Showing posts with label deselection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deselection. Show all posts

Sunday, 7 September 2025

Labour Hub on Brent Councillor cull

Republished with permission from Labour Hub. This adds additional context to articles published on Wembley Matters

 

Labour’s factional cull of councillors continues – eight dumped in Brent

Earlier this year, Labour Hub reported that the London Borough of Brent’s Labour Party was the latest to be subjected to a ‘Campaign Improvement Board’. “Instead of allowing the Party’s local branches to select their council candidates ahead of the 2026 borough elections, selections will be made by external ‘assessors’ recruited by the Party’s London Region.”

That process has now ended and Labour’s National Executive Committee has announced its results, against which there is no appeal. No ordinary rank and file members of the Party have been consulted: the NEC has imposed a full set of candidates on the borough’s wards by fiat.

Eight sitting councillors have been excluded. All of them had signed a statement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in October 2023.

All eight sitting councillors are from minoritised communities, while white councillors who have also held similar positions, such as signing the Gaza ceasefire statement, have not been removed.

The NEC panel was chaired by Keir Starmer ally Abdi Duale, who also carried out most of the interviews that led to the councillors being deselected.

London Party Regional Executive Committee member Cllr Shama Tatler does not appear to be re-standing for Brent Council. But she was a vocal supporter of this CIB and is rumoured to have been actively involved in steering the decision-making. This follows on from her involvement in the Leicester CIB in 2023, which deselected 19 Muslim and Hindu Councillors. In subsequent local elections in the city, Labour lost 22 seats.

At last year’s general election, Leicester East saw the only Tory gain of  the night – and Leicester South went to Independent Shockat Adam.  Cllr Shama Tatler was also parachuted in to run against Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP in Chingford and Woodford Green last year, after the Labour Party apparatus removed Faiza Shaheen as its candidate at the last minute. She lost.

The rationale for the Campaign Improvement Board’s intervention in Brent was never fully revealed. Rumours circulated that it was because of concerns about irregularities in the process leading up to the previous round of candidate selections – which is nonsensical as all steps in this process were fully coordinated with and signed off by regional Party officials.

Another supposed concern was the need to counter the rising Tory-supporting Hindu nationalist vote evident in neighbouring Harrow. Deselecting candidates from a global majority background is unlikely to address such a concern.

It’s evident that factional politics has played a major role in the whole process. Would-be candidates were quizzed about their support for Gaza and, as elsewhere, whatever the original purpose, the result has been to remove a number of excellent local councillors. Poorly performing right wingers, however, who were democratically deselected ahead of council elections in 2022, have been reinstated – sometimes in safe seats.

That’s if any seat in the borough can now be considered safe. Local members, from left to right, are fuming that their councillors have been rejected, without any democratic input from grassroots activists. It’s hard to think of anything more demotivating at a time when members will have work overtime to retain seats, given the poor position of Labour in the polls resulting from Keir Starmer’s failings in government.

Brent Labour Is just the latest victim in the right wing’s campaign of centralising ‘selections’ when it can’t guarantee the result it wants locally. As Richard Price pointed out earlier this year, “The right to choose local government candidates from an adequately-sized panel isn’t a left issue as such, but one shared by many members in other wings of the party and in affiliated unions. The hour is already late, but what we need is a genuinely broad-based campaign to restore local Labour democracy.”

The witch-hunt in Brent comes four days after a Labour defeat in the West Hampstead ward by-election in neighbouring Camden Council on a 23-point swing. A similar swing in Brent in 2026 would see councillors being lost in almost every single Labour-held ward. This upheaval in Brent Labour will undoubtedly increase this likelihood, leading to Labour losing control of the administration.

Wednesday, 3 September 2025

Labour Bosses Sack Eight Sitting BAME Brent Councillors for Supporting Palestine and Close in on Council Leader Muhammed Butt

Brent Anti-racism Charter 2022


Exclusive insight from a former Brent Labour Party member:

Labour's Ruling Body (National Executive Committee) have imposed all Labour council candidates in Brent without any say from thousands of local party members or long serving MPs.

This includes barring eight sitting BAME Councillors, including Labour’s Chief Whip Cllr Iman Ahmadi Moghaddam and Cabinet Member Cllr Harbi Farah from standing in the May 2026 council election.

All deselected councillors signed a statement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in October 2023, infuriating Starmer loyalists. This is thought to be the primary motive for their deselection. 

White councillors who also signed the same statement survived the purge, in a move that will undoubtedly raise some difficult questions for Labour on the doorstep amongst Brent’s diverse communities. 

