12 December 2023 , 15:29
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Veteran MP Nick Brown has announced he will step down at the next election after being suspended by Labour over a complaint against him.
The former Labour chief whip, who has been an MP since 1983, said he would also resign his membership as he blasted the "fundamentally and inexcusably flawed" complaints process. Mr Brown lost the Labour whip and was suspended from the party in September 2022 after a complaint was lodged against him.
In a furious statement, the MP for Newcastle upon Tyne East confirmed he won't fight the next election. He said: "My constituency border is now being redrawn following the national constituency boundary changes and I think it is a sensible time for me to retire - given that I would otherwise be nearly 80 by the end of my next term.
"However, it is also important to make clear that my decision to stand down is made against the backdrop of a long-running internal Labour Party disciplinary process against me - a process which I consider (and am advised) is so fundamentally, and inexcusably, flawed that I can no longer engage with it."
The nature of the allegation against Mr Brown has never been disclosed. He claimed today the accusations were "entirely false" and dated from more than 25 years ago.
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In the statement, released through law firm Carter-Ruck, Mr Brown said: "My suspension followed a complaint against me by a political rival within the party. It concerned an allegation about events said to have taken place more than 25 years ago.
"The accusations against me were, and remain, entirely false, without even the faintest germ of any truth to them. Not only had they never previously been made in the ensuing 25 years, they had never been so much as hinted at, whether by that individual or anyone else. They came entirely out of the blue, and as a complete bombshell to me."
He said that over the last 17 months it had become clear that he can have "no faith whatsoever" in his party's ability to "investigate and then adjudicate on this allegation fairly and even-handedly".
A Labour spokeswoman said: "The Labour Party treats all complaints with the utmost seriousness. The Labour Party has established an independent complaints process that ensures complaints are decided impartially and fairly."
It is understood that the investigation stops once he is no longer a Labour member.
Mr Brown, 73, served in Government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and was made Opposition chief whip in 2016 by Jeremy Corbyn. He retained the enforcer role when Keir Starmer became Labour leader in 2020 but was replaced in a 2021 reshuffle following Labour local election losses and a disastrous by-election defeat to the Tories in Hartlepool.
He was administratively suspended from membership of the Labour Party last year after an investigation began into the complaint. This led to an automatic suspension of the whip under the party's rules.