Norfolk Labour website tells people not to vote for party

A disgruntled former party member, who used to manage the site, has edited the homepage of midnorfolklabour.com to criticise the party and its leader Keir Starmer.

Because they do not have the necessary log-ins to edit the site, current members of the local party are not able to remove the message.

The site now reads: “THIS SITE LIKE THE REST OF LABOUR IS NOT WORKING ANYMORE.

“VOTE GREEN PARTY THE LABOUR PARTY UNDER STARMER IS FINISHED - he lied to get elected leader and backtracking (sic) on all the pledges he gave at the time. He can’t be trusted any more than Johnson can.”

Michael Rosen, chair of the mid-Norfolk Labour party said: “This site is currently under the control of somebody who’s not a member of the Labour party anymore.

“We are working to get this [domain] name back in the control of the Labour party. We will be setting up our own mid-Norfolk Labour party site once we’ve done that. What we don’t want is two sites that confuse people.”

“We’ll have to see what happens with this particular domain - we can’t get control because the former member concerned owns it.”

He said the former member was one among “a number of people” who have recently chosen to leave the party.

Mr Rosen said he had become aware of the website’s message “last week”.

“It hasn’t been that long, as far as we know,” he added.

The constituency party has made contact with the regional party to discuss further steps.

Mr Rosen said he “absolutely” wanted to state his disagreement with the message on the website.

“We actually think that Labour’s on a really positive trajectory,” he said.

He added that Keir Starmer had not backtracked on his pledges and nor was it fair to say that he lied.

He also stressed that the site was no longer the official website.

The local party is standing a candidate, Paul Siegert, in a Breckland council by-election in Hermitage ward, on Thursday of this week.