Labour disqualifies over 130 members as Ukip’s suspension tally hits 14 Parliamentary candidates and 19 councillors

The Guardian reports:

More than 130 new members of the Halifax Labour party have been disqualified from voting for the party’s general election candidate after suspicions were raised about their recruitment.

All but seven of the disqualified members are of Asian heritage, and joined six to 12 months ago in the same multicultural ward of Halifax, according to Linda Riordan, the outgoing MP, who resigned at the end of February.

Fifty have appealed against their disqualification, according to a local party source.

Riordan has demanded the new members be allowed to vote in hustings on Saturday to choose the new parliamentary candidate after national party bosses decided to disqualify them…

Earlier this week, it emerged Riordan had complained to Labour HQ, alleging Keith Vaz, another Labour MP, was trying to interfere with the selection.

There was further controversy when Karie Murphy, the candidate favoured by the union Unite, failed to make the shortlist. Murphy, a former nurse from Glasgow and parliamentary assistant to Labour MP Tom Watson, was embroiled in a vote-rigging scandal over the parliamentary selection process in Falkirk in 2013.

Meanwhile The Independent has been trying to tally up Ukip’s suspensions of its own members:

Since 2010 the party’s “zero tolerance” of wrongdoing has led to the suspensions of dozens of key figures, including at least 19 councillors, 14 parliamentary candidates, one national secretary, its youth leader, one spokesperson, the Ukip Scotland Chair, an entire local branch, three MEPs and a local committee.