The ballot box: a recent opinion poll suggests that Welsh people will abandon the Conservative Party en masse at the next general election.
Happy St David’s Day, Wales!
A YouGov poll for WalesOnline has stated that the Conservatives are likely to lose all but two Parliamentary seats in Wales at the next general election.
Tragically for This Writer, the MPs set to remain are both here in Powys – in Montgomeryshire, and in my own home constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire.
What’s wrong with people here? Good question!
My best guess is that the older generation are set in their ways, while the younger voters have lost all hope for the future if it’s a choice between Rishi Sunak’s economy wreckers and Keir Starmer’s pale blue Tories.
A YouGov poll for WalesOnline, released ahead of St David’s Day, shows the Conservatives’ share of the vote has slipped to just 19%, while Labour’s share has surged from 41% in 2019 to 53% now.
Among people aged 24-50, the Tory share of the vote is just 7%.
According to the Wales Governance Centre, the YouGov poll shows that based on uniform swing and current boundaries the Conservative party would keep just two Welsh seats, the lowest number since they got no seats in the 2001 election.
The only remaining Conservative seats based on this poll would be Brecon and Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire, with the Tories only managing to hold on to the former by a very narrow margin. It is technically too close to call, with the Lib Dems within a couple of percentage points but on strict number the Conservatives edge it. As this is based on uniform swing of votes and assumes no tactical voting, that scenario may well not play out in reality. The seat has changed hands recently in a by-election in August 2019 after Tory MP Chris Davies pleaded guilty to claiming false expenses. It was subsequently won by the Lib Dems but reclaimed by the Tories in the general election that December.
What a horrible choice – Conservatives or Liberal Democrats!
This Writer wonders whether this might be a moment for the Green Party to make inroads into Wales. It’s doing very well in the southwest of England!
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“Keir Starmer was right to exile Corbyn,” she wrote. “Labour has a duty to voters, not to rebellious members.”
And: “The party leader correctly sent a signal that democracy is about winning votes, not indulging nostalgia among a minority.”
What?
Did Ms Sodha hear the same speech I did?
Starmer used the opportunity provided by the Equality and Human Rights Commission whitewashing his anti-Semitic attacks on left-wing Jews to again tar Mr Corbyn with the anti-Semitism brush, along with any Labour members who supported Corbyn’s “Scandinavian” style of socialism.
And then Starmer told socialists across the party that if they didn’t like his leadership, he wanted them to get out.
So anybody who takes his advice won’t be voting for him, then. So much for Starmer’s duty to voters and to winning votes!
I don’t see where nostalgia figures in what happened at all.
And that’s just looking at the first two paragraphs of Ms Sodha’s Observer article!
She makes basic errors of fact:
The EHRC’s report of 2020 did not find Labour responsible for “institutional antisemitism” as she claimed – indeed, it ruled that Labour was not guilty of such an offence.
Ken Livingstone – and Pam Bromley – may have been found to have unlawfully harassed Jewish party members, but both are currently (as far as I can tell) embroiled in court action against the EHRC over this claim; it is wrong for her to publicise the former without also confirming the latter.
Claims of “appalling” abuse against Luciana Berger from within the Labour Party have been debunked (although she did receive abuse from right-wing activists who had nothing to do with the party)(there are far too many examples for me to provide links here); Margaret Hodge submitted hundreds of complaints – the vast majority of which had nothing to do with Labour Party members.
Jeremy Corbyn did not accuse the EHRC of the EHRC of “dramatically overstating” the extent of antisemitism in the party “for political reasons”; he said that, in general, the scale of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party had been overstated by its political opponents.
Mr Corbyn has no reason to show contrition because he had not “presided over” anti-Semitism in his party. In fact, he worked hard to eradicate it and succeeded in reducing it until anti-Semitism in the Labour Party was far below not only that in other political parties but also well below the national average as well. Under Mr Corbyn, Labour really was the safest place for Jews. That is not true under Keir Starmer.
And let’s have a few facts that she missed:
The report said that Labour discriminated against people who had been accused of anti-Semitism in 42 of the 70 cases the EHRC examined, meaning complaints were exaggerated.
The report wrongly blamed Mr Corbyn’s Labour leadership for failing to do enough – or act quickly enough – to implement recommendations for improvements, but it also showed that this situation was quickly put right when Jennie Formby took over from right-wing factionalist Iain (now Lord) McNicol as general secretary; it was party officials working under him who had been dragging their feet.
