Labour NEC deselected a load of popular local candidates, overruling the local party's choices, including incumbents, largely from black and Asian backgrounds.
Did Labour not have enough time to select alternative councillors? Or just wasn't that important since they knew they'd retain overall control? It makes it look like the Tories somehow did well in Leicester but could just be explained by fewer Labour candidates to elect.
It's also not clear from the article what caused the NEC to override local Labour members on this. It almost seems to suggest it's to do with the skin colour of the candidates.
Labour NEC deselected a load of popular local candidates, overruling the local party's choices, including incumbents, largely from black and Asian backgrounds.
Did Labour not have enough time to select alternative councillors? Or just wasn't that important since they knew they'd retain overall control? It makes it look like the Tories somehow did well in Leicester but could just be explained by fewer Labour candidates to elect.
It's also not clear from the article what caused the NEC to override local Labour members on this. It almost seems to suggest it's to do with the skin colour of the candidates.
From what I can see, the NEC selected alternative candidates for all wards, but in several cases, councillors deselected ran for other parties or as independents:
The result was 19 councillors being told they would not be running for the party this year. However, one of these, Gurinder Singh Sandhu, was later reinstated after a vacancy came up on the nomination papers.
Three of the deselected councillors, Hemant Rae Bhatia, Paul Westley and Rashmikant Joshi then switched their allegiances to the Conservatives. Ruma Ali defected to the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition following her deselection.
A number of other deselected councillors remained defiant and will be running as independents. These include Kirk Master, Sharmen Rahman and MohammedThalukdar, all three of the sitting councillors in Stoneygate.
As for the NEC reasoning on the deselection, that earlier Guardian link cites the only comment on it I can find:
In an email to local party branches, the Labour party’s regional director, Richard Oliver, said an NEC panel had been convened to select the city’s candidates due to “concerns about the process”.
The Labour party declined to comment.
That leaves the whole thing open to rampant speculation! It would line up with other party deselctions/expulsions lately in that councillors already there aren't in line enough with the direction Keith wants to take the party in, (although with 3 candidates defecting to the tories, they probably were, hoho!) or alternatively, in an attempt to distance the party from accusations of anti-semitism, the party is adopting islamophobia instead, to get rid of muslim members/councillors seen to be anti-semitic because of support for Palestine or speaking out against Israel. Both motivations have been speculated on, both are ultimately seen as the new guard clearing anyone they don't want out of the party.
