“We’re taking the unusual step of releasing this clip of Anna because of the shameful way she’s been treated by the leadership of the party. Labour has a problem with Black and minority ethnic and socialist members. There should be no place for racism in the Labour Party” – part of a statement from the makers of the film
Anna Rothery was the left’s hope in the contest to become Liverpool’s mayoral candidate and would have become the UK’s first black woman executive mayor – but she is now fighting to remain in the contest after being shamefully cut out of the selection by an ‘unholy alliance’ of right-wingers and a ‘north-west mafia‘ hoping to replace her with a candidate more to their liking.
Award-winning film-makers Hazuan Hashim and Phil Maxwell made this moving film of Rothery’s speech on the Windrush generation and scandal – and have provided it to SKWAWKBOX as a global exclusive:
The movie gives an inkling of what Liverpool and the city’s Labour party will miss out on if Rothery’s threatened legal action does not succeed in overturning the scandal.
Film makers Hazuan Hashim (Bectu) and Phil Maxwell (NUJ) said:
The decision to start a new application process is a cynical manoeuvre to stop black candidate Anna Rothery who has attracted support from the left of the party including Jeremy Corbyn. We filmed Anna campaigning in Liverpool in July 2019 for a documentary we are making on the Black Lives Matter movement, which is due to be released later this year.
We’re taking the unusual step of releasing this clip of Anna because of the shameful way she’s been treated by the leadership of the party. Labour has a problem with Black and minority ethnic and socialist members. There should be no place for racism in the Labour Party.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to without hardship, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Another nail in Red Tory coffin
You can feel the pressure building up behind the membership dam, when it bursts it will sweep them all away
As for going legal it’s a knocking bet, make hay and spend your winnings wisely
The internet doesn’t know what a “knocking bet” is – want to enlighten us?
As near to a certainty as is possible to exist
But then again I once had a Greyhound winning by a country mile coming nto the straight which promptly fell over, thats when you know your having a bad day
Time for some to Re-join and Fight?
The Labour right is showing how psychotic it has become. Time for tens of thousands of former members to Re-join Labour and fight for Labour values.
We can’t less them win.
Just for the sake of argument let’s say I and everyone else who quit in disgust rejoined tomorrow. What then?
The PLP and ‘the machine’ still dominate the party – the membership and CLPs will continue to be sidelined and bullied into ever greater conformity “for the good of the party.”
Even if a million left wingers joined up, Labour would still be a right wing dictatorship.
Even worse, it would be painted as a victory for Starmorrhoidism – an admission by the left that right is right.
Abject surrender – complete and final proof that capitalism is the only game in town and that socialism is inherently evil because it breeds antisemitism.
The only reason to rejoin Labour is to get close enough to those fuckers to beat them to death.
Just a figure of speech Steve.
David
What we know for certain is RW will fix any challenge, do everything to knobble us, the cut off for new members will be brutal, so the sooner you rejoin the better
Sigh this is so predictable the stay and fight come back and do what?
Oh yes we can magically remove 95% of the PLP and party machinery that we have NO power over and no CONTROL over but this fantasy of stay and fight and we can turn it around and to that i call BS.
We had the best chance with Jeremy and look at all the stupid bs the briefings the lies and deceptions the outright fraud with members money.
That nis what will happen again. I don’t have another 20 years to waste trying to clean the dam stabled I am not a greek god that is what it will take!
Nope the only sensible choice is to walk away and keep your money, vote and sanity until a socialist party only no right wing allowed ever! Thes big tent has failed we have seen in graphic details that the right wing is never satisfied and will alwase try and take over it’s their nature.
So have some respect and stop trying the stay and fight rubbish. It’s misguided at best or the nature of a plant trying to convince people of something that will never happen.
disabledgrandad – Sigh this is so predictable the stay and fight come back and do what?
….and yet here you are again for your daily grumble.
Until we find out whether any or all the 3 previously approved candidates have definitely been excluded from the new process and why the process was halted then it is difficult to comment further.
Except to say that the entire fiasco is evidence of how psychotic and power-crazy some on the Labour right have become.
You may turn out to be right but until we actually know the reasons why the original process was halted then none of us is in a position to know rather than speculate.
SteveH
You dont need a 1st class honours degree in the bleedin obvious to call this one
Does Temporary Embarrassment and his rent boy Evan’s have some kind of indemnity insurance
They’ve all been told they won’t be permitted to re-apply
SB – Do we know why yet, or is that going to remain a secret.
Has this been put in a letter to each candidate? Have reasons (with some sort of evidence) been given?
“Do we know why yet?”
Suggests that there might be an honourable reason to deny them the right to re-apply – and an honourable reason to keep that honourable reason secret…
From the right’s point of view does it make most sense to impose an out-and-out right winger, a soft leftie, or a real but weak leftie with skeletons who can be blackmailed?
