Keith Vaz could be re-elected as an MP because Labour is failing to highlight that he was disgraced in office amid drug and sex allegations, the Labour mayor of Leicester has said.
Peter Soulsby said he was “disappointed and frustrated” by his party’s complacency, which could allow the former Europe minister to win back his former seat of Leicester East.
Vaz, 67, is running a well-publicised and slick campaign as a One Leicester candidate to retake his old seat on 4 July in a multicultural area which is still reeling from Hindu-Muslim riots in 2022.
This weekend, Shilpa Shetty, a former Celebrity Big Brother winner and Bollywood actor, attracted a small crowd when she accompanied Vaz in an open-top Mercedes on a tour of local shops selling south Asian products.
A Labour MP for the seat for 32 years, Vaz stood down in 2019 after receiving a six-month ban from the House of Commons for offering to buy cocaine for sex workers and obstructing inquiries by the standards commissioner. He posed as an industrial washing machine salesperson called Jim and requested unprotected sex, according to undercover footage recorded by the Mirror. Vaz said in 2019 that he had fully cooperated with the investigation.
After leaving office, Vaz was found to have embarked upon a campaign of “sustained and unpleasant bullying” against a House of Commons staff member, Jenny McCullough. An independent panel of experts said that if the former Leicester East MP had currently held a Commons pass “it would have been appropriate to remove it” and his eligibility for one “should never be restored”.
Vaz, who was still a Labour party member when he announced he would be a candidate two weeks ago, is standing against Claudia Webbe, who was the independent MP for the seat before the election and a Jeremy Corbyn ally who had the Labour whip removed after she was found guilty of harassing a love rival. Labour’s candidate is Rajesh Agrawal, the deputy mayor of London and an entrepreneur.
Soulsby, who has been the mayor for 13 years, said his party should be running a campaign to remind the electorate about Vaz’s damning past. There has been no mention of Vaz’s past on Agrawal’s leaflets or in the party’s public comments about the seat.
“I am disappointed and frustrated that the party is not reminding people just how badly disgraced Keith Vaz actually was. I fear that people’s memories are remarkably short. Vaz has a high local profile and a well-honed, well-funded election machine behind him that he’s developed over many years.
“The Labour campaign nationally has been incredibly successful. But the circumstances in Leicester East do require the party to be very much clearer, reminding people why Vaz is not the Labour candidate and the repeated behaviour that led to him being ditched.
“He left parliament in disgrace with the prospect of a record six-month suspension hanging over him – which he never served. I am concerned that people just won’t remember the shame he brought to the role of a member of parliament,” Soulsby said.
At a Leicester East hustings on Saturday on the upper floor of a Hindu temple, attended by most candidates, Vaz told the audience that he endorsed a “Hindu manifesto”, distributed by an organisation called Insight UK, which demands the recognition of anti-Hindu hate as a religious hate crime and calls for publicly funded protection of temples.
In light of tensions within the city, the candidates were asked how they would help to integrate new communities. Vaz replied: “We did not do enough to integrate and that is why when I retired as an MP I set up the Integration Foundation.” He went on to pledge to give his MP’s salary to the foundation for distribution to good causes if he was elected.
Although candidates from the three main parties were present, none raised the past allegations about Vaz or Webbe.
After the meeting, the Tory candidate, Shivani Raja, said: “The last two MPs for this constituency have been the subject of serious investigations and I do not think they should be representing us.” The local Conservative party welcomed defectors from Labour when the party’s national committee purged 19 of its councillors before the 2023 local elections.
Asked about Vaz standing again, Agrawal said: “I am focusing on my campaign.”
Vaz’s bullying victim, who was compared by the MP to a prostitute and told she could not do her job effectively because she was “not a mother”, has called for him not to be allowed to interact with Commons staff until he has undergone anti-bullying training.
McCullough, a former clerk on the home affairs select committee which Vaz chaired, said: “If Mr Vaz is returned, he must show that he has changed that behaviour – including by attending the appropriate training along with all other new MPs – and the House of Commons authorities must demonstrate that the House has changed and no longer tolerates or enables the kind of behaviour that I was subjected to.”
A House of Commons spokesperson said: “The behaviour code makes clear the standards of behaviour expected of everyone working in parliament, and is supported by the independent complaints and grievances scheme (ICGS).
After the hustings, Vaz declined to discuss McCullough’s call for anti-bullying training.
A Labour spokesperson said: “Rajesh Agrawal is running a positive campaign in Leicester East on the policy issues that will make a difference to people’s lives. Change with a Labour government is only possible if people vote for it.”
A Labour source said voters were aware of the reasons why Vaz left parliament and it was being raised on the doorstep.
Vaz has been approached for comment.
