Uproar as Labour block activist from standing for parliament

Diane Abbott leads protests over decision to bar Maurice Mcleod from the contest to represent Camberwell and Peckham

SUPPORT: Maurice Mcleod enjoyed significant backing but it was not enough to stop him being blocked

A POPULAR anti-racism campaigner blocked by Labour from becoming an MP has slammed the ‘factional’ decision taken by officials behind the scenes.

Maurice Mcleod – who was backed by MPs Diane Abbott, Bell Riberio-Addy and John McDonnell – was kicked out of the selection contest in Camberwell and Peckham, a seat with the highest black population in Britain.

Labour officials had trawled Mcleod’s social media and found ‘offences’ such as liking a tweet by Green Party MP Caroline Lucas several years ago before Mcleod became a councillor in Wandsworth.

Abbott told The Voice: “I am shocked and saddened to hear that Maurice Mcleod has not been long listed by the national Labour Party for Camberwell and Peckham.

“Maurice was a local man, a great campaigner with a long record of service to his community. If the national party will not even allow him to be considered, that is very concerning.”

The decision to block Mcleod provoked anger among party members and prominent community figures.

Mcleod, a former director of the charity Race on the Agenda, released a statement slamming the ‘frivolous’ reasons given for barring him from the longlist to replace retiring veteran MP Harriet Harman.

He had won the backing of Unite the Union, and a local Left caucus, including Peoples Momentum, who endorsed him as their candidate. 

The local membership were believed to be significantly Left, despite having a centrist MP in the rock-solid Labour seat for the past 40 years, and were big supporters of Jeremy Corbyn.

In his statement, Mcleod said: “I am deeply disappointed by this unfair decision taken behind closed doors, which denies local members the opportunity to vote for me.

“I’m sad that Labour sees no place in its ranks for black and brown socialists like me who have fought relentlessly for racial justice.”

Islington councillor Councillor Valerie Bossman-Quarshie predicted there would be a “massive uproar” over the decision to bar Mcleod.

She told The Voice: “I’m shocked. It’s really, really sad. He’s such a wholesome candidate, an anti-racist who is always at the forefront for the community. It’s a crying shame. We’re already lacking black male representation.

“It’s showing Labour is not really wanting people that are forthright and actually want to call out racism.”

It is understood that Mcleod is considering all options over the weekend.

There are only three black male Labour MPs, less than the Conservatives who have four black men on the green benches. 

Labour have already picked general election candidates in 36 held or winnable seats where there is a vacancy, and none of them have a male or female black African or Caribbean candidate.

The row in the south London seat comes after months of discontent over Labour’s lack of real action to address anti-black racism identified in the Forde Report. Labour responded by saying “Starmer is in control now.”

The party has also been trying to ignore the Labour Files documentary by Al Jazeera which exposed cases of racism against black and Asian members, including stalking and surveillance. 

Former Shadow Chancellor McDonnell said: “This decision to block Maurice from standing is shaming. If those who made this appalling decision don’t appreciate your steadfast work for your local community and your decades of courageous anti racist campaigning, I want you to know Maurice that I, and thousands more, certainly do.”

Fellow MP Riberio-Addy added: “We are a democratic socialist party and the members of Camberwell and Peckham should have been given the opportunity to decide.”

Other MPs sending their solidarity to Mcleod included Nadia Whittome, Zarah Sultana, Florence Eshalomi and Fleur Anderson.

Chantelle Lunt from Black Lives Matter Merseyside told The Voice: “It feels like Labour is purging the party of the Left. This reminds me of what happened to Anna Rothery, who was absolutely loved by the community with strong Left politics, and I feel like the Labour leadership see this as a threat.”

Labour Black Socialists said: “Maurice’s blocking seems to suggest that having solid support in the community that you wish to represent in parliament might be a reason not to be selected.”

Author Gary Younge wrote on Twitter: “@UKLabour message to the black community: those who work tirelessly in your interests over decades, representing the party at a local level, should not apply for parliament. We want your votes but not your voice.”

The Labour Party were approached for comment.

Comments Form

15 Comments

  1. | David

    Will he be standing for the TUSC banner instead?

