Labour at a Crossroads: Cancel party conference, or reverse boycott of G4S?

With lack of accessibility to G4S, Labour was forced to source its own security - yet that proved to be a challenge.

Britain's leader of the opposition Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn (photo credit: REUTERS)
Britain's leader of the opposition Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn
(photo credit: REUTERS)
The UK's Labour party may have to cancel an already planned party conference, unless it decides to override its call for a boycott of international security firm G4S, the Telegraph reported Wednesday.
Leaked emails to Iain McNicol, the party's general secretary, revealed that the Labour chose to end its relationship with G4S due to the security company's links to Israeli prisons.
With lack of accessibility to G4S, Labour was forced to source its own security. Yet that proved to be a challenge - and the party now finds its self at a crossroads where it must choose to either cancel the long-anticipated event or reverse the boycott of the security company.
Labour MP John Woodcock referred to the boycott of G4S as an "example of the ideologically purist leader's team creating havoc for ordinary party members with their selectively and susceptly applied principles."
"They are imposing this decision, made from their bunker in central London, on party members just at a time when the threat levels to non-Corbyn supporters are increased because of harassment.
"They have managed to screw up even the most basic and decent thing as providing security for us and risk making Labour a laughing stock."
A Labour Party spokesperson said:  “We don’t comment on commercial arrangements.”