The leader’s office was found to have interfered in several investigations – but often the prejudice was against the people who had been accused of anti-Semitism, and not against anybody Jewish.
So Ms Sodha’s claim that Starmer’s decision was “principled” and “morally correct” because Mr Corbyn hasn’t shown any contrition for the anti-Semitism he “presided over” is baloney because he didn’t preside over it – he worked hard to stop it.
Starmer’s decision therefore comes across as narrow-minded factional hysteria. Ms Sodha’s description of him as a “leader of integrity” is risible; he has opportunistically hung an unwarranted attack against an innocent man on the EHRC’s announcement.
Ms Sodha says Mr Corbyn’s “deep unpopularity in 2019 was a significant factor in Boris Johnson’s resounding victory” but fails to accurately record the reason for that unpopularity: false media reporting of issues like anti-Semitism that has clearly gone uncorrected in the mainstream media to this day.
Still, she gets one aspect of Starmer’s leadership right: he’ll sacrifice any and all principles in order to grasp power.
Ms Sodha wrote: “For Labour’s left flank… votes are not to be achieved at the expense of sacrificing their principles,” clearly implying that the so-called “moderates” (in reality, right-wingers who have very few political differences from the Tories) with happily go anywhere the wind blows if they think it will win them a few votes: “Democracy is first and foremost about winning votes.”
It’s Tony Benn’s argument about politicians being either “signposts” or “weathercocks”; a “signpost” always points in its direction of travel and you know exactly what they are, while a “weathercock” changes with the wind, meaning you can never trust them to do what they say they’ll do from one day to the next. Keir Starmer, as I’ve said before, is clearly a “cock”.
It follows clearly from this that Ms Sodha’s claim that Starmer’s “duty is to voters” is not how the current Labour leader sees his position; he reckons his first duty is to elevate himself, no matter what means he uses to do it. If he’ll sacrifice any policy position to achieve his aim (and remember, he has ditched all 10 of the pledges he made when he was seeking election as party leader), then voters cannot know what he will do and he clearly feels no duty to them at all.
She goes on to attack democracy; if members of the Labour Party can’t have equal say in the election of a Parliamentary candidate, then democracy has been betrayed. If party leaders can override constituency members in choosing who will represent them, then democracy has been betrayed. Ms Sodha denies this.
“It is fundamentally undemocratic to give the small, unrepresentative sliver of voters that constitutes the Labour party membership too much power to impose a leader that neither the party’s MPs, nor the country at large, think is decent and competent, or to impose an idiosyncratic choice of individual as a likely local MP on tens of thousands of voters,” she trumpets, unable to see the fundamental flaw in her argument.
What is that flaw? Simply that the membership of a political party describes its policies, beliefs and direction of travel – or should do so. The membership’s choice tells the voters at large what the party is about.
And – crucially – handing these important decisions over to the leadership simply gives power to an even smaller, less representative sliver of voters and must, therefore, be even more undemocratic according to Ms Sodha’s own argument.
So much for her.
The article has attracted a large amount of flak. Here’s just some of what I’ve found:
Keir Starmer and Jeremy Corbyn: this image is from a time when Starmer wasn’t overtly trying to stab his former party leader in the back (or, indeed, in the front).
In response to the headline, this should give you a fairly good idea of the situation:
Don’t believe the MSM, Jeremy Corbyn will stand as an independent in Islington North.
It’s a response to a unilateral declaration by current Labour leader Keir Starmer that former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will not be allowed to stand as a candidate for the party in the next general election.
Starmer should not have the ability to make such a statement, as any decision over who represents an individual constituency should be up to its local Labour members, and Mr Corbyn has not done anything to disqualify him from standing – we have a decision by the party’s ruling NEC that says so.
The announcement has generated a large amount of opposition:
So the cards are finally on the table. Starmer's got a fight on his hands now, and I for one am going to make damn sure it's a fight that's fought right out in the open. Gloves are off.#ItWasAScamhttps://t.co/Fwf5XgvYVd
So Starmer has now said that Corbyn won’t be allowed to stand as a Labour MP at the next election, despite calling him a friend in 2020, praising him to the hilt & promising to keep the policies from the 2019 manifesto.
