A FORMER Labour shadow minister who was deselected as an MP by party members has lodged a formal complaint alleging “vote rigging”.

Sam Tarry, who helped to organise Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign, was deselected more than a year ago in the Ilford South constituency with members voting 499 to 361 to select Jas Athwal, the leader of Redbridge Council, at a hustings.

Every local Labour branch in the area voted to trigger a full reselection process, but Tarry has claimed he was stitched up by the party’s online Anonyvoter system.

Tarry - who was sacked from Labour's frontbench after giving broadcast interviews from an RMT picket line - is considering taking legal action to obtain Anonyvoter records and may yet seek an injunction to block Athwal from being the official Ilford South candidate.

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The former senior trade union official has lodged a complaint that states during door-to-door campaigning, his team found lots of people who were not living at the addresses they were registered to on the Labour membership system.

“While some level of ‘churn’ may be expected with people moving homes, the numbers of people on the membership list not resident at the addresses we had been given was concerning,” the complaint states.

Tarry’s team then compared the records with the electoral register and apparently identified a significant number of members not listed on the electoral register at the addresses on a membership list provided to him.

Tarry says he then became aware that some of the properties were rentals owned by Redbridge councillors. Some of the members identified during this process had apparently applied for postal or electronic votes, as they appeared on the postal voters list provided to him.

“This raised serious concerns about these members’ eligibility to vote in the ongoing selection,” Tarry said in the complaint.

He reported the concerns to the regional director of the London region Labour party, copying in Labour’s general secretary, David Evans.

“I am not aware of any action that was taken to ensure these members’ eligibility or to stop them from voting,” he adds in the complaint.

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Tarry’s complaint to Labour alleges that Athwal was one of the Labour councillors who owned a property where Labour members were listed as living, and who had indicated they would vote for Athwal.

When they canvassed the address, Tarry’s team said they were told by tenants that the members listed had moved out but that someone else collected their post.

Athwal has refuted the allegations saying they are “untrue and baseless”.

A Labour spokesperson said: “The Labour Party has full confidence in the integrity of the Ilford South selection process. We always investigate concerns that are raised in relation to candidate selections and we reject the allegations that have been made.”