    Reply

  2. | S. Thompson

    Labour just want our votes every election, they don’t want our people. Let’s see who they’ll get to represent Peckham/Dulwich/Camberwell constituency. We need to wake up.

    Reply

  3. | Red Robbo

    “We are a democratic socialist party and the members of Camberwell and Peckham should have been given the opportunity to decide.”

    The term ‘democratic socialist’ is a tautological misnomer.

    Philip Snowden, Labour MP: ‘The British Labour Party is certainly not Socialist in the sense in which Socialism is understood upon the Continent. It is not based upon the recognition of the class struggle; it does not accept the teaching of Marx…’ (Manchester Guardian Reconstruction Supplement. 26 October 1922) Arthur Greenwood, Labour’s Lord Privy Seal: ‘I look around my colleagues and I see landlords, capitalists and lawyers. We are a cross section of the national life, and this is something that has never happened before’ (Hansard, 17 August 1945). Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Mr. Houghton, M.P. was impressed by his Party’s achievements : “Never has any previous government done so much in so short a time to make modern capitalism work’ (The Times, 25 April 1967). Tony Benn, former Labour cabinet minister and member of the Party’s National Executive Committee, in a candid confession to The Independent (17 May 1989) wrote: ‘Past Labour governments have always worked within the limits set by market forces (as when the cabinet capitulated to the International Monetary Fund in 1976); have always supported nuclear weapons (as when Callaghan authorised the Chevaline without telling parliament); and have regularly confronted trade unionism (as with rigid wage policies)….We must add… a clear recognition that the Labour Party is not — and probably never was — a socialist party, and its individual members do not decide its policy, nor are its election pledges apparently meant to be taken seriously.’

    Reply

    • | Gavin

      Some very strange postings on this topic.
      Sociologically as lived experience Labour has been an equality movement that was Democratic Socialist. Even Neil Kinnock declared this while he was leader. And as an equality movement, this has been why it used to attract Black minorities.

      It was also the case that there was a revolving door between Labour and other leftist groups.
      The Peer and former Chancellor the late Denis Healey came into Labour from the Communist Party as did Shadow Minister Eric Heffer.
      What we have since is a situation where racist neoliberals have been infiltrating the Party in order to use it to get on the globalist lobbying money and free company directorship gravy-train. These entryist Blair/Starmer types have nothing to do with genuine Labour

      When Tony Blair was infiltrating the Labour Party he wrote to Party Leader Michael Foot declaring which parts of Karl Marx’s works he most liked – not a youthful intellectual flirtation, he was a fully grown 30yr old. See end link
      Despite his Karl Marx sentiments, Blair retired as the riches supposed Labour leader in history.
      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5081798.stm

      Reply

  4. | Awula Serwah

    Perhaps Maurice should consider standing as an independent candidate?
    Labour under Starmer will keep purging the Left.

    Reply

    • | Dr C

      I AGREE…. he should consider running as an independent. And give the Labour Party a bloody good nose.
      Fundraise for the money. The communities will certainly support him.

      Reply

  5. | Angie Roberts

    How is it possible for a local man not to be on the long list for Camberwell and Peckham? Surely local LP members should be the decision makers not HQ.
    This is so totally undemocratic. Can’t his local branch complain? This cannot be the end surely?

    Reply

  6. | Adrian Lee

    Labour blocks us at the Branch and CLP level when our youngsters and genuine activists want to contribute. Those of us in the party saw this clearly in the manipulation of Branch and CLP AGMs earlier this year, with ballots undermined to exclude legitimate members from voting, and place servers put into the main officer roles to help continue the corrupted practices of the party.

    Labour then blocks established councillors like Maurice Mcleod who worked enormously hard to win Wandsworth Council for Labour from the Tories – dismissing him out of hand from the MP candidate contest in Camberwell & Peckham (where he also has strong community links – yes, our communities and families in South London do not conform to borough boundaries – we live and thrive and have our roots, everywhere!).

    Maurice, outside of being a Labour Councillor, is a former Director and now Vice Chair of Race on the Agenda. A serious, heavyweight public figure in civil society. Let alone that anybody who ever worked with Maurice knows what kind of honourable, hard working fair minded, community champion he really is.