With a raft of left wing policy ‘assurances’ from the top anyone Labour with name recognition will probably do – policies can always be ditched later in the name of Covid, Brexit or whatever. That’s one thing Starmpit does know how to do.
Another soap actress perhaps? They always seem popular.
Or are they already in negotiations with Eddie Izzard? 🙂
SteveH, you’ll still be saying it’s too early to comment when a right-wing loser nobody other than Starmer and Evans supported is imposed as the candidate from above.
God forbid Liverpool have a mayoral contest that actually matters.
“Do we know yet?” – Of course not.
Will the party ever tell us? – Don’t hold your breath.
Maybe it’s because she can speak with passion and clarity and refuses to abstain.
goldbach – Is there anything to stop any of the 3 (ex)candidates telling us what they’ve been told.
What makes you think they’ve been told anything? If, as we know has happened all too often, party members have been suspended without being given any specific reason, why should it be any different here? It’s patently obvious that we now live in a world where rules are what anyone thinks they ought to be, or that they don’t apply to them, and to think otherwise is simply naïve.
PW – We already know from a previous court case that the procedures laid out in the various appendixes attached to ‘The Rule Book’ are very unlikely to be enforceable through the courts.
It wasn’t just ‘The Rule Book’ I was referring to if you read the last sentence, you numpty. For rules you can substitute ‘accepted standards of behaviour’.
“Is there anything to stop any of the 3 (ex)candidates telling us what they’ve been told.”
They each claim to have been told nothing! Hence :”There has been no transparency on the decision. The party does not even bother to claim any discrepancies in the original shortlisting process.”
“A conspiracy of silence surrounds the extraordinary scale of the purges in Labour. A mass media that harped constantly on divisions in the party under Corbyn, inflating every poisonous aside from a disgruntled MP into national news and derailing every policy launch with wall-to-wall coverage of supposed scandals, last week allowed Starmer to deliver a vacuous reset speech without mentioning the ongoing excommunication of his predecessor, the foundation of the Labour in Exile Network or the calls for an emergency recall conference.
“Nor is the monopoly press inclined to hound Labour over the failure to address concerns over anti-black racism as it kicks the Forde inquiry into 2020’s leaked report into the long grass — concerns likely to grow following the ban on Rothery, a black woman who has been an outspoken defender of the Black Lives Matter movement, from standing for Liverpool mayor.
“Coverage of former official Emilie Oldknow’s lawsuit against the party has focused on the potential privacy breaches involved in leaking the report, not the outrageous anti-democratic misconduct it exposed.
“That is why the suppression of democratic choice in this internal selection process matters beyond Liverpool, and beyond Labour.
“The motivation is to keep a socialist out of a position where socialist policies can be put directly to the electorate or aired on the national stage.
“It forms part of a wider effort to put the movement that attracted millions under Corbyn back in the box, to disarm a mass party membership with ideas above their station and to banish anti-capitalism to the political fringe.”
Morning Star Editorial.
Liam Thorp – Political Editor – Liverpool Echo :
“Those candidates heard nothing back from the party over the weekend, with frustrations growing about the party’s handling of the situation.”
“And today an email to members states that Labour is taking the unprecedented move of re-opening the whole application process.
“The email states: “The role of Liverpool Mayor is a high profile and hugely important figure. The people of Liverpool deserve a Labour Mayor and the Labour Party needs to select the right candidate who can deliver an election win, stand up against the Conservatives, lead Liverpool out of the coronavirus crisis and fight for the regeneration and the resources that the city desperately needs.
“After careful consideration, the Labour Party has determined that applications for the position should be re-opened in order to allow the Liverpool Labour membership to choose from an alternative shortlist of candidates.”
The ECHO understands that no previous candidate will be invited to apply.”
In addition, there is conjecture that it may have been because all three Candidates served under Joe Anderson.
Guilt by Association? The only dreadful excuse a journalist(not Liam Thorp) could be fed? Or, no one, outside Southside, knows what the hell is going on? Does anyone – inside – Southside know what’s going on?
The Tories could probably put up a ringer and win – a Liverpool footballer or a comedian maybe.
Labour looks dafter than dad’s army lately.
ACTION POINT:
“LABOUR’S astonishing decision to pull the plug on the Liverpool mayoral candidate selection process and ban the entire shortlist speaks volumes about the paranoia and authoritarianism of the new leadership…….”
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/labours-anti-democratic-antics-liverpool-have-national-significance
The only option left is to go to a lawyer to complain about the knighted lawyer whos enforcing draconian measures on the advice of the Bliar lawyer.IT will all be decided by “grandee lawyers” in the high court of parasites and even more membership money squandered on a Labour party infected with the ruling class.of Lawyers.How much longer do you throw your money away on “Lawyers”