Ex Welsh Labour MP accuses party of stitching him up and parachuting in a new candidate from London

Martin Shipton

A long-serving former Welsh Labour MP was disqualified from standing for re-election because of delays in a complaints process overseen by a party official who was later ‘parachuted’ into a safe seat in Wales himself.

Geraint Davies represented Swansea West from 2010 to 2024, and before that Croydon Central from 1997 to 2005. He has spoken exclusively to Nation.Cymru about the way he was treated.

Mr Davies was unable to seek re-election in Swansea in 2024 because of lengthy delays in investigating allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards women which he denied. The allegations, which did not involve criminal conduct, were due to be considered by an independent panel.

But when a general election held in July 2024 was called by then Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, no panel hearing had been convened during the previous year of his suspension, nor in the fortnight before candidate nominations closed, so his case remained unresolved and Mr Davies was barred from standing again as the Swansea West Labour candidate.

He later resigned from the party in frustration at what he considered to be an unfair and unjust process overseen by Labour’s then executive legal director, Alex Barros-Curtis.

Mr Barros-Curtis, a close associate of Keir Starmer who in 2020 was the director of a company set up to back the future PM’s leadership bid, was later one of two Labour candidates with no connection to south Wales parachuted into vacant seats where local party members were excluded from involvement in their selection.

Torsten Bell, now Pensions Minister, was imposed on the local party in Swansea West, while Mr Barros-Curtis was gifted Cardiff West, whose previous MP Kevin Brennan was later given a seat in the House of Lords.

Mr Davies said: “On June 1 2023, I was suspended from the Labour Party on the day anonymous uncorroborated allegations that I denied were posted about me on a political website and repeated across the media. I was suspended early that morning on the basis of a complaint apparently based on those allegations.

“Shockingly, I was never provided with a copy of that complaint, despite asking the party for it many times. On every occasion I was either refused or ignored.

“No allegation that has been posted in the media has ever materialised into a complaint. I was essentially put on a political death row by the Labour Party.

“The date of the complaint and my suspension is highly significant. It was the week before I was due to be confirmed as the Swansea West Parliamentary candidate by the Welsh Labour Party, having served as the MP for 13 years, following boundary changes.

“The suspension banned me from engaging with the local Swansea West party. This cut my ties with the network of people I had worked and socialised with as their MP over those years.

“I was gagged by the party from commenting in the media and told that if I did it would be used against me in the disciplinary inquiry.

“I was not able to say anything, resulting in speculation and gossip filling the vacuum locally and nationally. Consequently, I have been subjected to a witch hunt and trial by the media based on hearsay, while the party, for its part, apparently trawled for further complainants to make allegations against me. Understandably, this has had a serious impact on my mental wellbeing and that of my family.

“It is very significant that no complaint was or has ever been made to the Parliamentary authorities, whose complaints system operates free from party political considerations (and operates whether an MP has left parliament or their party). It is difficult not to conclude that the objective was not to get to the truth of the allegation in an independent forum, but to ensure that I did not stand for re-election, thus leaving the constituency open for another Labour candidate.

“I should add that I never faced any complaint by the whips in my 22 years as an MP.“

The Forde Report

Mr Davies said “The Forde Report, by Martin Forde KC, agreed by the Labour Party, recommended that people facing complaints should only wait up to six weeks to be told what they are. But I was kept waiting 23 weeks for my original complaints and left 18 months without a hearing.

He said: “I was told that my suspension meant that I should stay away from Parliament, or the party would fall on me ‘like a ton of bricks’. I complied with that instruction for nearly six months until I felt obliged to raise in the Commons a ‘life and death’ issue for a constituent trapped in Gaza. The consequence, or surprising coincidence, was that I was then told my complaints would be provided on the following day.

“It was only when I received the two complaints that I discovered that they did not relate to the hearsay allegations posted online 23 weeks earlier that I had been told were the basis for my suspension.

“In fact, the complaints were made ‘in support of other women’ in the belief that the hearsay media coverage was true. The fact is that none of the media allegations which the complainants wished to support ever materialised into complaints.

“The two complaints were seeking to support allegations about the interpretation of two events that had happened over the previous six years. The two people involved in those two events had not reported them to the Parliamentary authorities. I believed that the women involved in the two events were acting in good faith and I was keen for a hearing to clear my name and to explain any possible misunderstanding.

