Labour appoints Webbe for Leicester East

Wednesday 13th November 2019 06:49 EST
 
 

A former Islington councillor and a defender of Ken Livingstone has now been chosen as the next candidate for Leicester East, where she will take the place of Keith Vaz.

Claudia Webbe, who defended Ken Livingstone after he likened a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard, has been chosen as Labour's candidate after Vaz resigned from the seat. In 2006, Ms. Webbe wrote a letter to The Guardian, saying Mr. Livingstone's four-week suspension as London Mayor “smacked in the face of true democracy. His history of work in the anti-racist movement is unquestionable.”

Webbe is currently a local party representative on Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and the council cabinet member for the environment and transport in Islington. She is also on Labour’s London regional board and the executive of a left-wing group the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD).

In the meantime, Labour appears to be embroiled in another controversy wherein a London Assembly Member has suggested a “breach in the process” of appointment of candidates to the Leicester East constituency. Navin Shah, currently an Assembly Member for Brent and Harrow, had applied for the said constituency. Although, his application was formally acknowledged the councillor had not been notified if he was shortlisted for the next round of interviews as the nomination process explains.“Congratulations to Claudia in landing this seat. However, I am most disgusted that the Party did not even have the common courtesy of writing back to me and informing me if I had been selected for the interview process scheduled this afternoon.  It is only through social media that I gathered that Webbe had been selected as the candidate for Leicester East instead. This lacks complete transparency and is a breach of the selection process,” said Shah to Asian Voice.

In a statement posted on Twitter, Mr Meghani, a lead investigator at the Independent Office for Police Conduct, said: "In my job I challenge abuse of power and corruption - and as a Labour member I fight injustice and unfairness.

"So I cannot stay silent on the obvious dodgy practices and nepotism involved in this process, where Labour's ruling executive chose a member of Labour's ruling executive as the candidiate."

He added: "This type of conduct, where a well-connected favourite is nodded through, is no better than the Etonian old boys' network that Labour seeks to condemn."

Claudia Webbe is now set to stand on December 12th in the safe seat, where the party won a majority of 22,428 votes at the last general election in 2017.  


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