The Labour Party NEC won their appeal for the right to define “precise eligibility” and a “freeze date”. The ruling is here…. To take some emotion out if it, I think they are right in that the NEC has the right to define precise eligibility and a freeze date. However, given the statement on the new membership web page that new members would be allowed to vote in the Leadership election, I can’t see how it is anything other than arbitrary, capricious, perverse and irrational to exclude 25% of the membership, who have been promised a vote from voting for the leadership. The Court of Appeal stated that,
We consider that a power constrained by requirements of absence of arbitrariness, capriciousness, perversity and irrationality is extremely unlikely to produce an unreasonable result.
and yet it did and they, the Judges, let it happen. I see no mention of the promise to permit the vote or why, since it must have been authorised by the NEC or through its delegated powers, they are allowed to use their powers, under the rules, to revoke a previously made promise.