“I responded to the details of the complaints within two weeks of having been given them. I was keen to have a hearing without delay. However, the Labour Party had other plans. A further six months elapsed so I had been denied a hearing to clear my name for nearly a year.

“In that time, I was regularly told by the whips that I could end the ‘investigation’ by resigning from the party and giving up my seat for another candidate. I refused to resign as I had done nothing wrong.

“I was confident, and naturally assumed that the party would ensure that a fair hearing would take place before the election. I was wrong on both counts.

“Then, the Labour Party suspended my office manager, Councillor Rob James [also the then Labour group leader on Carmarthenshire County Council] . Since my suspension he had already been blocked from the Carmarthen parliamentary candidacy, allowing another candidate to be parachuted in from London.

“He was suspended for accessing the electoral register via a Labour interface after I was suspended. Had Rob said I told him to do so, it would have provided an excuse for the party to delay my case still further. The charge was dismissed. However, the party withheld this information for four months, so Rob resigned saying: ‘The mental impact during the last 20 weeks has been tremendous.’

“On May 22 Rishi Sunak called the general election. All the evidence had been submitted for a hearing and the Labour Party could have held it in the two weeks before the closure of candidate nominations on June 7, but on May 23 they refused.

“In consequence, I was timed out from being the Swansea West candidate, since an MP suspended by the Labour Party cannot be its candidate. This was because of the wholly unjustifiable delay of nearly a year in gross breach of the Labour Party’s rules, and the party’s refusal to put matters right by holding a hearing in the interval between the declaration of the election and the closing date to be a parliamentary candidate. As a result, I could not be re-elected as the Labour MP.

“I had been timed out of candidacy and the Labour official administering my case, Alex Barros Curtis, became Labour’s Cardiff West parliamentary candidate as Torsten Bell became the new Swansea West candidate. Both were London-based.

“To make matters worse, I was told that my hearing would happen without delay after the July 4 election.

“Yet a week after the election I’d heard nothing so I asked when the hearing was. On July 15 I was shocked to be told that an extra complaint had been lodged during the election after I was no longer an MP. This, I was told, would delay the process for further months.

“I then faced the prospect of a never-ending investigation. I had been told I could resign to end the long and painful inquiry process. Indeed, there was little point in continuing, as my job as MP had been taken away.

“However, as I had done nothing wrong and wanted to clear my name, I asked for details of the ‘new’ complaint.

“I was made to wait seven weeks after the complaint was lodged before I received a copy of it. I was astounded to find that the complaint which I denied was from a person who had a clear vested interest in the Labour Party finding against me. I say this because they were a senior Labour Party official who had had responsibility for organising parliamentary selections.

Allegations

“This third complainant alleged that another person who I will refer to as X had made certain allegations. However, X gave a statement that the allegations were false, and he hadn’t made them. Tellingly, the fact that the complainant had been proven to be unreliable, having put forward false and refuted testimony, did not prevent the Labour Party from insisting on pursuing their official’s own uncorroborated allegation.

“It became clear to me then that I had no prospect of a fair hearing. The process is as the legal team to Nick Brown MP (the former Chief Whip under four Labour leaders), advised him ‘fundamentally and inexcusably flawed’ and ‘grotesquely unfit for purpose, and open to flagrant abuse’.

“I had served as a Labour MP for 22 years, a councillor and council leader for 11 years, stood nine times as a Parliamentary candidate, and had waited 18 months to prove my innocence only to find I could not expect a fair hearing.

“I was subjected to a witch hunt and trial by the media, then put on a political death row by the Labour Party. I had been unfairly de-selected by the Labour Party and denied a fair hearing to prove it.

“I waited for months after ceasing to be an MP to prove my innocence, but completely lost my trust and confidence in the Labour Party to deliver justice and fairness in its complaints process. I therefore resigned from the charade.

“As these issues continue to affect me and others it is important that I explain the circumstances that led to my resignation after over 40 years of Labour membership in the hope that others won’t be so unfairly treated in the future, but instead will have a fair and timely process consistent with the principles of due process and natural justice.

“I had still hoped that the Labour government would deliver the values I had spent my adult life supporting and that blocking candidates and cronyism would cease. However, the election results across Wales, Scotland and England underline that Labour has not delivered that and for the party to regain trust it must return to its traditional values of justice and fairness, not just in its public policy, but also in its complaints procedure and candidate selections.”