Blocked Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen ‘considering standing in election as an independent’
Had been set to run against former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith
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Your support makes all the difference.A left-wing candidate blocked by Labour has suggested she could run against the party as an independent.
Faiza Shaheen has previously said she is considering legal action against the party.
Ms Shaheen, an economist, was set to contest Chingford and Woodford Green seat held by Iain Duncan Smith, which many predicted she would win on 4 July.
She also ran in the constituency for Labour in 2019.
But she said she was told on Wednesday that the party was suspending her after she liked social media posts that criticised Israel and its actions in Gaza.
Now she has said she is considering standing in Chingford as an independent and wants to do it "for the right reasons”, according to LBC.
Ms Shaheen has also claimed she had faced “a systematic campaign of racism, Islamophobia and bullying” in Labour.
“This campaign of prejudice, bullying and spiteful behaviour has finally been rewarded by Labour’s NEC [national executive committee] and my name has been added to the list of those not welcome in the candidate club. And it is no surprise that many of those excluded are people of colour,” she said in a statement this week.
She added that she had condemned the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and had organised a vigil with rabbis and imams.
In her statement, she said: “I am heartbroken at this decision but it does not come as a surprise. It is the end of a systemic campaign of racism, Islamophobia and bullying from some within the party which began when I first announced I wanted to run for Labour again.”
She claimed she had been banned from speaking publicly about racism in the party, stripped of a paid party organiser job when seven months pregnant and told to “curb the attitude” when she said Labour was not taking Muslim concerns seriously enough.
She was presented with a dossier of posts that she had liked on X, formerly known as Twitter, some dating back to 2014, she said.
On Thursday night Labour selected Shama Tatler, a member of the Jewish Labour Movement, as its candidate for the Chingford and Woodford Green seat.
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