LONDON — Jon Stewart has called it the “dumbest thing the U.K. has done since electing Boris Johnson.”
And many British progressives fear the opposition Labour Party’s decision to bar a number of left-wing candidates, including two women of color, is the latest sign that the party is lurching to the political right as it bids to return to power after 14 years.
This long-standing battle for the party’s soul has flared up to consume the early campaign of the apparent government-in-waiting, which opinion polls suggest is set to romp to victory in the country’s election on July 4.
Though Labour needs a broad caucus of voters to win power, infighting and accusations of selling out its liberal traditions — including being slow to back a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip — risk not just bad press, but also hemorrhaging votes on the left.
Faiza Shaheen, a left-wing economist, was until Wednesday night a candidate in Chingford and Woodford Green, an area in northeast London.
While out knocking on doors, she received an email telling her that Labour hadremoved her, she said, because of 14 posts on X and Twitter, as it was previously called,which she had liked over the past decade.
One post from earlier this month featured a decade-old clip from comedian Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” about the difficulty of having a measured discussion about the Middle East. Alongside the video, however, another user had written a 182-word post about how the “Israel lobby influences policy in various ways” and “hysterical people” defending Israel’s actions were often “mobilized by professional organizations.”
Speaking to the BBC, Shaheen, 41, said she did not remember liking the post but had probably only seen the “Daily Show” sketch, rather than the accompanying text. She added that she had probably liked it in haste while breastfeeding her 6-week-old baby.
“I know what’s wrong with it: The line that’s there about ‘professional organizations’ plays into a trope,” said Shaheen, a Muslim whose parents are from Pakistan and Fiji. “I absolutely don’t agree with that and I’m sorry about that.”
But, she added,this “one tweet” should be seen in the context of her other actions, including organizing an interfaith vigil with a local rabbi after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel.
“As you can imagine, I’m a little overwhelmed right now,” she said in a statement Thursday, adding that she was meeting with her campaign and legal teams. “I’m in such shock.”
Shaheen's dismissal has provoked fury among progressives.
James Schneider, former communications chief for leftist ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, told NBC News that those on the left of the party were being “purged” by the current leader, Keir Starmer.
“In their place, he has stacked his party machine and future parliamentary caucus with corporate lobbyists and war apologists.”
Shaheen’s story was quickly seized on by prominent liberal and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan.
“Hey @jonstewart, not sure if you’re following the Jon-Stewart-related news out of the U.K.,” he wrote, “but Labour parliamentary candidate and Muslim woman @faizashaheen has just been suspended tonight from the Labour Party for liking on Twitter this old Israel video sketch of yours.”
Stewart responded with his message Wednesday night saying it was the dumbest thing Britain had done since electing Johnson, the former prime minister, in 2019, adding, “What the actual f---…”
The pair did not reference the accompanying text, which appears to have formed the basis of the complaint against Shaheen.
‘Purged?’
Many observers see Shaheen’s case as just the latest outbreak of a factional war drawn along ideological lines.
All polls suggest that Starmer is set to win handsomely in the election, bringing an end to 14 years of Conservative rule during which many Britons feel like their nation has declined.
His allies say his transformation of the party has been a necessary one after a hefty 2019 loss under lifelong socialist Corbyn, whose tenure was clouded by accusations of antisemitism that he denied.
“This Labour Party is a changed Labour Party,” Starmer has repeated in speeches. He has framed this process as essential to earning back public trust and preparing his party for government after so long in the political wilderness.
The Labour Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News on allegations there has been a left-wing purge, as well as specific questions on the treatment of Shaheen and other lawmakers.
Asked the same question by Sky News on Thursday, Starmer said, “No. I’ve said repeatedly over the last two years” that “I want the highest quality candidates. That’s been the position for a very long time.”
Other senior figures have been quite open that this process is partly about getting candidates who are ideologically aligned to the leadership, and disciplined on policymaking.
Luke Akehurst, a Starmer ally on the right of the party who was unveiled Thursday as one of the new candidates standing in July, told the Politics Home website last year that there “is a political element to this." He has been involved in previous selection panels, and said, “I don’t want to have allowed people to become Labour MPs that effectively are not solid votes for the Labour Party.”
Others have denied this is about political leanings. On Thursday, one of Starmer’s senior lawmakers Darren Jones told Times Radio that other party candidates “would define themselves as being on the left” and had been “endorsed” by the central party.
But critics on the left say that Starmer has not only made the party more bland and centrist, but has also veered into the territory of the right, aping Conservative policies and moving too slowly on the Israel-Hamas war.
It’s through this lens that Labour has been seen as jettisoning progressive candidates in favor of those more ideologically loyal.
Diane Abbott, Britain’s first Black woman lawmaker, said Wednesday that she had been banned from standing in the election following a monthslong investigation into her conduct after she suggested that groups including Irish and Jewish people had not experienced “racism” in the same way as Black people had.
There was some confusion over her future as Starmer later said no decision had been made.
And Lloyd Russell-Moyle, another lawmaker, said he had been suspended over what he called a “vexatious and politically motivated complaint about my behavior eight years ago” — without providing details.
Starmer might be about to lead Labour into government, but he will do so presiding over an internal rift between its traditionalist left and reformist right.
Schneider, the former Corbyn aide, says Starmer has made his feelings clear: “It couldn’t be more obvious which side he’s on.”
