Ex-MP denounces ‘corruption and criminal behaviour’ in Starmer leadership project

Martin Shipton

Former Welsh Labour MP Beth Winter has spoken of the “corruption and criminal behaviour” she believes was behind her party’s lurch to the right under Keir Starmer, and of how it led to the wretched time she had in Parliament.

Ms Winter, who represented Cynon Valley from 2019 until 2024, was speaking at the Welsh launch of The Fraud, a book written by investigative journalist Paul Holden about what he sees as the conspiracy that secured the Labour leadership for Keir Starmer.

She told around 70 people in Cardiff’s Temple of Peace: “Prior to being elected, my experience of the political establishment was fairly small. I only joined the Labour Party in 2016 because of Jeremy [Corbyn] and John [McDonnell] and the Corbyn project, so I hadn’t grown up in that political institution. So it was very alien to me.

“When I was elected to Parliament, it was the biggest privilege of anybody’s life to be voted by people from within your own community to speak with and for them in those corridors of power. But it was also a huge shock to the system.

“I’ve spoken a lot about the sense of entitlement and the archaic procedures, and the way in which the buildings themselves intimidate you. But what I wasn’t ready for was the behaviour – and what I know now was part of a project to not only decimate the left of the Labour Party, but also force the break-up of our democracy as we know it.

“Having read the book there is clear, in my view, corruption and criminal behaviour that has led to where we are now.

“Here are just a couple of examples. The first one will stay with me forever. I think it was my first day up in Parliament. We had a Parliamentary Labour Party meeting in the infamous committee room 14, and it was absolutely packed out. Those of us who were new obviously were very nervous and very much in awe of the surroundings.

“Then the front bench came in and all hell broke loose. I remember Wes Streeting [now the Health Secretary] standing up, pointing fingers, shouting and jeering at Jeremy and others. A lot of the Welsh MPs were banging tables, stamping their feet, cutting across people. The behaviour in any other work environment would result in disciplinary [action] or immediate dismissal from your position. And I just thought, what the hell have I let myself in for, if this is how people in elected positions, the biggest privilege of anybody’s life, is behaving. It was absolutely disgraceful.

“I went back to the hotel and I wept. I really did because I just thought, you’ve been with lots of these people, and their behaviour was just appalling. And that continued.

“That was the first day. And when I raised it within the Labour Party, I was told that was tame compared to what it was like before the election. So this is the sort of behaviour and normal way of acting in these corridors of power and in particular, I would say … by a particular arm of the Labour Party, which I now know is the Labour Together project, which morphed into the Starmer project. They knew what they were doing and that machine was clearly well-established at that point.”

Toe the line

Ms Winter said that in the initial period of her time in Parliament there were attempts by the new leadership of the Labour Party [under Starmer] to get her to toe the line: “People were being friendly and saying vote in a way that the leadership wants. Starmer, when he was standing for the leadership, was saying whatever people wanted to hear, quite frankly. But he’s done away with all those policies and has complicity in the Gaza genocide. For anybody who was in the Labour Party, if that isn’t a red line, I don’t know what could be.

“It’s absolutely heartbreaking what’s unfolding there and this government is part of the reason for what continues to unfold.”

The former MP said she didn’t think she had ever swayed from her socialist principles. When it became apparent that she wasn’t going to toe the line because of those principles, bullying and personal attacks “began and endured”.

Ms Winter said: “I’ve lost count of the number of times that I broke the whip. It’s not something that you do lightly. It is something that is very considered. We’d have long discussions, both in the Socialist Campaign group and with people across the party on those decisions that were made, because we’re very serious as politicians and as socialists. We weren’t going to waver from the platform on which we were elected.”

Selection battle

She went on to raise serious concerns about the selection battle she lost before the 2024 general election against right wing Labour MP Gerald Jones at a time when they had to compete against each other because of the reduction in the number of Welsh seats.

Ms Winter said: “The process was clearly unfair and undemocratic. The worst part was using Anonyvoter, which is the online voting system that [the then Labour Party General Secretary David Evans] got his friends without tender to develop. There is evidence that the system is open to manipulation and has been played with to get rid of left wing candidates.

“Around 40 or 50 MPs, either during the selection process or like myself, sitting MPs have lost their seats or have not been selected because of that system, and that system is still being used. [Former left-wing Labour MP] Sam Tarry and I threatened legal action, and Sam and I made it clear that the Anonyvoter system is why we are in the position that we are now.

“The third part was just being totally shunned and ignored. You’d be walking around all day on your own and they would just ignore you completely, which is probably the hardest part in many ways.”

Praising Holden’s book and addressing him, Ms Winter said: “I’d be interested to see if you can contribute anything in terms of the potential for the future. Is this salvageable in any shape or form? Because having been up there for a few years and experienced that bubble, which is completely undemocratic, completely ivory tower where there’s this sense of entitlement among the people who are there, my own feeling at the moment is that much more can be done outside of that bubble than in it. But people are being disenfranchised and the masses of people are not aware of the reality of what is going on, which is why your book and events like these are so essential.”

 The Fraud by Paul Holden is published by OR Books at £20.