The Labour Black Socialists group has reacted to the scandal of the removal of Anna Rothery as a prospective candidate to be Liverpool’s next mayor – and has demanded an immediate Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) investigation into what they believe is the institutional racism of her deselection by the national and north-west party.
Rothery would have been odds-on favourite to become the UK’s first black woman elected mayor if Labour had not pulled the plug and prevented members from voting to select her as their candidate:
The group was formed to galvanise protests against Labour’s failure to address anti-Black racism in the party under Keir Starmer and has called a selective ‘campaigning strike’ against candidates who have not shown a commitment to equality.
Labour had recalled all three shortlisted candidates to a re-interview process last week after questions emerged about the track record of another of the three shortlisted women, but party insiders say that the decision today to bar all three candidates has resulted from a determination to prevent the Corbyn-supporting Rothery winning selection.
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Damned near impossible to speak outside of the Blue-Labour-Tory-enabling proscribed narrative! As anyone who may have attempted to comment in the Guardian- pro Corbyn or pro Palestine- will very soon have discovered.
I have given up on the Guardian.
I don’t have anything to do with the Guardian after they banned me twice from commenting under two different names. They have become the SIS/MI5 house paper, and should be treated with the contempt they deserve.
I have come to wonder if, in its way, the Guardian is not more instrumental in shutting down certain discourse- pro-Palestinian, pro-Corbyn and various socialist perspectives- than are some of the UK’s more racist outlets. Their target groups tend to be more political, so their impact more telling. The manner in which issues over Israel, and inside the Labour Party, have been dealt with by the UK’s MSM is really rather sinister. The Guardian has fallen considerably in its standards of journalism.
Anna Rothery, who had been in the running, intends to seek an injunction if the party does not reverse the decision to reopen the process in this way.
“Like many people across our city and our movement, I’m shocked by the party’s chaotic handling of the selection for Liverpool mayor. Instead of a positive, unifying campaign for our city, we are faced with what looks like an undemocratic failure of process,” she said.
Rothery added that she welcomed the decision last week “to include more scrutiny of candidates” but “not to remove transparency and accountability from the process”.
“I hope party HQ sees the outrage its decision has caused across our city and the harm it is doing to our party’s reputation and changes course. If the decision stands, then I will be left with no choice but to challenge it legally.”
https://labourlist.org/2021/02/liverpool-mayor-selection-reopens-with-no-previous-candidate-invited-to-join/
A link which proves that everything Squawkbox has reported is accurate and that the sole purpose here is to make sure a non-left winger-i.e., a candidate that can never be popular or worth electing in an inherently socialist city like Liverpool- can be imposed. A candidate we can already assume would have no connection to the city, no ideas, and no chance of winning in May.
Since no good can come of this, will you join everyone else here in denouncing Starmer’s insistence on imposing a right-wing loser who cannot possibly have anything to offer?
kenburch – I’ll be more than happy to pass comment once we know why the original process was halted and why the previous candidates have been excluded from the new process.
Even the Guardian has reported the Mayoral election as (arguably) a bit of a stitch -up! Occasionally the paper still allows a smidgen of honest journalism, regarding Labour’s anti-socialism drive, to slip through the net
Complain to the EHRC? Giving legitimacy to a dubious ‘closed shop’ legal organisation. A little like describing the Guardian as ‘honest journalism’.