Faiza Shaheen to stand as independent after Labour deselection

Faiza Shaheen, the candidate blocked by Labour from standing in Chingford and Woodford Green, has announced she will stand as an independent.

In a move that will pit her against Labour in one of the party’s target seats, she said she was standing in response to hundreds of messages from local people who said there were no options left for them.

Shaheen said on social media: “They feel disenfranchised by Labour’s decision to remove me and feel it would be impossible for the party to win here without a local candidate, rooted in the community, and that such a voice is vitally needed.”

The leftwinger, who grew up in the constituency, stood in the north-east London seat in 2019, but was beaten by 1,262 votes by Iain Duncan Smith.

Shaheen quit the Labour party on Tuesday after her deselection last month over historical posts on social media. At the same time, controversy was brewing over whether Diane Abbott would be Labour’s candidate in Hackney North and Stoke Newington, prompting Shaheen to claim the party had “a problem with black and brown people”.

“With its recent actions, many people think Labour has handed a winnable seat to the Conservatives for another five years,” Shaheen said on Wednesday, adding that she aimed to show there was a “progressive alternative” to both parties.

While her entry into the race could benefit Duncan Smith, Labour sources suggested that the party’s candidate, the Brent councillor Shama Tatler, was still in a strong position.

A Labour spokesperson said: “We are focused on electing a Labour government and delivering the change that people in Chingford and Woodford Green and across the country need.”

Meanwhile, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, traded criticism with his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, as Corbyn handed in his papers to stand as an independent in Islington North.

Asked about Starmer’s repeated insistence that the Labour party had changed, Corbyn said: “He was very happy to be in the shadow cabinet through all that time. He as very happy to support the 2017 and 19 manifestos and was very happy to campaign to be leader on the basis of defending the policies of those two manifestos.

“I don’t think there is any need for him to diss the past or diss his own involvement in it. When we came up to the 2019 election, the manifesto and policies and strategies were agreed unanimously by both the shadow cabinet and the NEC.”

Asked about Corbyn’s comments, Starmer said: “I have as my focus, my priority, the voters, not Jeremy Corbyn. The voters in 2019 rejected the Labour party very badly, the worst results since 1935. I think that if you get rejected that badly, you don’t go back to the voters and say, ‘We were right. What were you doing?’

“You change your Labour party, and that’s why I’ve changed the Labour party, and in particular, made it a party that always puts country first and party second.”