And, as mentioned above, there is concern that Starmer had not right to make the announcement he did:
Have the rules in the PLP SO been followed? Do they grant authority to the Party leader to unilaterally remove the whip? for how long? on the basis of an expression of opinion not conduct?
And there’s the personal element – that Starmer and his supporters are trying to bully Mr Corbyn out of the party whose aims he used to represent so well but which they have perverted into what might well be described as a right-wing Tory/Establishment front:
This 👇👇👇 institutional abuse and of us! We should all be calling starmer and his little right wing zealots out – Corbyn's telling us we should in his final words of statement – I'm going to help him campaign if can https://t.co/AXuaqMRG7u
“Ever since I was elected as a Labour MP 40 years ago, I have fought on behalf of my community for a more equal, caring and peaceful society. Day in, day out, I am focused on the most important issues facing people in Islington North: poverty, rising rents, the healthcare crisis, the safety of refugees, and the fate of our planet.
“Keir Starmer’s statement about my future is a flagrant attack on the democratic rights of Islington North Labour Party members. It is up to them – not party leaders – to decide who their candidate should be. Any attempt to block my candidacy is a denial of due process, and should be opposed by anybody who believes in the value of democracy.
“At a time when the government is overseeing the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, this is a divisive distraction from our overriding goal: to defeat the Conservative Party at the next General Election.
“I am proud to represent the labour movement in Parliament through my constituency. I am focused on standing up for workers on the picket line, the marginalised, and all those worried about their futures. That is what I’ll continue to do. I suggest the Labour Party does the same.”
So in Mr Corbyn’s view, Starmer is divisive, flagrantly undemocratic and flouts due process.
I can see a challenge coming down the line – possibly in the courts.
And even if Starmer wins, I can see Mr Corbyn finally accepting that the Labour Party has abandoned him, and standing as an independent – which is what Starmer should fear more than anything else.
His people do:
Labour party officials are said to be looking for a strong candidate in the constituency, which Corbyn has held since 1983. “The local party is likely to be difficult and the campaign will be very tough if Jeremy stands as an independent,” a source told the Guardian.
Bring it on, then. If Starmer succeeds on blocking Mr Corbyn out of Labour, he won’t block him out of Islington North – and he will create a much bigger problem for himself than he has already.
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Yet millions of people still don’t know they’re about to lose their right to vote?
Share this article at once!
It’s the least you can do to safeguard democracy.
In the meantime, I’ll consider how I can use it to push the government into making social media platforms throw away the algorithms that unfairly deprive sites like Vox Political of our readers.
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Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi with Mick Lynch, general secretary of the RMT Union, who is currently doing sterling work countering the anti-strike rhetoric being pushed by the UK’s right-wing national media: you can see why the current Labour leadership would want to remove her.
Keir Starmer’s right-wing ‘Labour’ Party has expelled the only elected Jewish member of its National Executive Committee in an act that shows contempt for internal party democracy and has been described as anti-Semitic.
In an act of psychological warfare that is typical of the Labour Party under its current administration, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi was only informed of her expulsion after it had been leaked to a client journalist who tweeted it out to the public… on her birthday.
One really has to wonder at the sick, psychotic mindset of people who deliberately time these blows against a person’s reputation and self-esteem to take place at moments when they would normally be celebrating.
Ms Wimborne-Idrissi’s party membership was suspended shortly after she was elected to the party’s ruling National Executive Committee – in another move with suspicious timing, that happened right before Labour held its 2022 party conference.
It came amid a series of smears by right-wing organisations within the party like the Jewish Labour Movement, which claimed she denied the “scale and severity” of anti-Semitism within the party.
Well, this expulsion clearly shows active discrimination by colleagues of these right wingers against Jewish members, proving anti-Semitism is alive, thriving and actively encouraged in Keir Starmer’s Labour.
But I doubt that those who have been howling about it have any interest in punishing the real culprits.
The charge on which Ms Wimborne-Idrissi was expelled was one of association with now-proscribed groups that weren’t proscribed at the time – and, according to Skwawkbox, “the party spread false claims that she had associated with one after expulsion, when in fact she had merely attended a separate one-off event with a similar name”.
