Leanne Mohamad and Faiza Shaheen should have won

  • Post last modified:July 5, 2024
  • Reading time:11 mins read


This election, pro-Palestine candidates sent a resounding message to the Labour Party in seats spanning the country. Five independents – including Jeremy Corbyn – stood on a platform calling for the end of Israel’s abhorrent genocide in Gaza, and won. However, the night also brought two particularly heart-breaking election losses. Independent candidate Faiza Shaheen who Labour despicably cast out in its left-wing selection purge lost to living incarnation of evil Iain Duncan Smith.

Gallingly, the same happened with Labour’s private healthcare ghoul Wes Streeting. Independent candidate Leanne Mohamad came just hundreds of votes shy of turfing the Starmerrhoid out.

Needless to say, both trailblazing, community-rooted independents should have won. Now, we have Labour to blame for both soul-less sycophants returning to parliament.

Independents: Leanne Mohamad causes Streeting’s lead to crumble

Leanne Mohamad was a force of nature in Ilford North against Labour’s NHS privatisation poster-boy Wes Streeting.

The now secretary of state for Health and Social Care has bandied about his bolshier than Blair privatisation plans throughout the election run-up.

What’s more, the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) supporter has done his lobby-bought best to disparage efforts to hold Israel accountable for its ongoing genocide in Gaza.  As the Canary’s HG reported in May, two-faced Streeting started out condemning South Africa’s case against the genocide-mongering coloniser  with the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Then, in another breath, election wheels in motion, he suddenly changed his tune:

Strong whiff of grift, it was time for someone to stand up to Streeting. That person was the dazzling Leanne Mohamad. After an electric grassroots campaign, Mohamad came a mere 528 votes away from knocking Streeting from his undeserved parliamentary soapbox:

Significantly Mohamad swung the vote enormously – with Streeting dropping over twenty percentage points. Alas, her fierce and principled campaign put her at 32.2%, to Streeting’s slim 33.4% victory.

As the Guardian’s Owen Jones pointed out, Labour hadn’t banked on Mohamad bringing the margin so close:

One person on X felt the narrow defeat hammered home how Streeting seizing the seat once more, was mostly just luck:

Streeting’s win certainly wasn’t down his glistening personality. Of course, Mohamad’s loss stings, but in just two months of campaigning, it’s still an astounding achievement. Graciously at least, Streeting’s seat is now a marginal – and Mohamad now has five years to swell her support:

Labour shafting Faiza Shaheen – again

While Mohamad was laying the groundwork for a Wes 2029 wipe-out, Starmerite shills were busy twisting the truth in Chingford and Woodford Green.

Independent Dr Faiza Shaheen lost her bid to oust former Conservative Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) monster Iain Duncan-Smith.

Shaheen placed a close third, with 25.7% of the vote. This was a painful 79 votes behind Labour’s Shama Tatler, who garnered 25.8%. Duncan-Smith took the seat with 35.6%.

Unsurprisingly, a brigade of blithering, blathering white men blamed Shaheen for Duncan-Smith’s reprisal:

Wallowing in irrelevance, former New Labour minister Ed Balls waded in with his opinion no-one asked for:

Also among them, iPaper columnist Ian Dunt:

Shockingly, corporate media hack Paul Brand offered the same astonishingly trash take:

In a nutshell:

Parachuting in and then whining when the vote falls flat

Of course, it was a staggering revision of recent history. Plenty of people on X called out this shameful gaslighting:

Surprisingly, unceremoniously ditching your hard-working, principled political candidate and baring your racist ass for two-months non-stop wasn’t quite the show-stopping vote-winner Labour thought it would be.

In reality then, if anyone ‘split the vote’, it was Labour:

Crucially, those votes should have – likely would have – been hers, had Labour not shafted Shaheen at the outset of the election. Particularly so, given it was Shaheen who has put in all the legwork in her constituency for the unworthy party:

Not to mention, as Tribune Magazine’s Taj Ali reminded everyone, Labour parachuted in the party plant:

Shaheen herself detailed the disgraceful campaign Labour launched against her:

There’s a lot to celebrate at this election. However, Mohamad and Shaheen sit at the sharp end of craven corporate careerist Labour’s shtick.

It’s devastating that two brilliant women of colour standing for their communities, Palestine, and the people Tory Red and Tory Blue continue to marginalise across the country, came just that close, but didn’t win.

Still, they should be proud of everything they and their communities achieved at this election. They may have lost, but the hope they inspired won above all, despite the corporate media and political establishment that tried to drown it out.

Featured image via the Canary





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