Pro-Palestinian activist to challenge Labour’s Wes Streeting at election
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A pro-Palestinian activist has been selected to challenge Labour’s Wes Streeting at the next election amid anger at the party’s stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
On Monday, Leanne Mohamad was chosen as an independent parliamentary candidate in Ilford North following a hustings event open to local residents.
Ms Mohamad’s candidacy will complicate the chances of Mr Streeting, the shadow health secretary, being elected, after Labour faced a fierce backlash to its response to the war in Gaza.
Redbridge Community Action Group, which organised Ms Mohamad’s selection, said on its website that it aims to “challenge Wes Streeting’s Ilford North seat and beat him at the next election”.
The group said it would also “prepare an independent candidate who is strong on Palestine, NHS, racism, Islamophobia and the cost of living crisis”.
The shift in electoral dynamics as a result of Labour’s stance on the conflict is expected to be seen in other constituencies.
One Labour MP predicted that some colleagues could lose their seats because of pro-Palestinian candidates drawing votes away from the party. The MP said Mr Streeting would “have a genuine battle on his hands” following Ms Mohamad’s selection.
In October, Ms Mohamad, a British-Palestinian activist, addressed a pro-Palestinian marches in central London and said: “Every supporter of Israel has blood on their hands, every Western politician who greenlighted these war crimes has the blood of over 3,000 Palestinian children on their hands.”
She also spoke at the first international conference of the Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, which took place last November.
Ilford North is in the London Borough of Redbridge, which has a Muslim population of 31.3 per cent, according to the 2021 census.
A number of polls held since Israel invaded Gaza following the Hamas attacks on Oct 7 have picked up a drop in support for Labour among the Muslim community. One poll, by Muslim Census, claimed there had been a 66 per cent drop in the Muslim Labour vote to just five per cent at the end of October.
Although the Savanta polling group projected a much more robust 64 per cent, it found in November that almost half of Muslim Labour voters felt more negatively towards the party as a result of Sir Keir Starmer’s handling of the conflict in Gaza.
Mr Streeting won a sizeable majority of more than 5,000 in 2019, but any fall in support would in theory make it more difficult for him to win re-election.
Labour suffered a surprise council by-election loss in nearby Plaistow North ward in east London towards the end of last year,when an ex-Labour councillor won as an independent after quitting the party in protest at Sir Keir’s refusal to demand a ceasefire.
