General election: Labour accused of trying to purge left of party as Diane Abbott vows to stand – live

Ms Shaheen said she was in a “state of shock” and offered an emotional apology to her supporters, David Maddox reports

“There’s so many people that have helped me,” she said.

“My phone is blowing up with local people trying to organise a rally and I just want to thank my old school teachers and the kids that came out tonight and I’m so sorry. I’m genuinely so sorry that it’s come to this.

“I know you really wanted me to be your MP and I really wanted that too.”

Asked what she wants to say to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Ms Shaheen referenced Diane Abbott, whose position in terms of whether she can stand as a Labour candidate for Hackney North and Stoke Newington has yet to be clarified by the party.

Ms Shaheen said: “On top of Gaza, on top of Diane Abbott and now this to me, when there’s such clear double standards of how other people have been treated when stuff has happened… what message are you sending my community? What message are you sending the black community?”

Leftwing former candidate Faiza Shaheen has said she is “in a state of shock” over being barred from standing for Labour, David Maddox reports

Ms Shaheen ran in Chingford and Wood Green against former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith in 2019 and was expected to win this time around.

She told BBC Newsnight she “thought” she was going to be the candidate for the constituency, but got an email on Wednesday evening that she said claimed she would “frustrate Labour’s purpose”.

The programme heard she was called to a meeting with a panel of Labour’s National Executive Committee on Tuesday in which they highlighted posts which raised questions about her suitability as a candidate.

One post said: “Every time you say something even mildly critical of Israel, you’re immediately assailed by scores of hysterical people who explain to you why you’re completely wrong, how you’re biased against Israel.

“Moreover, you can’t easily ignore them because those are not just random people. They tend to be friends or people who move in the same circles as you. Those people are mobilised by professional organisations.” Ms Shaheen, who is on the left of the Labour Party, told Newsnight she does not remember liking the post in question.

“I know what’s wrong with it, of course, the line that’s there about ‘they’re in professional organisations’, it plays into a trope and I absolutely don’t agree with that and I’m sorry about that.

“And I expressed that I was sorry in that meeting yesterday over my crying baby but that’s one tweet.

“I’ve organised an interfaith vigil with a local Rabbi after the attacks, Hamas’s attack.”

She told the programme: “I feel foolish. Because everyone said I was the one socialist that was running, you know, it was a surprise that I wasn’t blocked earlier, everyone knows that. And of course they were going to come for me and I did something stupid and honestly I don’t remember liking that (tweet).”

The Conservatives have accused Labour of a major policy U-turn after shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves claimed her party will not increase VAT.

Advertisements

Jeremy Hunt accused the opposition of having a secret plan to raise it after Labour refused to rule it out during campaign events.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Darren Jones have repeatedly refused to rule out raising VAT throughout this campaign and have now only caved in due to a CCHQ press release.

“They have pulled their shadow home secretary off the morning media round and deployed Darren Jones to tell everyone that ‘nothing has changed’. If they were not planning to increase VAT they would have ruled it out on the many occasions they have been asked to do so by the media.

“The reality is everyone knows this is a major policy U-turn and the second time they have junked economic policy due to CCHQ press releases. If this is how they make major tax policy decisions in opposition, imagine how chaotic they would be in government.”

Exclusive: ‘Red votes, blue values’ of fed-up Conservatives who have lost faith in Sunak can sweep Labour to power, according to a new survey for The Independent:

If Labour wins most votes on 4 July, nearly half of its winning margin will come from people who agree with the Tories but are backing Sir Keir Starmer because they have “given up” on Rishi Sunak.

That is the finding of a “Red Votes, Blue Values” survey which appears to reveal a new election trend.

According to the JL Partners survey for The Independent, 40 per cent of Labour’s current substantial lead in the polls is from people with small “c” conservative views.

When Rishi Sunak took the podium to deliver his prime minister’s speech at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester last October, there was little he could say that hadn’t already been leaked to the media.

But he did have one secret weapon, in the form of his wife, Akshata Murty.

Now, the Tory leader, who trails by 27 points, hopes to repeat this trick again with Mrs Murty taking to the campaign trail solo to help turn the tide in his favour.

Rishi Sunak’s government has been ordered by the High Court to come clean about when the first migrants will be flown to Rwanda under the Tories’ flagship plan.

A High Court judge made the order as part of the FDA trade union’s legal action over the plans, which would see some asylum seekers deported to the east African country.

The FDA, which represents senior civil servants, is concerned that government officials could be asked to break international law in order to carry out the removals.

If Labour wants to be the party of aspiration and business, it has missed a couple of tricks with its policy toward non-doms, says John Rentoul:

Labour’s plans to end tax emptions for fee paying independent schools cannot be challenged in the courts because of Brexit, a leading expert has claimed.

Dan Niedle, founder of thinktank Tax Policy Associates, has warned that Reform UK leader Richard Tice’s plans to challenge Labour in the courts will fail because of his previous successful campaign to leave the European Union.

Labour want to end the charity status of private schools meaning that parents will have to pay 20 percent VAT on top of the already eye watering annual fees which, according to financial advisers St James Place, averaged £20,480 for day pupils and £34,790 for boarders in 2022.

Labour’s election campaign descended into chaos as the future of Diane Abbott threatened to derail the party’s important announcements on health and the economy.

The future of the trailblazing MP for Hackney North, who was the first black woman to be elected to parliament, was thrown into confusion when she revealed she had been barred from standing again despite having the party whip restored following months of suspension.

But within hours, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer insisted that Ms Abbott had “not been barred” from standing as a candidate as he tried to promote Labour’s policy on cutting NHS waiting lists.

The first week of Britain’s six-week election campaign has seen frenetic activity but not much movement.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s surprise decision to call a July 4 election set off a scramble by political parties to finalize candidate lists, arrange photo opportunities and send leaders off to key battlegrounds around the country. The parties have also begun making campaign promises to British voters.

Here are five lessons from the campaign so far: