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2024 general election: Suspended Labour candidate contests ‘pro-Russian’ post

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Image description, Labour candidate Andy Brown has been suspended by Labour, but his name will still appear on the ballot paper

  • Author, Harry Farley and Calum Watson
  • Role, BBC News

A candidate who was suspended from the Labour Party after reports emerged that he shared “pro-Russian” material online has denied it and claimed he was “left out in the cold”.

The party took action against Andy Brown over a 2018 article by Russian state media company RT questioning Russian involvement in the Salisbury nerve agent attacks.

Another post shared at the same time appeared to downplay allegations of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party.

Mr Brown, who is standing in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, stressed that he would never support such views and suggested that his Facebook account may have been hacked.

The Labour Party took swift action against Mr Brown, suspending him pending the outcome of the investigation after reports about the posts appeared in the Press and Journal newspaper.

The party’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said Labour would not tolerate people who did not share its values.

“We will not stand with people who share pro-Russian sentiments – that is not Labour Party values ​​and that is why he was immediately expelled from the Labour Party.”

Anas Sarwar, leader of the Scottish Labour Party, said the party had shown leadership by swiftly suspending Mr Brown.

Dawn Sturgess, 44, died in March 2018 from exposure to the nerve agent Novichok, which was left in a discarded perfume bottle in Amesbury, Wiltshire.

British authorities believe the real target was former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.

The shared RT article claimed that the “toxin” used in the poisonings “was never produced in Russia, but was in use in the US, UK and other NATO countries”.

Image description, Staff in protective suits in Salisbury in 2018

Also in mid-April 2018, a quote from a Jewish historian on allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party was shared on Mr Brown’s Facebook account.

It said: “The real problem … is that right-wing Jews inside and outside the Labour Party object to Jeremy Corbyn being a consistent supporter of Palestinian rights.”

But Mr Brown, who describes himself as a “centrist” Labour supporter, said he did not recognise the material and denied sharing it online.

He told BBC News: “I didn’t share them. Where they were shared from or how someone accessed my account and shared them could have been compromised at some point – but honestly I didn’t share them.”

When asked if he might have forgotten to share them, he insisted: “No, I definitely didn’t. I wouldn’t like those comments at all. Those are not the kind of comments I would comment on.”

“Shocking treatment”

Mr Brown said he had not been contacted by the party to request an explanation before his suspension as a candidate.

“Nobody checked. It’s pretty shocking that I was treated like this. I was basically left out in the cold,” he said.

It is too late to remove his name from the ballot paper, but his suspension means he will receive no further support from the Labour Party and will be an independent candidate.

The other candidates are Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, SNP’s Seamus Logan, Liberal Democrat Ian Bailey and Reform UK’s Jo Hart.

At the launch of the SNP manifesto on Wednesday, party leader John Swinney was asked about a report that an SNP candidate once questioned whether President Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

Mr Swinney said there was no doubt that “the Assad regime in Syria has carried out chemical weapons attacks,” but he would need to review the candidate’s comments before saying whether action was needed.

The candidate, who was dropped by the Labor Party because of his pro-Russian social media posts, has stood for the party several times.

Described as a “local legend” by Labour supporters in Aberdeenshire, Andy Brown was a candidate in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election and the 2022 local elections, as well as a local council by-election.

Each of these competitions took place after he made the social media posts that have now gotten him in trouble.

Despite his suspension pending the outcome of the investigation, Brown’s name will continue to appear on the ballot paper alongside the Scottish Labour Party logo.

But the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East constituency was never considered a victory for the Labour Party.

It’s a neck-and-neck race between the Conservatives and the SNP. This is a new constituency following boundary changes, but calculations based on previous results in the area suggest Labour received just over 4% of the vote.

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