She has announced that she intends to appeal the expulsion in the following Twitter thread, explaining also its circumstances:
While celebrating my 70th birthday on December 15, I heard from friends that Jewish Chronicle reporter Lee @lmharpin was claiming confirmation from "multiple sources" that I had been expelled from the Labour Party. Thread 1/5
So, details of internal disciplinary cases continue to be leaked to external media in breach of @UKLabour rules. Factional abuses highlighted by Forde Report continue unchecked. Action Plan supposedly overseen by @EHRC to ensure independence/transparency is a sham. 3/5
This Writer is reminded of my own brush with Labour’s disciplinary procedures, in which false claims about me were leaked to Gabriel Pogrund of The Sunday Times. That newspaper – and others including the Jewish Chronicle – were later forced to retract and correct their statements after I made a formal complaint to the regulator IPSO.
I was still expelled from the Labour Party, but a lawsuit I took out against the party later revealed that the breach of its rules for which I was removed was nothing to do with anti-Semitism (as had been widely touted) but was in fact for accurately reporting on subjects that the right wing of the party wanted to keep quiet.
Charge was, by taking part in discussion a year earlier organised by proscribed groups, I had demonstrated support for them – a "prohibited act". I dispute this interpretation and will appeal my expulsion. It disenfrachises 1000s of members who voted to put me on the NEC. 5/5
Empty: Keir Starmer’s claims are as empty as the promises in the 10 pledges he made when he was trying to be elected Labour leader (all of which he has now broken).
This went down well, didn’t it?
After Keir Starmer claimed in a newspaper column that he would promote local democracy and empower local communities, people on the social media have been queuing up to slap him down.
The classic comment comes from a Twitter account holder who stated: “It’s laughable hypocrisy to carp on about direct democracy when your party scratched locally chosen candidates and imposes its own shortlist.”
A Skwawkbox article on the subject states:
Starmer made same promise as part of con to persuade Labour members to vote him in as leader – and has waged war on their rights to democracy and free speech ever since.
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Yes: this is the only image This Site has of Ian Byrne.
The remarkable aspect of this story is not that Ian Byrne is being victimised by members of his own party, or that he is seeking advice from the police about how to deal with it – This Site and others have already covered those things.
No – the extraordinary part is that the BBC appears to have removed its blinkers and is now prepared to cover it.
An MP who wants to remain as a Labour candidate at the next election has said he will be “seeking guidance” from police over alleged intimidation.
West Derby MP Ian Byrne tweeted that he faced “shameful” intimidation at an event on Saturday and had blocked those “involved in this appalling behaviour”.
Mr Byrne is being challenged in the race in West Derby by Liverpool councillor Anthony Lavelle and Lancashire councillor Kimberley Whitehead, after losing a series of ballots in his local party.
In a week’s time, members of the constituency Labour Party will choose one of the three to be their candidate.
The process, which started in the summer has been described as “toxic” by Labour members.
Toxic. The fact that this is the word to which party members resort when describing the process imposed on them by their own leadership speaks volumes.
The article then focuses on an alleged incident between supporters of Byrne and those of Lavelle, when events were coincidentally (?) scheduled to take place at neighbouring venues. One has to question how that happened.
Considering the ill-feeling over this matter and the way the Labour leadership seems to be prioritising the other candidates over Byrne, it seems incongruous that this should have happened.
Who was responsible for it?
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Christian Wakeford: this Tory defector to the Labour Party gets to skip the process of selection to stand as a Labour representative in the next general election, while people who have been Labour members all their lives are being pushed out by a hostile right-wing leadership.
The Labour Parliamentary selection process has plumbed a new depth of bias.
This Site has already reported the way the right-wing (dare I say far – for the Labour Party – right-wing?) Labour leadership is trying to squeeze left-wing candidates including MP of the Year Ian Byrne out of being selected to stand at the next UK general election.
Now we learn that Christian Wakeford, the former Conservative MP who crossed the floor to the Labour benches, has been allowed to skip the selection process entirely.
That’s right – a former Tory is being allowed to avoid the judgement of Labour members and voters in his constituency so he can stand for election again, whether the local party wants him or not.
Here’s Damo – and be warned, his language is spicy:
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Ian Byrne: now it seems Labour members who unaccountably want to deprive their constituency of the MP of the Year are trying to intimidate him and his team.
Take a look at this tweet, and the reply it provoked, from a councillor in the constituency of MP of the Year Ian Byrne.
Despite winning the award for his excellent work, Byrne is facing an uphill struggle to be re-selected as the Labour candidate for Liverpool West Derby – because it seems the party’s leaders are deliberately trying to prevent it.
This Site reported on November 5 that
Labour has rescinded Mr Byrne’s access to Organise, the communication facility between the party hierarchy and its members.
His rival in the campaign – a shiny Wes Streeting-a-like from London – does have access to the tool and therefore has a huge advantage over Mr Byrne, who is reduced to trying to resource his reselection campaign on the social media.
Now this:
Unlikely Ian would have blocked anyone unless they had been abusive to him or staff.
With Ian’s massive majority, excellent track record, huge popularity (MP of year) & tireless work in your community, I’m curious to know why you think someone else is more worthy of your vote?
— Nicola James 💙 #EnoughIsEnough #ProtectOurNHS (@NAJ562) November 13, 2022
Nicola James makes a good point. Why would anybody think the MP of the Year is not worth re-selecting? That’s the first indication that something is amiss with Cllr Doyle’s complaint. As for the comment about abusive behaviour… well, here’s what Byrne himself has to say about it:
So he says he suffered intimidation from people including local politicians and will be taking up the matter, not just with the local authority but with the police as well.
This casts an entirely different light on Cllr Doyle’s words, it seems.
It also appears that right-wingers among the Labour members in the West Derby constituency are spreading what Byrne himself has described as myths about him, in a bid to persuade gullible colleagues that he’s not worth their vote. An astonishing claim about the MP of the Year!
Here’s his response, killing these claims with the facts:
In a campaign in which I am saddened to say, fair play and integrity have not always been apparent, I find myself needing to put out this information to clarify a few things for West Derby members. I would much prefer to be concentrating on hold the Tories to account: pic.twitter.com/hDtdTHJErC
For those of you who can’t read images, here’s what the text says:
Mythbusters
Sometimes during a campaign, facts get lost. Several West Derby members have made me aware of what they consider to be, at best, ‘odd’ conversations with representatives of other candidates over recent weeks.
In order to ensure there are no misunderstandings and that all West Derby members have access to the facts, I have put together this simple mythbuster to clarify a few points:
I voted Remain in the EU ref, not Brexit (as members inform me, they have been told by other campaigns). I also 100% respected the outcome of the vote.
My office was not closed for my first year in the role as MP. I set up a highly visible and accessible, brand new MP’s office in Tuebrook, one of the poorest wards in our constituency. Within the first few months of the role, I, like everyone, was subject to Covid-19 rules which I followed. My office was open 8am – 6pm durinq the pandemic but subject to the same lockdown and social distancing rules as everyone else.
Myself and my team worked non-stop during the pandemic and supported West Derby constituents in so many different ways. I sadly had to close the office to the public again earlier this year as a security precaution, due to frightening death threats made against myself, team and family by a far-right extremist posing outside the office. This does not mean myself and my team are not working, we are, all day, every day, for the people of West Derby.
As the MP for West Derby I am responsible for many things, all of which I take very seriously. Councillors have primary jurisdiction over local council issues such as traffic, potholes, dog muck and street lighting. Within West Derby, each ward has three local councillors who I support and encourage to carry out their roles fully.*
I am not obsessed with foodbanks. I am however committed to ending the need for foodbanks, and I make no apology for that. Please look at my work on the Right To Food campaign to see how I am challenging the need for the very existence of foodbanks: www.ianbyrne.org/righttofood
Thank you for your time.
Ian Byrne, MP Liverpool West Derby *Please see separate statement issued 13. 11.2022 regarding intimidation
Looking at Byrne’s preface to his statement, it seems clear that he’s saying “fair play and integrity” are no longer part of the Labour leadership’s skillset.
Perhaps, instead of trying to remove MPs who have those qualities – like Byrne himself – party members across the UK should concentrate on ridding their organisation of the parasites that have infested its head office instead.
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Set adrift: how many potentially excellent Labour candidates have been rejected by Keir Starmer’s skewed Parliamentary selection procedure, that seems to contradict democracy and party rules to exclude left-wingers?
Labour Hub has reproduced an important twitter thread by Angus Satow on Keir Starmer’s purge and the implications for Britain’s democracy.
I reproduce it in full below, in view of its importance:
Labour is in the process of selecting its Prospective Parliamentary Candidates for the next General Election, with the NEC signing off batches of seats.
Well, according to Labour’s own rules – they can’t. But….
There are three stages to selections: longlisting, shortlisting and the selection.