⁠The panel that decided Labour’s candidate list was chaired by Starmerite and corporate lobbyist Abdi Duale, who also carried out most of the interviews that led to the Councillors being deselected.

London Labour Party Executive member and Kingsbury Councillor Shama Tatler did not stand [she said so in Twitter statement]. She was a vocal supporter of the move to take decision making out of the hands of Labour members, and is rumoured to have been actively involved in deciding the final list of candidates. Cllr Tatler was also involved in the running of a similar process in Leicester in 2023, which deselected 19 Muslim and Hindu Councillors. 

New Starmerite MP, Georgia Gould, imposed by the national party in 2024, is rumoured to have taken time out of her busy government ministerial role to personally intervene to encourage the purge and replace sitting Councillors with her Starmerite allies. 

This comes four days after Labour's catastrophic defeat in the West Hampstead ward by-election in neighbouring Camden Council. A similar 23-point swing in Brent in 2026 would see councillors being lost in almost every single Labour-held ward. The recent upheaval in Brent Labour will undoubtedly increase this likelihood, leading to internal fears that Labour could lose control of Brent’s administration.

This appears to be the first step in removing council leader Muhammed Butt, motivated by Starmerite outrage over his non-compliance, especially his decision to allow Brent council to set up a ‘twinning arrangement’ with Nablus, a town in Palestine.


EDITOR'S NOTE - The deselected individuals remain as Brent councillors until the May 2026 Local Election unless they resign.

Monday, 1 September 2025

Full List of Labour Party selections for Brent Council elections in 2026

 1. Alperton Delroy Morrison, Judith Forbes, Mansoor Akram

2. Barnhill Robert Johnson, Rhoda Ibrahim

3. Brondesbury Park  Ryan Hack, Tashi Thomas

4. Cricklewood and Mapesbury Gwen Grahl, Tariq Dar

5. Dollis Hill Liz Dixon, Parvez Ahmed, Arshad Mahmood

6. Harlesden and Kensal Green Matt Kelcher, Mili Patel, Tina Amadi

7. Kenton John Poole, Janice Long, Fiona Mulaisho

8. Kilburn Rita Conneely, Anthony Malloy, Leeta Holmes

9. Kingsbury Saqib Butt, Jas Bajwa

10. Northwick Park Narinder Bajwa, Shymala Rajan-Vince

11. Preston Daniel Kennelly, Orleen Hylton

12. Queen's Park Lesley Smith, Neil Nerva, Marc Harris 

13. Queensbury Omid Fadakar, Simon Cheng, Sabah Ibrahim

14. Roundwood Jake Rubin, Fleur Donnelly-Jackson, Samiah Anderson

15. StonebridgeTrevor Blackman, Promise Knight, Abdi Aden

16. Sudbury Teo Benea, Greg Innes

17. Tokyngton Muhammed Butt, Krupa Sheth

18. Welsh Harp Iftekhar Ahmed, Mary Mitchell, Amer Agha

19. Wembley Central Anita Thakkar, Sonia Shah, Ketan Sheth

20. Wembley Hill  Lloyd Mcleish, Ishma Moeen, Joyce De Souza

21. Wembley Park Ajmal Akram, Apurval Saral 

22. Willesden Green Saqlain Choudry, Prema Thakkar, George Burn 

 


 

Exclusion of current councillors from the above list does not necessarily mean they have been deselected by the recent process. Like Shama Tatler, above, they may have decided not to stand as did Steve Crabb. Cllr Kathleen Fraser was barred from selection following her suspension.

Wednesday, 15 May 2013

Brent Labour's 'Spring Clean' continues as Ann John deselected and Powney not short-listed


The Preston Library 'Wall of Shame' demonstrates residents' anger
 It's a bit like one of those property programmes on TV when an 'expert' moves in to help sell a house that hasn't attracted any buyers and proceeds to move out all the old furniture and give it a lick of paint and other cosmetic touches..

This is what Brent Labour appear to be doing, with first the new look Executive replacing some of the tired veterans, and now Ann John has been deselected making way for a new face.  John's demise will appear to many as the result of library closures coming home to roost. James Powney failed to make the short-list for his own Kensal Green ward but could apply for another ward.

Mindful of Harold Wilson's dictum that 'a week is a long time in politics' Labour will be hoping that the electorate will be impressed by their spruced up property when it goes on the market in May 2014.

Certainly the new lead member for Environment and Neighbourhoods, Cllr Roxanne Mashari, will have to do far more than apply cosmetics if she is to deal with the toxic issue of library closures with the campaigns still up and running and the umbrella SOS Brent Libraries group due to meet at the weekend.