Labour’s leader Keir Starmer has been accused of purging left-wing members of his party ahead of the general election.
Glasgow, United Kingdom – It has been beset by bitter resignations, selection disputes and accusations of institutional racism – but Britain’s main opposition party remains on course for a landslide victory in next month’s general election.
After 14 years of playing second fiddle to the ruling right-wing Conservatives, and after four chastening general election defeats, the Labour Party is today on the cusp of power, with some polls suggesting that it could win a 100-plus seat majority on July 4.
However, if Labour, led for the past four years by former Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Keir Starmer, does realise a return to government for the first time since 2010, then it will do so having left a trail of unwelcome headlines in its wake.
Last week, Faiza Shaheen, Labour’s left-wing Muslim candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green in northeast London, revealed that she had been de-selected by the party’s national executive committee (NEC) after it took issue with her social media posts, including one which saw her like a 2014 The Daily Show sketch on the discourse surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the left-wing Labour candidate for Brighton Kemptown, was also de-selected last week.
He blamed “a vexatious and politically motivated complaint” on his de-selection by the party which means that he cannot now defend a seat he had held for Labour since 2017. Labour said the decision was down to a complaint it had received on his behaviour.
These dismissals came as left-wing stalwart, Diane Abbott, the UK’s first female Black MP, was reinstated back into the party fold at the eleventh hour after she was suspended from Labour last year, accused of making anti-Semitic comments in a national newspaper.
The party’s treatment of Shaheen and Abbott prompted seven Labour councillors in Slough to resign on Monday after accusing the movement of “institutional racism”.