“Former Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen, who was barred from standing for Chingford and Woodford Green last week, has resigned from the party,” reports Labour List. “In a statement posted on social media, Shaheen described her deselection as ‘cruel and devastating’ and claimed she had face ‘unfair treatment’ by the party.”

“Just two days after learning of my removal, Labour imposed a new candidate, someone not known or supported by most local members with no links to our community,” Faiza Shaheen said in her resignation statement. “Today’s national executive committee was the last chance for the party to recognise its mistake. Unfortunately it failed to do so.”

Her statement concludes: “I will be deciding my next steps and will make an announcement tomorrow.”  It can be read in full here.

Earlier today, seven Slough councillors were reported to have resigned from the Party over the treatment of Diane Abbott and Faiza Shaheen and the Party’s position on Gaza. The councillors at Slough Borough Council said arguments over whether the Abbott and Shaheen could stand for election highlighted “institutional racism” in Labour.

Responding to Faiza Shaheen’s resignation, a Momentum spokesperson said: “Once again, Keir Starmer’s hyper-factional war on the left has created an almighty mess for Labour. In Faiza Shaheen Labour had a respected, popular, local candidate democratically selected by local Party members. But instead of supporting her, Starmer’s allies decided to purge this campaigner against inequality on spurious grounds and parachute in one of their own clique from outside the constituency. Outrageously, the grounds cited to block Faiza included her discussion of her own experiences of Islamophobia within the party, in a textbook case of institutional racism. Whatever comes next, Keir Starmer owns it.”

The group tweeted: “Labour looked set to win this seat off the Tories, replacing Iain Duncan Smith with a respected campaigner on inequality, a popular local candidate. But once again, Party came before country for Team Starmer.”

Today’s National Executive Committee did, however, endorse Diane Abbott, following a huge campaign in her support, which forced an important climbdown from Labour’s leadership. Others on the left, who many feared might be blocked unfairly by the leadership, were also endorsed, notably Apsana Begum, who was  confirmed as Labour candidate for Poplar and Limehouse after local members wrote to the NEC yesterday demanding the Party confirm her candidacy.

Image: Faiza Shaheen. Author: FromMorningToMidnight, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.