Disheartened Labour Chair quits over party’s handling of sexism and bullying complaints

THE Chair of Warrington North Constituency Labour Party, Marc Rufus, has quit his position over the party’s handling of complaints he made against a member he claims destroyed a functioning branch, pushing out female members with his “sexist attitude.”

In an email to party officials he resigned as Chair of Warrington North CLP with immediate effect last week as well as being an observer to the Labour group.

He wrote: “I am completely disheartened with the party’s handling of complaints I have raised over the actions of a certain member who has single handedly destroyed a functioning branch, actively engaged in campaigning against the party, pushed out active female members due to his sexist attitude and spread lies and misinformation about his local councillor due to a personal dislike of them. I know my complaints are not alone about this issue and yet over a year and nothing from region or the national party, not even an acknowledgement that there has been an issue. It’s been left up to unpaid volunteers like myself to deal with, with absolutely no help.

“As you know when I became chair the CLP was in special measures for failing to in-act a LGC as required due to people having their own agenda against more scrutiny from a body like the LGC amongst other things. I was part of the exec that has now corrected that and we have a functioning LGC but none of this was done with any training or direction except on the structure required of the LGC.
“This lack of direction has come to a head this week where due to our CLP not having an experienced team and no training structure in place for new role holders we have been unable to send our elected delegate to national conference.
“Denying members the chance to have their motion spoken on. This is especially sour because we as a CLP have not been able to get a motion to conference for many years due to various issues but it really was a feather in our cap to achieve that this year and a testament to how far this exec and past members have come.
“These two points leave me feeling that as volunteers the party expects a lot from its role holders without the same expectation of its paid staff to support them.
“This has nothing to do with my feelings on policy, my belief that this great town would suffer unimaginable consequences should the current opposition ever get control over it or my desire to see this horrendous conservative government ousted at the earliest opportunity. It is squarely a decision made on the structure and procedures of the party itself in looking after its members and dealing with serious complaints especially of poor behaviour towards female members and I hope this might bring about some actual action taken to address the complaints process especially when sexism and bullying has been alleged.”

Commenting later on his decision Marc said: “The CLP has worked tirelessly in the face of extreme challenges such as COVID to empower people to be part of labour in our town.
It hasn’t always been a harmonious Labour movement in Warrington. That is why the LGC or LGF as it was then, never got off the ground and the CLP found itself in special measures.
It was this way when I became chair and we set about correcting that as a matter of urgency and have achieved it with the hard work of all the volunteers who sit on the exec in the CLP and I thank them all for their support over the last years but there has always been, as there always is in politics, an element working to undermine your efforts but when these efforts are clearly obvious and highlighted at a regional and national level, for them to be ignored compounds the undermining and really leaves you with no choice other than to step back and not let it impact on your family life as these things have a habit of doing. Especially when these efforts cause a branch to become non functional because it is so toxic people do not want to be involved. My belief in Labour and the fact a conservative majority in our great town would be catastrophic for the most vulnerable here is unwavering and I will still work just as tirelessly to keep Warrington a Labour town because just looking at the issues facing our country from the miss management of this Tory government shows how badly our town will suffer. If being the lowest projected growth in the g7 while still running such a high rate of inflation doesn’t scare people enough then the broken promises of a new hospital by our MP in the south of the town needs to ring long and hard in minds. Though I can no longer work with the same gusto in a role with no support to rid the party of people who clearly have a different agenda to it and are happy to make women cry in meetings just so they get their own way. All hard work should be supported especially when it’s done unpaid and that includes when things go wrong and to deny this CLP its delegate at conference on a technicality is a punishment I am not able to work through in this role. Again I will be forever grateful to those that put their support in me and I hope I did them proud in the time I’ve had the role. I wish whoever the CLP chooses next the best of luck and my support.”
Senior Labour members and Labour North West were approached for comment.