As Enfield Southgate CLP (constituency Labour party) circulated a motion of no confidence in Enfield’s ‘centrist’ council leader Nesil Caliskan last night, a by-election was taking place in the local ward of Bush Hill Park – a Tory-held marginal.
In May, the Conservative candidate held onto the seat by just sixty-four votes.
Last night’s by-election came after months of controversy surrounding Caliskan including an investigation by the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) into the ‘irregularities’ that occurred during the selection process, the deselection of all black council candidates, protests including demands by half of the Enfield Council cabinet and an array of other councillors and allegations of bullying.
Labour – with the same candidate who had lost so narrowly in May – finished over twenty-seven points behind the Tory candidate.
Ms Caliskan has previously stated she does not wish to be contacted by the SKWAWKBOX for comment.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
The NEC needs to pull its collective finger out and clear out this nest of vipers,starting with the MP.
Joan Ryan that is.
‘Deselection of Black Candidates because they are black, by an ‘Asian Woman’? The Guardian would have kittens!
Her actions are highly dubious, to put it mildly.
But her ancestry is Turkish Cypriot, so probably not appropriate to refer to her as Asian.
The vote is reflective of the damage done by the gross amplification of anti-Semitism as a problem of the left, so falsely spun deliberately by the right wing. It is also due to appalling behaviours of the right in a ‘split’ Labour Party. We will not be helped by pretending that the damage inflicted on Labour’s chances by the lies and innuendo in the mainstream media, is not important. The road ahead is long and hard, and is not helped by behaviours of some on the left either and I say that, being of the left.