to decide where they put that time in. Kevin, thank you for your time this morning. Labour Party member Kevin Rammage, who says the Bristol West constituency annual general meeting elections need to be rerun. A Labour Party spokesperson said this. It is important that all Labour meetings are inclusive and conducted in line with our rules, and we will always ensure any concerns raised are properly addressed. It is. Just gone quarter to nine on Tuesday morning, the 16th of February.