Emma Dent Coad
(Picture: PA)Left wing ex-Labour MP Emma Dent Coad says she has been blocked by the party from standing as the candidate in Kensington.
“I am devastated that the Labour Party has blocked me from standing to once again represent my community in Parliament, the community I have spent the last 20 years of my life fighting for” she said in a statement.
“At the same time, I am angry that local members and our local community in Kensington have been denied the opportunity to vote in a free and fair contest, which has been sacrificed for the sake of factional intrigue from Labour officials.” Read the full statement here.
Dent Coad was well respected in the community for her support for the victims of Grenfell tower, having won the seat in a surprise result in 2017. Last year she said that Keir Starmer’s Labour was “toxic” and didn’t know what it stood for. Her social media posts are thought to have been behind the decision, which is made by the Labour party’s National Executive Committee.
Last week left-wing Sam Tarry was deselcted in Ilford South. Over the weekend, left wing candidate Maurice Mcleod was blocked from standing in Camberwell and Peckham. Mcleod said he was “shocked and saddened” by the decision, claiming it was for the crime of ‘liking’ a tweet by ex-Green party leader Caroline Lucas.
A Momentum spokesperson said: “It is a travesty of justice that passionate, popular advocates for their community like Emma are being blocked en masse by Keir Starmer’s Labour on spurious grounds, so loyalists from outside the area can be parachuted in. This is a deeply damaging episode for the Labour Party in Kensington, and one that local people are unlikely to forget.”
Former shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said: “I saw first hand just how committed to the people of Kensington Emma is when she was an MP. That she has been prevented from even standing is outrageous and risks further alienating the Labour Party from the communities we strive to represent. This is even more pressing when we consider the Government’s total failure to address the injustices of Grenfell.
“These blockings don’t just undermine Labour’s broad church, they ride roughshod over the rights of our local parties and trade unions. We need Keir Starmer to urgently intervene and ensure fair process.”
Kensington is close, with Tory Felicity Buchan only winning by 150 seats in 2019. There are many candidates fighting for the seat. Candidates who have been shortlisted include Mete Coban, a councillor in Hackney, and Joe Powell, who set up Kensington Against Dirty Money and works for the Open Government Partnership, an organisation founded by Barack Obama.
Also running are Stephen Cowan, head of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, former bus driver and now local Labour deputy leader Kasim Ali, and Salman Shaikh, founder of The Shaikh Group, which aims for better dialogue in the Middle East and North Africa.
The seat was once called a “jewel in the Tory crown”, and was held by Michael Portillo and Malcolm Rifkind. Then it had different boundaries, and was called Kensington and Chelsea. A poll earlier this month showed the Tories could lose all their seats in London at the next election.
