Corruption kills – Election 2017, Labour and Grenfell

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I stood as an independent candidate in the June 2017 election in the constituency of Hastings and Rye. I thought long and hard about the decision because I have always been a Labour supporter and was a member of the Labour party. Through friends that have direct contact with Corbyn’s office I requested a conversation about my decision – how would it affect the Labour vote, what would be the chances of me standing as a Labour candidate etc. As usual in all my attempts to engage with Labour, I was ignored. For years I have sought Labour’s help with the massive HSBC fraud I am working on. The only support I have received has been from Jesse Norman, Tory, and George Kerevan, SNP, both of whom sat on the Treasury Select Committee. John Mann did too, but he blocked me on Twitter. Since the main thrust of my campaign was corruption, and since there was nothing in the Labour manifesto on the subject I decided to go ahead and stand as an independent.

It was clear immediately that I had become a hate figure for some on the left because I apparenly “split” the Labour vote*. Anyone that voted for me was not a Labour supporter, they didn’t win because they didn’t get enough votes. That’s democracy. People who insult me know nothing of my background and the work I have done for 14 years, which is actually about seeking compensation for people who were defrauded, with no personal gain to myself.

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I am currently on benefits and as a whistleblower am unemployable. I have had no end of abuse which still continues.

Screen Shot 2017-06-18 at 11.32.01 Bexhill & Battle CLP followed this up with a completely libelous statement. What happened was I had retweeted an article from a newspaper (I forget which one) about the new Labour MP for Kensington & Chelsea Emma Dent Coad, which I deleted when I learned it was misleading (although not inaccurate). I have never accused her of corruption as stated here:

DCrMwnlXoAAt5hv.jpg_largeIn the event, Amber Rudd handed me a gift by shutting down my speech at a hustings in Rye when I mentioned HSBC, the great taboo subject for the media and MPs. The video of the censorship immediately went viral and by the time of the second hustings in Hastings, had been seen by over 3m on the internet. The other candidates came nowhere close to damaging Amber Rudd’s election chances in the way I had, which flowed directly from my campaign against corruption. This has probably destroyed Rudd’s chance of becoming prime minister any time soon, and contributed to making Hastings a marginal seat (I don’t claim all credit for that, Labour ran a successful campaign).

Then Grenfell Tower happened. The Grenfell Tower tragedy is exactly the result of the kind of corruption I am fighting. In making a comparison with my HSBC fight I am not of course equating them. I have always said, given my experiences, that it is unwise to blow the whistle in financial matters, which at the end of the day is about money; but that you should always do so in cases of life and death. I have been trying to blow the whistle on the HSBC fraud for 14 years. I have made some small progress as HSBC agreed to repay £4m (out of £80-100m) in January this year.

The Grenfell Tower residents association were not so lucky. For years they had lobbied the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to take their concerns about fire safety seriously. They were either ignored or threatened with legal action. And now campaigners Mariem Elgwahry and Nadia Choucair are presumed dead. But the fact remains,  if there had been a builder working on the building that knew the cladding was unsafe and a fire risk, the chances are s/he would never have reported it for fear of being dismissed and blacklisted, thus destroying their career in the construction industry for years to come.

Thousands of construction workers were awarded millions of pounds compensation in the High Court for such blacklisting practices, but the scandal continues with the recent revelations that Unite, the union, were also involved in the blacklisting. Whistleblower Alan Wainwright, who I know, lost his career and his home for trying to expose the corruption, and in the course of his campaigning, like me, pleaded with Labour MPs to help his cause. Like me, he was ignored. Unite is Labour’s biggest donor and apart from unions their second biggest single donor is HSBC auditors PwC.  Labour have stated in their manifesto that they would hold an inquiry and put an end to blacklisting.

Corruption kills, and I will not end my campaign because the issue is far more important than party politics.

*at the 2019 election, Hastings elected racist Tory Sally-Ann Hart, with bigger majority than Amber Rudd’s in 2015.