Faiza Shaheen, the candidate blocked by Labour from standing in Chingford and Woodford Green, has told Lewis Goodall, the LBC presenter and the News Agents presenter, that she is considering standing in Chingford as an independent. Shaheen, who stood in the north-east London seat in 2019, had already announced she would challenge Labour’s decision to block her from standing as one of its candidates in the courts, claiming she had faced “a systematic campaign of racism, Islamophobia and bullying.” Shaheen was presented with a dossier of posts that she had liked on X, some dating back to 2014, prompting a complaint from the Jewish Labour movement. She is now considering running as an independent in Chingford.
Blocked Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen ‘could stand as an independent in general election’ – UK politics live | Politics
Blocked Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen ‘considering standing in Chingford as an independent’
Faiza Shaheen, the candidate blocked by Labour from standing in Chingford and Woodford Green, has told Lewis Goodall, the LBC presenter and the News Agents presenter, that she is considering standing in Chingford as an independent.
NEW: @faizashaheen tells me she’s considering standing in Chingford as an independent. She says she wants to do it “for the right reasons.”
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) June 2, 2024
Shaheen, who stood in the north-east London seat in 2019, had already announced she would challenge Labour’s decision to block her from standing as one of its candidates in the courts, claiming she had faced “a systematic campaign of racism, Islamophobia and bullying”.
“This campaign of prejudice, bullying and spiteful behaviour has finally been rewarded by Labour’s NEC [national executive committee] and my name has been added to the list of those not welcome in the candidate club. And it is no surprise that many of those excluded are people of colour,” she said in a statement.
Shaheen was presented with a dossier of posts that she had liked on X, some dating back to 2014. The most recent was by a US academic who used the trope of the “Israel lobby” in relation to a sketch on The Daily Show in the US. Shaheen’s “like” prompted a complaint from the Jewish labour movement.
You can see her reaction to receiving an email telling her candidacy had been blocked in this Newsnight clip:
“Honestly I’m so shocked right now, to be treated this badly”
Faiza Shaheen, who was set to stand for Labour, describes hearing that her candidacy had been pulled over liking a series of Tweets which she claims Labour said would frustrate its campaign#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/JtMIywDz2N
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) May 29, 2024Share
Updated at 11.38 BST
Key events
The ongoing dispute at the Tata steel plant in Port Talbot, South Wales, could be a headache for Labour if it wins the general election.
Unite has warned it is preparing to escalate industrial action over planned job losses at the plant and will already ban overtime and begin a work-to-rule later this month.
Unite said Tata is threatening to cut redundancy pay in response to the announcement of industrial action.
The union’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, said: “Unite and its members will not tolerate Tata’s bully-boy tactics and neither should Labour. The union is now preparing to escalate industrial action in direct response to the company’s threats. The company is trying to hold the country to ransom, while needlessly throwing thousands of workers on the scrapheap. If Tata is not prepared to do the right thing, then an incoming Labour government must ensure it does.”
A Tata Steel spokesman said: “Following the publication of our most generous employee support package to date and having shared assurances for the future of the UK business with our trade union partners, we had hoped they would put the revised offer to their members. It is therefore disappointing that Unite have decided on industrial action – we are now considering our legal options regarding the legality of their ballot.”
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Derbyshire police reviewing ‘election fraud’ claims
Derbyshire police are reviewing claims of “election fraud” they have received relating to “concerns around marketing material”.
“An incident has been created and will be reviewed,” the force wrote in a statement on X.
We wish to confirm that we have received a number of messages in relation to claims of election fraud, raised due to concerns around marketing material. An incident has been created and will be reviewed.
— Derbyshire Police (@DerbysPolice) June 1, 2024
It comes after the Conservative candidate for High Peak in Derbyshire, Robert Largan, posted on X in red Labour colours saying “Labour for Largan” on Saturday.
He wrote: “So many local Labour voters have told me they’re going to vote for me, because they want to keep me as their local MP. There have been so many that I’m launching a new Labour for Largan club.”
So many local Labour voters have told me they’re going to vote for me, because they want to keep me as their local MP.
There have been so many that I’m launching a new Labour for Largan club. You can join other traditional Labour voters backing me at: https://t.co/7zZ7RO53b7 pic.twitter.com/duoiq0QKr9
— Robert Largan (@robertlargan) June 1, 2024
He also posted a similar blue advert which says “Reform for Robert” and uses Reform UK’s party colours.
A spokesperson for Mr Largan has denied wrongdoing.
A statement, as reported by Sky News, said: “As Mr Largan’s social media posts and website make abundantly clear, large numbers of traditional Labour voters have been contacting him to tell him they plan to vote for him, despite him being a Conservative candidate.”
Largan is defending one of the most marginal Tory-held seats, where he won with a majority of just 590at the 2019 general election.
