Members inform Starmer they will be campaigning for her as an independent candidate as party’s Stalinist selection-rigging scandal continues
Almost fifty Labour members in Chingford and Woodford Green, including a councillor and several elected officers, have resigned from the party with immediate effect over its summary deselection of Faiza Shaheen as its parliamentary candidate. In a letter to Keir Starmer, they criticise the ‘appalling and unfair’ conduct of the party and inform him that they will be campaigning for her as an independent candidate against Tory Iain Duncan Smith:
Keir,
We, the undersigned, are resigning as members of the Labour Party with immediate effect.
Our democratically elected candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green, Faiza Shaheen, has been deselected in an appalling and unfair manner. Faiza was selected by the constituency members in a fair and open contest, accruing more votes than the other three candidates put together. The process of deselection overturned this election result and is anti-democratic.
The deselection was carried out in a manner contrary to natural justice or any proper due process. It was inhumane and degrading and based on spurious grounds. What is particularly egregious is the fact that historic tweets when Faiza was not even a member of the party are being used against her, while over the past several weeks Labour has been happy to admit to its parliamentary party Conservative MPs who hold odious views that have been expressed repeatedly until very recently.
We are at a loss to understand the timing and manner of this deselection. We can only assume that it is a cynical ploy aimed at removing a candidate of integrity at a time when the NEC can use its powers to impose a candidate without any due process; a candidate with no roots or connection to our community and who has done none of the tireless work Faiza has carried out to bring that community
together, building connections with local residents and businesses. This is all now being thrown away by the Labour Party.We can no longer stay in a party that treats people in this way. Not only has Faiza Shaheen been betrayed, but so have all those in the local Labour Party who voted for her candidature and the ordinary residents of the Chingford & Woodford Green constituency.
As a consequence, not only are we leaving the Labour Party, but we shall be doing all we can to support Faiza in her bid to become an Independent MP for our constituency – the only realistic and moral alternative to Sir lain Duncan Smith.
The stand is to be applauded, but – as with Shaheen’s realisation that the Starmer regime’s contempt for democracy and protection of apartheid, genocidal Israel would hit her – it comes late. Starmer and his cronies have been rigging selections for many months to ensure more red Tory horrors become candidates, to silence or passivity from some who continue in the party until they are personally affected.
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