    I can barely contain my disappointment and anger about this. Maurice is the best of us and the Labour Party dismiss him like they think he is trash.

    Reply

  7. | Chaka Artwell

    Sir Kier Starmer, and Labour’s Chairwoman, the Rt Hon Annalise Dodds MP, and Labour’s Executives only welcome to the Labour Party, compliant; politically infantile, inexperienced and PET like African-skin Subjects-especially women; who will not express any criticism of the Karl Marx inspired Caucasian Middle-Class Left-wing “Politically Correct” and “anti-racist” Creed.
    Candidates who can demonstrate that Labour’s “diversity, inclusion & equality” creed does not in practice assist African-heritage Subjects are certainly excluded from the current Labour Party.
    When will His Majesty’s English voters understand the current Sir Kier Starmer controlled Labour Party actively excludes knowledgeable; free-thinking African-heritage men and women?
    What will it take for His Majesty’s African-heritage Voters to organise and oppose the Labour Party’s prejudiced treatment of Camberwell & Peckham’s Mr Maurice Mcleod; against the horrific expelling from the Labour party of Mr Marc Wadsworth, Ms Jackie Walker and many others; along with Labour’s racism against the Rt Hon Diane Abbott MP
    Camberwell & Peckham has one of the largest concentrations of African-heritage voters.
    For the last thirty years, the Rt Hon Harriett Harman MP has been the MP for Camberwell & Peckham. The MP used the Camberwell & Peckham Parliamentary Seat to advance her real political passion; which are for Middle-class Women, and the broad homosexual and the Caucasian-Jewish Lobby’s concerns.
    I cannot locate any benefit the African-heritage and working-class Caucasian-heritage voters of Camberwell & Peckham have benefited from the Rt Hon Harriett Harman’s long reign as the constituency MP.
    His Majesty African-heritage voters cannot once again sit idly whilst the Labour Party actively excludes active African-heritage campaigners, favouring instead “compliant” and politically “docile” African-heritage women especially; as Labour believe the political docile African-heritage women specifically can be politically manipulated and easily controlled.
    African-heritage voters and leaders of all kinds must oppose Labour’s abuse in Camberwell & Peckham.
    Camberwell & Peckham after being used and abused by the current MP for thirty years, requires an MP who has a genuine record of community activity.
    Being an African-heritage woman, and a Labour Member, in a SAFE LABOUR SEAT, must no longer be tolerated by the voters of Camberwell & Peckham.

    Reply

    • | Peckham Pulse

      I may have misread but do you really think that Starmer only welcomes to the Labour Party those who …. “who will not express any criticism of the Karl Marx inspired Caucasian Middle-Class Left-wing “Politically Correct” and “anti-racist” Creed.”

      He has been expelling Marxists both black and white from the Labour Party since he became leader. To think that Marxism has any influence on his politcs negates the whole experience of the last few years. I am amazed how anyone could reach that conclusion when all the evidence is that he is as anti marxist as they come, in or outside the Labour Party

      Reply

  8. | Rita algierza

    Reads like propaganda for the Tories.

    Get real – there’s only two choices in this country!

    Reply

  9. | DAZZA

    Black people needed to form there own political party. That represents black people not anyone else.

    Reply

  10. | Joe W

    Yet to see those MPs put their own necks on the line – soon they’ll be got rid of and as they stood for no one, no one will stand for them.

    Split Labour’s vote and stand as an independent- let’s see whose side Momentum really are on. Better to see humiliation for Labour with a Green or independent win. The Labour Party is behaving like a mafia as we saw from the Labour Files Jazeera documentary; if it treats its own members like this, think what it will do to you!

    Reply

  11. | David Knight

    This totally undemocratic move by the new, Starmerite, right-wing Labour party looks… racist, and is what we have come to expect from them. I say that as a middle-aged white man. It’s a total disgrace. The factional rightwingers running the Labour party are so blatant about it, they just don’t care.

    Reply

  12. | Deniz Onac

    A rediculous (racist) decision by Labour. I hope he stands as an independent and causes Labour to lose the seat

    Reply

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