Longlisting: NEC Majority, with trade union input
Shortlisting: Local Party and trade union representatives
Selection: Labour members
The Leader of the Opposition’s Office and the Labour machine – working in tandem – are intervening at the longlisting stage, where they have control.
This is when they’re blocking candidates from even being considered or voted on by members – even council leaders, senior council figures and ex-MPs!
The Labour Party leadership are clear about this – they are ensuring that loyalists are selected, figures from the Labour right who will never cause any problems.
They block all left-wingers from the start, and ensure any candidate offered to members is ‘friendly’.
This is no democratic choice at all.
But they face a problem:
Under a rule agreed by Starmer’s NEC, trade union-backed candidates are *automatically longlisted*.
Every left-winger blocked has enjoyed trade union backing, often from Unite and the CWU.
In @LaurenJTownsend‘s case from six unions inc Unite AND Unison.
So they come up with a workaround: ‘due diligence’.
A ‘dossier’ is compiled of ‘concerning evidence’ which has ‘come to light in the course of routine due diligence’ checks on social media.
There are some truly laughable examples of what this evidence consists of.
– Once having liked a Caroline Lucas tweet
– Liking a tweet by Nicola Sturgeon about testing negative for Covid
Equally, there are some truly disturbing examples of ‘evidence’ which is grounds for blocking:
– having mentioned Palestinian refugees (a blatant act of anti-Palestinian racism)
– Liking a tweet calling on Labour to be bolder in its economic policy
– a ‘history of protest’
It’s not hard to disprove the Leadership’s half-baked claim that this is about ‘quality control’.
For example, here’s the Leadership’s ‘heir’ for Milton Keynes North doing the exact same thing as Lauren Townsend.
In Barking, Labour Right NEC members first ignored, then swept under the carpet evidence of Blue Labour figure Darren Rodwell engaging in what have been termed racist jokes.
He was let off and won the selection. ‘Quality control’ ?
Upon receiving the dossier, the candidate is then invited to a meeting at one day’s notice, with the outcome all but certain: blocking.
These amount to nothing less than show trials.
The next day, the candidate receives a perfunctory email, saying only that the panel considered their representations, and they rejected them.
No rules are cited, no judgement given. No due process.
You might wonder – will the trade unions tolerate this blatant abuse of process, blocking their candidates?
The answer is no – earlier this year, trade unions agreed with the NEC a clarification of ‘due diligence’ that it could only be used for things such as serious financial wrongdoing.
But this agreement has been ignored, time and again.
Candidates backed by unions across the board – from USDAW to Unite, UNISON to the CWU – have been blocked on spurious grounds.
Nor is it only left-wingers being blocked.
From Bella Sankey in Hastings to Jack Hemingway in Wakefield, even soft left figures are being blocked.
As Momentum put it, anyone to the left of Tony Blair faces attack.
It’s out of step with the country, because people want their MPs to be local, but from Wakefield to Stroud, the Leadership are happy to exclude popular local champions in favour of loyalist parachutes.
And polling also shows that from a higher minimum wage to public ownership, people want left-wing economic policies!
But whether it’s deselecting Socialist Campaign Group members or blocking left-wingers, Starmer is intent on wiping these ideas out of the public sphere.
But there are more damaging effects still. As @MichaelLCrick reports, very few candidates are working-class.
In Milton Keynes North, Lauren Townsend, a trade unionist who came to the labour movement by organising her workplace as a waitress, was blocked.
The Leadership’s supposed heir is a pollster.
This is the Starmerite counterrevolution to put working-class interests back in a box.
It gets worse.
In Camberwell & Peckham, @mowords, a prominent anti-racist activist and working-class black man, was blocked. No black man has been elected as a Labour MP since 2011
Meanwhile, Rodwell was let through, despite his ‘black man’ remarks.
Britain’s leading Black newspaper – The Voice – has sounded the alarm on a crisis of anti-black racism within Labour.
All this within the context of the Forde \\Report and criticism from Black MPs.
Yet the Voice has been *ignored* by the Labour Party.
Meanwhile, in Kensington, the ex-MP, @emmadentcoad, the only person to ever win the seat for Labour, and a passionate advocate for a community scarred by Grenfell was blocked.
Locally there was widespread disgust at the decision.
Indeed, when the Party blocked the *deputy leader of the council* in favour of two people who live outside the constituency, the entire Wakefield CLP Executive resigned.
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promises broken
