Watching the painful interview of Faiza Shaheen on Newsnight on Wednesday after her deselection from the Labour party, I was reminded of the wise words of Toni Morrison: “The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being … None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”
And there always is. The past week of Labour’s election campaign has become a very ugly distraction of blatant anti-Black racism and Islamophobia. Racism more often than not becomes a spectacle for those with no skin in the game, and that is exactly what the humiliation heaped on Shaheen – a young, working-class Muslim woman – has become.
Shaheen appeared on Newsnight looking visibly shocked. She was allegedly emailed at 9pm while out canvassing and told that she had been banned from standing in the seat she’d spent four years campaigning to win – in a constituency she grew up in.
Among the tweets Shaheen was deselected over was one in which she wrote about her own experiences of Islamophobia in the party. There has also been speculation that Apsana Begum, the Muslim MP for Poplar and Limehouse, will be prevented from standing. These are clear examples of how women of colour are treated when we name the racism we face in the workplace.
I spent six years serving as a councillor in my home city of Oxford, where I was born and raised. I was a council cabinet member for close to three years before I resigned from the Labour party, over what I saw as a horrifying endorsement by Keir Starmer of the collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza, in a now infamous LBC interview. I and another British Muslim, the Oxonian councillor Dr Amar Latif, were the first two Labour councillors in the country to resign over this – supported by the four mosques in our city and the communities in which we are rooted.
In my resignation letter, I stated my belief that the party continuing to preside over a hierarchy of racism comes at the expense of the real “red wall” that Labour should want in its coalition: the multiracial working class, who built this country and keep it going.
To this day I have never received a response to my email, including from my MP, despite all my high-profile work over many years of service. I did receive phone calls and messages from other senior figures telling me they hoped I would one day return to the party.
When Starmer was photographed taking the knee in 2020, amid fervent global protests over the racist murder of George Floyd, he was accused of gesture and gimmick politics. That now seems spot on.
Starmer has welcomed the former Tory rightwinger MP Natalie Elphicke to Labour despite her fearmongering over immigration. And a number of parliamentary candidates have been allowed to run for the party this year, after investigations into their allegedly racist and antisemitic remarks – such as Darren Rodwell, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Barking, who told an audience at a Black History Month event he had the “worst tan possible for a black man”; and MP Neil Coyle, who allegedly made racist comments to a political journalist of mixed Chinese heritage. Steve Reed MP was made to apologise for using an antisemitic trope.
What do all these white male MPs have in common? They were all forgiven by the Labour party for their misdemeanours and allowed to carry on with their political roles and aspirations.
No such mercy has been shown to Shaheen, who liked a tweet containing a Jon Stewart sketch, in which a caption above stated that critics of Israel come under attack from people “mobilised by professional organisations” – and which Shaheen has apologised for. Diane Abbott, meanwhile, has finally been told she will be allowed to run in her constituency – but only after days of limbo and public humiliation.
The message this sends to people of colour is far from subtle. Any mistakes we make and subsequent apologies will never be treated with the same grace and acceptance as those of white people.
Labour will of course point to the handfuls of young women of colour it has selected as progress on race, just as it will point to the selection of candidates such as Heather Iqbal, a former adviser to Rachel Reeves, as if it is making strides in tackling Islamophobia and racism. But racism is never about individuals and always about structures of power. A few Muslim candidates who are expected to toe the party’s line in ways that do not accurately represent or benefit our communities is not real representation.
As I wrote when I resigned, Labour can no longer pretend its drive to power is in the name of all of Britain’s communities. It has unapologetically sacrificed our communities in its naked and unprincipled pursuit for power. It is now haemorrhaging Muslim voters. Starmer seems to believe Labour is so far ahead in the polls that it doesn’t need us. This is a short-term political calculation from which he may be unable to row back.
Shaista Aziz is a journalist, writer and former independent councillor for Oxford city council
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