It's believed that the economist, Dr Faiza Shaheen,
was blocked from standing as the Labour Party candidate in Chingford and
Woodford Green, after a complaint was made against her by the Jewish Labour
Movement (JLM). It seems that the JLM objected to her 'liking' some social media posts on Twitter that were critical of
Israel's actions in Gaza.
Some of the tweets date back to 2014 when Shaheen indicated that she 'liked' a post about the 'Israel lobby' by the Jewish comedian Jon Stewart. The Labour Party told Faiza Shaheen that criticising Israel's actions in Gaza, was "damaging Labour's electoral chances." Ms Shaheen, a 'Corbynista', has said that the Labour Party "would rather lose than have a left pro-Palestine candidate" and she described the decision to drop her as "cruel and devastating." She also told the Guardian that she faced, "a systematic campaign of racism, Islamophobia and bullying" and that Sir Keir Starmer's party, had "a problem with black and brown people."
This week, seven Labour councillors on Slough Borough Council, resigned from the Labour Party over the treatment of Diane Abbott and Faiza Shaheen and the party's position on Gaza. They claimed that there was "institutional racism" in the Labour Party.
Faiza Shaheen resigned from the Labour Party on Tuesday and on Wednesday afternoon, she announced that she would be standing as an independent candidate in the constituency where she lives and grew up. Labour have replaced Faiza Shaheen with Shama Tatler a member of the pro-Israel JLM which is affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation.
The Labour Party have also announced that the controversial pro-Israeli lobbyist, Luke Akehurst, is to be their candidate for North Durham.
The purging of a left pro-Palestinian candidate like Faiza Shaheen and Starmer's pro-Israeli stance, is likely to alienate the Muslim Labour vote even further. Sir Keir Starmer-oid has said that he supports "Zionism without qualification."
In her constituency of Ashton and Failsworth, Angela Rayner, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, recently begged for the Muslim Labour vote at a meeting of Muslim men and thanked the Muslim community, for getting her "over the line" at the 2019 general election. Rayner is defending a majority of just 4,263 and is very vulnerable to losing her seat.
George Galloway's Workers Party of Britain (WPB), have vowed to kick her out of office and are standing a Muslim candidate against her called Aroma Hassan.
I have been listening to the commentaries on the above. She was from a poor working class immigrant family, her mother was a victim of domestic abuse and as a result she became a single parent. So she was largely brought up in a single parent family. She went to Oxford and she is now a professor at the LSE. It appears that she has worked assiduously within the constituency for four years and that at the last election in 2019, she reversed the national trend by increasing her percentage share of the vote. However, it appears that she doesn't meet the high threshold being set to stand as a LP candidate. I watched an interview with Michael Crick and he was calling the candidate selection process corrupt. He informed that there was a sub-committee of the NEC interviewing each other and they were selecting each other for safe seats. He said that in the context of declaring himself as right wing labour.
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