Revealed: Labour’s Ealing North selection shortlist

LabourList has been sent the following shortlist by local sources. It includes four candidates for Labour’s Ealing North parliamentary selection race:

• James Murray – Deputy mayor of London for housing
• Sitarah Anjum – Ealing North councillor
• Rajesh Agrawal – Deputy mayor of London for business
• Aysha Raza – Ealing North councillor

One of these four candidates will replace retiring MP Steve Pound as the candidate in Ealing North, where Labour has a majority of nearly 20,000 votes. Pound had been endorsing Ealing councillor Bassam Mahfouz, but he was controversially left off the longlist.

Between the longlisting and shortlisting stages, several others have been excluded from the race: council leader Julian Bell, former MP Parmjit Dhanda, Islington councillor Rakhia Ismail and Brent councillor Vincent Lo.

But two of Sadiq Khan’s deputy mayors remain on the list – James Murray, responsible for housing, and Rajesh Agrawal, whose brief in City Hall covers business.

Murray is thought to be favoured by Labour’s ruling body, the national executive committee, which decided the longlist. Considered to be ‘soft left’, he is friends with Jeremy Corbyn and has the endorsement of Unite the Union. Jenny Killin, his senior advisor in City Hall, used to work for Unite.

Update: Sitarah Anjum has been taken off the shortlist after concerns were raised about allegedly homophobic tweets and posts that appeared to criticise banning forced marriages.