This election, pro-Palestine candidates sent a resounding message to the Labour Party in seats spanning the country. Five independents – including Jeremy Corbyn – stood on a platform calling for the end of Israel’s abhorrent genocide in Gaza, and won. However, the night also brought two particularly heart-breaking election losses. Independent candidate Faiza Shaheen who Labour despicably cast out in its left-wing selection purge lost to living incarnation of evil Iain Duncan Smith.
Gallingly, the same happened with Labour’s private healthcare ghoul Wes Streeting. Independent candidate Leanne Mohamad came just hundreds of votes shy of turfing the Starmerrhoid out.
Needless to say, both trailblazing, community-rooted independents should have won. Now, we have Labour to blame for both soul-less sycophants returning to parliament.
Independents: Leanne Mohamad causes Streeting’s lead to crumble
Leanne Mohamad was a force of nature in Ilford North against Labour’s NHS privatisation poster-boy Wes Streeting.
The now secretary of state for Health and Social Care has bandied about his bolshier than Blair privatisation plans throughout the election run-up.
What’s more, the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) supporter has done his lobby-bought best to disparage efforts to hold Israel accountable for its ongoing genocide in Gaza. As the Canary’s HG reported in May, two-faced Streeting started out condemning South Africa’s case against the genocide-mongering coloniser with the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Then, in another breath, election wheels in motion, he suddenly changed his tune:
David is right. The images emerging from Rafah are extremely distressing and underline why so many of us opposed the mere suggestion of this appalling action. https://t.co/EqZbib4MKo
— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) May 27, 2024
Strong whiff of grift, it was time for someone to stand up to Streeting. That person was the dazzling Leanne Mohamad. After an electric grassroots campaign, Mohamad came a mere 528 votes away from knocking Streeting from his undeserved parliamentary soapbox:
Wow. Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting barely hanging on in Ilford North.
Pro-Gaza Independent Leanne Mohamad just 500 votes behind him. pic.twitter.com/WlMKyTU1M5
— Taj Ali (@Taj_Ali1) July 5, 2024
Significantly, Mohamad swung the vote enormously – with Streeting dropping over twenty percentage points. Alas, her fierce and principled campaign put her at 32.2%, to Streeting’s slim 33.4% victory.
As the Guardian’s Owen Jones pointed out, Labour hadn’t banked on Mohamad bringing the margin so close:
Wes Streeting very very nearly lost to @LeanneMohamad, an independent British Palestinian candidate standing against Israel’s genocide – and for an alternative to Tory policies.
Labour presumed this seat was a walkover.
Just look at this! pic.twitter.com/xyv9YoAaFw
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) July 5, 2024
One person on X felt the narrow defeat hammered home how Streeting seizing the seat once more, was mostly just luck:
Leanne Mohamad’s team did spectacularly well. She lost to Wes Streeting by just 528 votes. He won, basically, by luck.
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) July 5, 2024
Streeting’s win certainly wasn’t down his glistening personality. Of course, Mohamad’s loss stings, but in just two months of campaigning, it’s still an astounding achievement. Graciously at least, Streeting’s seat is now a marginal – and Mohamad now has five years to swell her support:
Streeting is absolutely gone in that seat next time if Leanne Mohamad sticks at it and campaigns hard locally. Hilarious that this feet of clay ex-student politician is regarded by so many big house lobby correspondents as the next Labour leader https://t.co/ZedZ4IpI3V
— Stephen Smith (@SteveNickSmith) July 5, 2024
Labour shafting Faiza Shaheen – again
While Mohamad was laying the groundwork for a Wes 2029 wipe-out, Starmerite shills were busy twisting the truth in Chingford and Woodford Green.
Independent Dr Faiza Shaheen lost her bid to oust former Conservative Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) monster Iain Duncan-Smith.
Shaheen placed a close third, with 25.7% of the vote. This was a painful 79 votes behind Labour’s Shama Tatler, who garnered 25.8%. Duncan-Smith took the seat with 35.6%.
Unsurprisingly, a brigade of blithering, blathering white men blamed Shaheen for Duncan-Smith’s reprisal:
Ed Balls on ITV ventriloquising Starmer team said Duncan-Smith winning was “a price worth paying” for keeping Faiza Shaheen out of parliament. If you ever wondered where their political priorities lie
— Stephen Smith (@SteveNickSmith) July 5, 2024
All you did was keep IDS in the seat by splitting the vote.
