APSANA BEGUM has said she refuses to be silenced by her party after accusing the Labour leadership of abandoning her amid a “chilling” campaign of abuse. 

The Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse, who is Britain’s first hijabi-wearing parliamentarian, has recently returned to work after signing off sick in June amid what she described as a “sustained campaign of misogynistic abuse” by her local Labour-led council and ex-husband. 

In one of her first public appearances since resuming her seat, the MP told the closing rally of The World Transformed festival in Liverpool: “The level of inhumanity towards me has just been chilling.”

“You would have thought as the first hijab-wearing MP that there would have been more support for somebody like me.

“But we know, from the Labour Party, the fact is that it’s been the absolute opposite.”

Ms Begum, a survivor of domestic abuse, criticised the party’s decision to refuse to pause an ongoing trigger ballot into her despite her ill-health and complaints about the process, including allegations of intimidation and even bribery.

“I’m being targeted because I speak out against Islamophobia and institutional racism,” she said.

“And ultimately I’m being targeted because I still hold onto that hope of a socialist vision.”

Cheers erupted around the hall as she delivered a defiant closing message to the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs rally on Tuesday night: “I don’t know what the future will hold, but I want to make this very very clear: this socialist, Muslim working-class woman will not be silenced.”

Anger at the leadership’s treatment of Ms Begum was also expressed by her fellow MPs.

Nadia Whittome accused the leadership of failing to “step in when it had the power and duty to do so and protect her.” 

“The trigger process has got to be overturned and our party needs to get its act together so that no other survivor of domestic violence has to endure what Apsana has endured,” she said. 

Ms Whittome also called on the party leadership to stop its “attacks on the left” and restore the whip to former leader Jeremy Corbyn.

“To those with power in our party, I want to emphasise one thing: the left are not the enemy, we are the future.”

But in the face of alleged attacks on the left, socialist MPs stressed that attendees should “take heart” from the string of progressive policies announced by Labour frontbenchers at the party’s annual conference.  

Ms Whittome said policies on nationalising the railways and setting up a state-owned energy company were a “victory for the left,” while former shadow chancellor John McDonnell joked: “I’m going to claim copyright on these!”