OUTRAGE swept through the labour movement and beyond today as Labour’s ruling cabal blocked the candidacy of socialist Muslim woman Faiza Shaheen in the general election.
Coming as the party remained mired in confusion and controversy over the status of Diane Abbott, Britain’s first black woman MP, its right wing doubled down on its racism problem by dropping Ms Shaheen.
A charismatic campaigner, she had been on course to unseat former Tory Party leader Iain Duncan Smith in Chingford & Woodford Green, having cut his majority in 2019, and since been reselected by the local party.
However, she had long been a target for the party’s right as a Corbyn sympathiser and the Jewish Labour Movement as pro-Palestinian, and on Wednesday a panel of Labour’s national executive vetoed her candidacy.
The panel — Unison’s Wendy Nichols, Usdaw’s Michael Wheeler and constituency section representative Gurinder Singh Josan — had before it a confected dossier smearing Ms Shaheen.
It included Twitter “likes” endorsing a Green local election candidate in 2014, and one consisting of a quote from Nelson Mandela.
Attending the panel with her three-month old son in her arms, Ms Shaheen apologised for liking another Tweet concerning the influence of Israel supporters.
Ms Shaheen said today: “I feel a huge injustice has been done not just to me but to our community.”
She later said in a statement: “This campaign of prejudice, bullying and spiteful behaviour has finally been rewarded by Labour’s NEC [national executive committee] and my name has been added to the list of those not welcome in the candidate club. And it is no surprise that many of those excluded are people of colour.”
“I have come to the inescapable conclusion that Labour, far from being a broad church encompassing different views, has an ingrained culture of bullying, a palpable problem with black and brown people, and thinks nothing of dragging a person’s good name through the mud in pursuit of a factional agenda, with no thought of the impact on committed members’ mental health and well-being.”
She added that she intended to “meet with campaign and legal teams to discuss my next steps. I will be releasing all the details of what has happened to me very soon.”
The Labour Muslim Network, which had been promised a reset in the party’s relationship with the community, said: “The deselection of Faiza Shaheen is unacceptable.
“Telling a Muslim woman she is not allowed to talk about her own experiences of racism is clear Islamophobia.”
And Momentum called her treatment “a textbook case of institutional racism. [Labour leader] Keir Starmer’s promise to address concerns from members and voters over Islamophobia and the party’s failings on Gaza was just another lie.”
The reaction spread beyond Labour and indeed beyond Britain.
Outgoing Green MP Carline Lucas said Ms Shaheen’s treatment, “coming on the heels of the deliberate humiliation of Diane Abbott, speaks volumes about those in Labour leadership who apparently care so little about democracy — or even basic decency.”
US comedian and TV host Jon Stewart called the move “the dumbest thing the UK has done since electing Boris Johnson.”
Ms Abbott, whose right to stand for Labour in Hackney North remains in doubt, expressed solidarity, asking: “Whose clever idea has it been to have a cull of left wingers?”
The answer is surely the hard rightwingers being parachuted, without a pretence of democracy, into safe seats — such as Israel lobbyist Luke Akehurst, imposed as Labour’s candidate in North Durham.
Also deselected is left MP for Brighton Kempton Lloyd Russell-Moyle, dropped on the basis of anonymous allegations dating back eight years.
But Ms Abbott got backing from Angela Rayner, who said: “I don’t see any reason why Diane Abbott can’t stand as a Labour MP. I am saying that as the deputy leader of the Labour Party.”
And former Tony Blair adviser John McTernan said: “There is a deeply misconceived, malevolent and wicked operation to humiliate Diane. And it is virtually impossible to detach that from the fact that she is a black woman.”
