Jeremy Corbyn has dismissed fears about the Labour leadership contest being infiltrated by Tories as “nonsense” and called for those barred from voting to have the right of appeal.
The frontrunner also said Labour ought to be welcoming Greens, socialists and others on the left, instead of turning them away.
“Are there any Tory infiltrators? I think there’s been a lot of nonsense in the papers. About 600,000 people have either joined the Labour party or signed up as supporters. We should be pleased about that … There were a few Tory MPs who tried to register, got rejected, end of story,” he said at a hustings held by BBC Radio 5 Live.
Asked about those on the left who have been barred, he said: “I think we should know why they have been excluded and they should have a right of appeal.”
All candidates are due to meet Harriet Harman, the acting Labour leader, at a secret location on Tuesday to discuss their concerns after Andy Burnham’s camp demanded reassurances about Tory infiltrators and raised the prospect of legal challenges to the result.
Burnham now appears to be trying to calm the issue, saying he would not seek to challenge the result, although others might.
At the hustings he also appealed for the candidates to move on and accept the terms of the contest after the Harman meeting, adding that it was “not that big of a deal”. He said: “Let’s just clear this issue up.”
However, some senior party figures remain unhappy about the way Harman has overseen the contest.
Charles Clarke: leadership contest has been "a disaster" http://t.co/R2vzFlgBVV
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) August 24, 2015
The former home secretary Charles Clarke branded the whole election a disaster and said it was a mistake for the former leader, Ed Miliband, to have changed the rules whereby members of the public are allowed to register as supporters for a single £3 donation.
He also revealed that he voted for Liz Kendall as his first preference, with Yvette Cooper second and Burnham third.
“I think [the Labour leadership election] has been a disaster actually, I’m very sad about it,” Clarke said. “We’ve got legal challenges, I think there may still be further legal challenges about the process; issues about who can vote, who can’t vote; people who have been in the party for years distressed about seeing people who have been campaigning against the party, with them having an equal vote to them; and I think we’ve made a series of mistakes.”
He said he thought the national executive committee was to blame, adding: “I don’t think Harriet’s done very well, I think the changes Ed Miliband brought in were a mistake and many people argued that at the time, and there have been a series of mistakes of this kind.”
The party began its verification process after concerns were raised about members and supporters of other parties signing up to try to influence the results. An initial hunt for “entryists” found Conservative, Green and Socialist Worker party candidates among 1,200 people that the party decided to bar.
Labour stepped up its efforts after an extraordinary surge in applicants just before the deadline increased its electorate from 200,000 to 600,000.
Deputy leadership candidate Caroline Flint reiterated on Tuesday morning that parties have a right to determine who can participate in their processes. Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Flint said the Labour party wanted the election process to “be a positive experience with no shadow over the final outcome”.
She added: “People who sign up, we have access to their information to contact them about our campaign, and then I’ve had direct abusive emails from them, which wouldn’t be acceptable in a public forum, and that’s been passed on to the party and the party have acted on that.”
Flint insisted the party’s use of canvas returns to weed out infiltrators was not an issue. “Just over two months ago we had an election, and if canvas returns show that people actively did not vote Labour or voted for other parties, it’s down to the party to decide whether that can be taken into consideration.”