You can read more on the story here:
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Updated at 12.56 BST
The Conservatives have ‘absolutely destroyed’ Britain’s relationship with the EU, Scottish Lib Dems say
The Conservatives have “absolutely destroyed” Britain’s relationship with the EU, the Scottish Liberal Democrats have said.
Party leader Alex Cole-Hamilton told BBC One Scotland’s The Sunday Show of the Lib Dems’ hopes of getting Britain “back into the heart” of Europe.
He said the Liberal Democrats are “proud Europeans” and that his party would attempt to rebuild the country’s relationship with the EU and encourage free movement.
He said:
The Conservatives have absolutely destroyed our relationship with Europe, there is no trust there right now at all. We had one of the hardest possible Brexits and we’re still paying the price for that in terms of the goods that we buy in our supermarkets, but also the absence of the skilled workforce that we used to enjoy.”
“Lib Dems care passionately about removing the friction, rebuilding bridges, getting back into things like Interpol, moving forward to the free movement of people, reducing those pressures and the frictions that exist and getting us back into the heart of Europe – Lib Dems are passionate Europeans, always will be,” the party leader added.
Cole Hamilton said that voters on the doorsteps “don’t care” about a second independence vote, but care more about issues like access to GP or dental appointments.
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Updated at 12.09 BST
A Labour MP has defended his party’s decision to parachute candidates into safe seats in Wales, insisting there was local input in the decision.
Concerns have been raised after thinktank chief and former Labour aide Torsten Bell and Alex Barros-Curtis, executive director of legal affairs for the party, were selected as candidates for Swansea West and Cardiff West on Friday.
Former Labour MP for Cynon Valley, Beth Winter, accused the party of “imposing candidates” after the expedited process, which she branded an “insult to Wales”.
Bell appears to have no connection to the country, while Mr Barros-Curtis went to school in north Wales, the PA news agency reported.
But Stephen Kinnock, who is standing for Labour in Aberfan Maesteg, has insisted the decision was taken with the local party’s input.
He told the BBC’s Nick Servini on Politics Wales:
There were constituency Labour party members on both of those selection committees. There was input from the local party membership in both cases. I know Torsten well, he is one of the smartest people on the scene in terms of understanding where we are on the public finances, in terms of developing policy that is going to take our country forward. He’s an incredibly talented person.
Kinnock did not answer when questioned if Bell had ever been to Swansea.
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Blocked Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen ‘considering standing in Chingford as an independent’
Faiza Shaheen, the candidate blocked by Labour from standing in Chingford and Woodford Green, has told Lewis Goodall, the LBC presenter and the News Agents presenter, that she is considering standing in Chingford as an independent.
NEW: @faizashaheen tells me she’s considering standing in Chingford as an independent. She says she wants to do it “for the right reasons.”
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) June 2, 2024
Shaheen, who stood in the north-east London seat in 2019, had already announced she would challenge Labour’s decision to block her from standing as one of its candidates in the courts, claiming she had faced “a systematic campaign of racism, Islamophobia and bullying”.
“This campaign of prejudice, bullying and spiteful behaviour has finally been rewarded by Labour’s NEC [national executive committee] and my name has been added to the list of those not welcome in the candidate club. And it is no surprise that many of those excluded are people of colour,” she said in a statement.
Shaheen was presented with a dossier of posts that she had liked on X, some dating back to 2014. The most recent was by a US academic who used the trope of the “Israel lobby” in relation to a sketch on The Daily Show in the US. Shaheen’s “like” prompted a complaint from the Jewish labour movement.
You can see her reaction to receiving an email telling her candidacy had been blocked in this Newsnight clip:
“Honestly I’m so shocked right now, to be treated this badly”
Faiza Shaheen, who was set to stand for Labour, describes hearing that her candidacy had been pulled over liking a series of Tweets which she claims Labour said would frustrate its campaign#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/JtMIywDz2N
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) May 29, 2024Share
Updated at 11.38 BST
Polling by Savanta has given the Labour leader Keir Starmer his biggest lead over Rishi Sunak in one of its polls.
When asked who would make the best prime minister, 44% of the 2,239 UK adults surveyed said Starmer (+4), 30% said Sunak (-1) and 27% said they did not know.
🚨NEW Best PM rating
📈Starmer’s biggest lead over Sunak ever in Savanta polling
🌹Starmer 44% (+4)
🌳Sunak 30% (-1)
◻️Don’t know 27% (-2)
2,239 UK adults, 24-28 May
(Changes from 17-19 May) pic.twitter.com/agHUmciL0t
— Savanta UK (@Savanta_UK) June 2, 2024
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Toby Helm is the Observer’s political editor
A key New Labour adviser who worked for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in Downing Street says there is an “overwhelming economic and ethical case” for Keir Starmer’s party to impose higher taxes on wealth if it wins the general election.
