A Jeremy Corbyn supporter who failed to win a seat in the last General Election has been re-selected to run as a Labour MP.
Faiza Shaheen, dubbed the “Chingford Corbynite”, was chosen last Saturday to stand in Chingford and Woodford Green against former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, who defeated her by just 1,262 votes in 2019.
Her views on antisemitism have sparked controversy in the past and her re-selection raises fears that Sir Keir Starmer is not doing enough to change the culture of the party.
Labour members were also reportedly unhappy that Ms Shaheen had spent much of the last year living and working in New York, where she holds the post of “Program Head for the Inequality and Exclusion Grand Challenge of the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies” at New York University.
She received more than 200 votes from local members, while her main challenger Bilal Mahmood, who had the backing of Stella Creasy and David Lammy, received just over 160.
During her 2019 campaign, Ms Shaheen, an Oxford Philosophy, Politics and Economics graduate, told journalists that Corbyn had been her inspiration. “I wouldn’t be running in this election if Jeremy Corbyn had not come in as leader,” she said. In July 2019, speaking on the BBC’s Politics Live programme, Shaheen claimed people had “weaponised” antisemitism and they needed to “step back”.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
In May 2020, she said the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which was investigating antisemitism in the Labour Party, was “neither independent nor credible”.
Lord Ian Austin, who resigned from the Labour Party in protest against Corbyn’s handling of antisemitism, told the JC: “This shows the influence the Corbyn-supporting hard left still has in the Labour Party and how much work is needed to return the party to mainstream centre-ground politics.
“It is a big test for Keir Starmer: is he strong and determined enough to drive out the hard left and ensure people like this are not able to stand as candidates? Because if he isn’t, many people will worry that the far left could seize control again.”
In a statement to the Jewish News, Ms Shaheen defended her record, insisting that she “criticised the Corbyn leadership for not taking antisemitism seriously enough”.
She added: “Each member – including myself – must make all efforts to repair the trust between the Labour Party and the Jewish community.”
Ms Shaheen has been approached by the JC for comment.
