- guardian.co.uk, Friday 16 March 2001 18.15 GMT
Normally attended only by a handful of party activists, a packed meeting is expected to hear a demand for the resignation of the constituency chairman, Colin Hall, a Vaz loyalist who was criticised in the Filkin report.
Mr Hall was accused of committing "a serious contempt" of the Commons standards and privileges committee inquiry by threatening to put legal and disciplinary pressure on a witness, the Leicester city councillor Mustapha Kamal. Mr Hall will report to the party on the inquiry findings but will face a challenge by Mr Kamal to resign.
Mr Hall said: "I will say that there were mitigating circumstances in relation to that charge, which the committee were aware of." He said these included the fact that he was not aware that Mr Kamal was making the allegations in relation to a parliamentary inquiry.
The Filkin report has underlined the huge divide between the pro and anti-Vaz factions in the local party.
Mr Hall attacked as "baseless" the latest revelations in the Guardian, relating to an internal Labour inquiry over allegations that Mr Vaz had tried to interfere in city council business.
"Keith has worked closely with the party since he's been in Leicester. That's 16 years," he said. "It is not unique; other MPs have had close relationships with their constituencies.
"In 1985 Leicester was held by the Conservatives. At every election since 1985 the party's performance has been above the national average.
"I've worked with Keith during those 16 years and know there has been a lot of community pressure throughout the constituency - I don't just mean in the Asian community - to take up issues concerning things the council has done.
"There are things it has been necessary for him to do to build a local profile, to continue to do to maintain that local profile. He is a well respected figure in the city."
A party insider and longstanding critic of Mr Vaz claimed that his support within the local party was eroding. The MP's interest in council affairs had acted as a "dead hand" which had promoted parochial projects over the interests of the city as a whole, he claimed.
Mr Vaz is thought to be attending the tonight's meeting.
Mr Kamal claimed that the local party had gone into decline and attacked the current membership as the MP's "hangers on".
"I intend to go and ask Colin Hall, now that he has been found to have committed contempt, if he will take the honourable course and resign." The letter Mr Hall had sent him had "made shivers go down my spine".
Useful links
Standards and privileges committee report
Parliament information on standards
Committee on standards in public life
Standards and privileges committee
MPs' code of conduct, 1996
