Deputy council leader canvassing by text – and emailing support for suspended boss
As the SKWAWKBOX reported last week, Redbridge Council leader and would-be Ilford South parliamentary candidate Jas Athwal has been suspended from the party – and the selection contest – after an anonymised report on complaints of sexual harassment was judged serious enough to require judgment by Labour’s National Constitutional Committee (NCC), the party’s top disciplinary body.
Athwal has been supported by a number of Labour councillors, who wish to keep him as council leader in spite of his suspension – and by local MP Wes Streeting, in spite of Athwal’s attempt to claim that his suspension related to another matter entirely.
The selection process was suspended to allow further candidates to apply.
Now Athwal’s deputy council leader Kam Rai has entered the contest – though the SKWAWKBOX understand he has not even been confirmed by the party as a candidate – by texting local members announcing his candidacy and asking their support:
The campaign is still suspended.
Tarry, incidentally, lives on the other side of a road that forms the constituency boundary – Rai lives in Ilford North, Streeting’s constituency.
Rai has also emailed local members supporting the suspended Athwal:
Far more damningly, he has referred on social media to Athwal’s alleged victim(s) as ‘cranks’:
The SKWAWKBOX understands that there have been multiple complaints from outraged locals both about his abusive comment and his campaigning while the contest is suspended.
When the SKWAWKBOX tried to speak to Mr Rai about these issues, he refused to comment and hung up.
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” complaints of sexual harassment was judged serious enough to require judgment by Labour’s National Constitutional Committee (NCC),”
The trouble is (and I have no insight or particular interest in this case), the credibility of Labour’s disciplinary procedures is now shot to ribbons.
That is the long-term damage that has been done by complicity with the Israel Lobby.
Recently, in the Welsh Parliament Sennedd Cymru, Leanne Woods (of Plaid Cymru) was censored for using “a swearword” on social media.
The use of the words “cranks” and “fantasy” by Kam Rai is absolutely DISGUSTING!
Councillors, and especially Labour members, should all be held to the same standard.
Being local is not everything.
I once had a Labour MP who moved into the constituency but he was absolutely awful.
I hope Tarry wins.
‘Our Party has a responsibility to investigate allegations of sexual harassment seriously’. Whatever happened to the QC led enquiry ref. allegations made about ‘anonymous’ senior figures in the Labour Party by Bex Bailey?
….and Kelvin Hopkins will have been suspended for 2 years come November.
”Far more damningly, he has referred on social media to Athwal’s alleged victim(s) as ‘cranks’:”
Didn’t do margaret hodge any harm (in a political sense) when she did the same thing, by & large.