Five suspended from Labor party for repression of candidates

Oh dear. It’s not just Reform UK that has had problems with party candidates in recent weeks – the Labor Party is also facing its own problems. Candidates for both the local and parliamentary elections have been found to have expressed and shared some pretty inappropriate views – which are now coming back to upset them. Just yesterday a potential parliamentary candidate was dropped by Labor after being investigated over her social media activity, while just last month a Labor councilor resigned from the party when her Twitter account came under scrutiny. When will they learn?

You can find the previous list here:

Wilma Brown

The Scottish Labor candidate for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy was suspended from the party last month after he was accused of liking racist and Islamophobic social media posts. Wilma Brown’s “liked” tweets included a post telling a turbaned man he would “NEVER be English”, another calling the former First Minister a “Hamas Youseless”, and others who shared a prevailing conspiracy theory that says Yousaf gave half a million pounds to the terrorist organization Hamas.

She deleted her Twitter account after one of the area’s citizens discovered her old posts, but it was too late. Wilma Brown has now been dropped as the region’s parliamentary candidate and replaced by one Melanie Ward, who is also executive director of Medical Aid for Palestine.

Audrey Dempsey

Another one bites the dust. After what Audrey Dempsey described as “character assassination”, the Labor councilor for Springburn and Robroyston district, just outside Glasgow, revealed last month that she had done it stop the party. Dempsey was suspended in April and an investigation was launched into her online behavior after concerns were raised about the former councilor’s social media activity. The former Labor councilor was found to have liked tweets that referred to former Prime Minister Humza Yousaf as “Humza Hamas” and the “Pakistani Prime Minister of Scotland”, while liking another post, in who allegedly reported on the Scottish Labor Party and its leader Anas Sarwar was referred to the police for an “anti-white hate crime”. She had also made comments that there were “increasing racist attacks on white children and teachers”, which had been highlighted by both the Labor Party and the press.

But while she was suspended for her use of social media, it emerged that Dempsey’s Twitter activity had linked her to the far-right Homeland Party – a group related to the white nationalist group Patriotic Alternative – by their Liked tweets in support of her. Dempsey emphasized that she is “not a regular user of this app” and “my honest defense is that I know nothing about (the Homeland Party).” She added: “I would say I will be more vigilant in the future, but I will be closing the app for myself entirely.” Homeland Party leader Kenny Smith criticized Labour’s treatment of Dempsey, saying: “Brave councilors like Audrey Dempsey will be castigated simply for telling the truth.”

Khuram Majid

Last month it was discovered that the Labor council candidate for the Elland ward in Calderdale, outside Leeds, had shared tweets saying: “I do not condemn Hamas” and that the October 7 attack was “inevitable”. Crikey. Another reposted tweet spread a conspiracy theory about how much Israel knew about the Hamas attack before it was carried out. Mr S is aware that Majid has since been suspended from the Labor Party, but it was too late to remove his name from the ballot paper ahead of last week’s local elections. Good heavens…

Graham Jones

The parliamentary candidate for Hyndburn (and former MP for the region until 2019) was suspended in February after comments he made at a meeting of private party activists were leaked. During the meeting – the same one attended by Azhar Ali, the candidate for Rochdale who was later dropped by Labor – Graham Jones criticized the British who fought for the IDF, claiming (falsely) that this was against the violated the law and that she should be “locked up.” He continued: “I’m sure when (world leaders) go home like me, you’ll pardon my French (they say), ‘F***ing Israel’ again.” Charming.

Azhar Ali

And all of this, of course, exactly three months after Labour’s Rochdale by-election candidate, Azhar Ali, lost the party’s formal support over his comments about the October 7 attack. At a local Labor meeting, Ali was reported to have said that “people in the media from certain Jewish neighborhoods” were complaining about Andy McDonald – a Labor MP who was suspended for using the phrase “between river and sea” during a meeting had – “talking rubbish” at the pro-Palestine rally. Ali also reportedly claimed that Israel planned to “drive the Palestinians out of Gaza” and “take over” some of the land.

But Labor was too late to withdraw its support from Ali (and also faced accusations of moving too slowly on the issue), and so his name remained on the ballot paper – paving the way for controversial politician George Galloway, who made the election campaign almost entirely about the Israel-Gaza conflict – an issue that caused more than a few problems for Sir Keir in the recent local elections – returned to Parliament.