Labour bans union activist

London bus driver and Unite branch secretary Joanne Harris has been barred membership of the Labour Party for five years.

Joanne applied to rejoin Labour after supporting Jeremy Corbyn’s election campaign and his committment to leading an anti-austerity party.

However, the Labour Party’s ‘star chamber’ membership department said that because she had stood as a Trade Unionist and Socialist Coaltion candidate in 2014 against her local cuts-implementing Labour council in west London, she would be excluded until after the next general election.

Joanne has appealed to Jeremy Corbyn to overturn the ban and support “reinstating my membership to the party as I am a loyal left supporter of Labour. As far as I am concerned I never left the party, they left me.”