Writing in the Observer, Patrick Diamond, professor of public policy at Queen Mary University of London, and his colleague Colm Murphy, a lecturer in British politics, say a Labour government will need to look at radical ways to raise money, not least because the plans for higher economic growth that the party is relying on may never materialise.
Their comments will stoke the debate over Labour’s economic policies and its attitude to wealth creation after Starmer made an appeal to middle-class voters in an interview with the Times on Saturday, saying that his party’s “number one mission is wealth creation”.
Starmer said he thought it was a good thing for people to be “aspirational”, adding that his was no longer a “tribal” party. “I want it to be wide enough to accommodate people who would identify as Labour. They’d vote for Labour this time.”
You can read the full story here:
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Wes Streeting says he no longer travels on public transport alone due to death threats
Wes Streeting has revealed he does not travel on public transport alone after receiving death threats over his stance on Gaza.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, the shadow health secretary said he has had to “change my movements, change my routine” over his position on Israel’s war in Gaza.
He said:
It means I don’t travel at the moment on public transport alone. It’s really upset me, not much the fear for my safety, but for the last nine years I have really prided myself on the fact people see me on the Central Line into work; that they can walk up to me in Tesco and have a chat.
The Ilford North MP also said that until now he has refused to change his approach, even after the murder of fellow Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016.
Streeting added:
I don’t mind scrutiny. I don’t mind disagreement. That’s democracy. But no one should be subjected to threats and intimidation. I’ve had a death threat since the war in Gaza broke out and I’ve had threats of violence. The irony is I’ve been highly critical of Israel. I have been a longstanding advocate for an independent Palestinian state. Where I draw the line is I don’t think that to be pro-Palestinian is to excuse or justify in any way the barbarity of 7 October.
Streeting is being challenged in his Ilford North constituency by pro-Palestine independent candidate Leanne Mohamad.
The 41-year-old said: “There will be some people in my constituency who don’t feel we’ve been strong enough on Gaza and may not vote for me. But I think there are many more who are voting Labour because they want to bring an end to the chaos.”
Labour backs a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, but not the end of arms exports. Keir Starmer has faced pressure from within the party to take a tougher line on Israel’s war on Gaza and faced a rebellion from dozens of his own MPs late last year on the issue.
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Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said three of the party’s election candidates were “no longer going forward” after reports of inappropriate comments.
Ramsay told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme:
The Green party takes any suggestions of antisemitism, or indeed any form of racism, very seriously. Any suggestions that have been made of inappropriate comments in recent weeks are being investigated by the relevant people.
In the last couple of weeks, there were three candidates who had been selected who are no longer going forward.
I understand there’s a small number more who are still being looked at.
Ramsay said the Green party was planning to get at least four MPs elected “to push the new government to be bolder”. He said the party had a “fantastic chance of winning” the constituencies of Bristol Central, Waveney Valley, North Herefordshire and Brighton Pavilion.
Ramsay also confirmed that rationing is not set to be in the Green manifesto for this election, despite it saying on the party’s website it would “use rationing to reduce the amounts of meat and dairy food consumed in the UK” if it formed a government.
According to recent YouGov polling, the Green party is particularly strong among younger voters, coming in second place among under 30s, above the Tories and Liberal Democrats. Local elections showed voters moving to the Greens from the Liberal Democrats, and even from the Conservatives.
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Updated at 11.28 BST
Cooper refuses to rule out off-shore processing or sending asylum-seekers to have their claims processed abroad
There are more lines from Yvette Cooper’s interview on BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme (see earlier posts at 09.20 and 09.27 for her other quotes).
The shadow home secretary declined to rule out off-shore processing or sending asylum-seekers to have their claims processed abroad.
She said her party would create a border security command “to clear the backlog and to end asylum hotel use, and to put another new returns and enforcement unit in place to actually get the proper returns where people have no right to be here”.
Cooper said:
So, your question was might there be other future arrangements and so on? Keir has always said we would look at what works and there are different kinds of, I think, the sort of offshore processing arrangements and things that have already been used at different times in the past.
For example, the Dublin agreement did mean that, under that scheme, some people were returned to France or to Germany or other countries.
When asked if Labour would send asylum seekers who are stuck in the system to another country to have their claims processed, Cooper said: “That’s certainly what used to happen as part of the Dublin scheme and we look at what works.”
Keir Starmer said last year that he would look at offshore schemes where migrants are processed in a third country “usually en route to their country of destination”, saying that other European countries were also considering this.
Labour’s decision to consider a range of options for offshoring caused alarm among charities and drew criticism from some of its political rivals.
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Updated at 10.51 BST
Read the full story on www.theguardian.com
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/02/starmer-sunak-migration-general-election-uk-politics-live-2-june