— Michael (@BoxingFanaticII) July 5, 2024
Wallowing in irrelevance, former New Labour minister Ed Balls waded in with his opinion no-one asked for:
Ed Balls on ITV ventriloquising Starmer team said Duncan-Smith winning was “a price worth paying” for keeping Faiza Shaheen out of parliament. If you ever wondered where their political priorities lie
— Stephen Smith (@SteveNickSmith) July 5, 2024
Also among them, iPaper columnist Ian Dunt:
Faiza Shaheen kept IDS in his seat. So congrats on that.
— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) July 5, 2024
Shockingly, corporate media hack Paul Brand offered the same astonishingly trash take:
A second seat where an independent candidate helps deliver the seat to the Tories. Iain Duncan Smith holds on in Chingford & Woodford Green. pic.twitter.com/31LqCiqmYe
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) July 5, 2024
In a nutshell:
middle aged white men who don’t want to see capable women of colour representing their communities.
That’s Ed, that’s Keith
— Mic (@micsub2) July 5, 2024
Parachuting in and then whining when the vote falls flat
Of course, it was a staggering revision of recent history. Plenty of people on X called out this shameful gaslighting:
labour kept IDS his seat by deselecting a candidate who had worked for years organising and building for this moment. https://t.co/CZS5hhtUql
— Ben Smoke (@bencsmoke) July 5, 2024
She had every right to stand. Perhaps Labour shouldn’t have deselected her for no reason? https://t.co/1sOvsdo4Pq
— Matt Zarb-Cousin (@mattzarb) July 5, 2024
The level of vitriol aimed at Faiza Shaheen is vile. She had every right to continue to stand. Labour fumbled the bag and fucked her over and lost that seat. Prick. https://t.co/DEkBSHwyP9
— Sarah 🩷 (@sarahh_879) July 5, 2024
Surprisingly, unceremoniously ditching your hard-working, principled political candidate and baring your racist ass for two-months non-stop wasn’t quite the show-stopping vote-winner Labour thought it would be.
In reality then, if anyone ‘split the vote’, it was Labour:
Labour would’ve won Chingford if Faiza Shaheen hadn’t been kicked out for her stance on Palestine.
Only to replace her with another Brown woman who said the “right” things, was nothing short of racism#C4BritainDecides #GeneralElection2024 #Elections2024
— Lewis (@L_A_D_J) July 5, 2024
Crucially, those votes should have – likely would have – been hers, had Labour not shafted Shaheen at the outset of the election. Particularly so, given it was Shaheen who has put in all the legwork in her constituency for the unworthy party:
Oh the irony!
A Labour candidate standing in Chingford and Woodford Green that NO ONE HAS ELECTED and who has been parachuted in after Faiza did 6 years of the necessary legwork to get rid of IDS!
— Scarlet#4TheManyEIE💙 (@Dovepetalchile) July 4, 2024
Not to mention, as Tribune Magazine’s Taj Ali reminded everyone, Labour parachuted in the party plant:
Labour loses in Chingford and Woodford Green to Tory Ian Duncan Smith. And they did it to themselves.
Deselecting their candidate Faiza Shaheen who was in tears on news night and parachuting in right-winger Shama Tatler who never had any connection to the constituency.
— Taj Ali (@Taj_Ali1) July 5, 2024
Shaheen herself detailed the disgraceful campaign Labour launched against her:
They said we wouldn’t get anywhere. They put out graphs they knew were lies in order to confuse local people.
They lied about me to mislead people.
But in just 4 weeks we achieved the same vote as a political party that has been around for over 100 years.
I’m so angry that the…— Faiza Shaheen (@faizashaheen) July 5, 2024
There’s a lot to celebrate at this election. However, Mohamad and Shaheen sit at the sharp end of craven corporate careerist Labour’s shtick.
It’s devastating that two brilliant women of colour standing for their communities, Palestine, and the people Tory Red and Tory Blue continue to marginalise across the country, came just that close, but didn’t win.
Still, they should be proud of everything they and their communities achieved at this election. They may have lost, but the hope they inspired won above all, despite the corporate media and political establishment that tried to drown it out.
Featured image via the Canary
