• I WAS disappointed to read last week’s disingenuous letter from the chairs of the Holborn and St Pancras Labour Party, and I’m sure many residents were too, (The many wanted and needed change, 18 July).

The letter implied that my campaign – a grassroots effort that went from a standing start to winning the second most votes in the constituency in six weeks – was one of “hate” and that it reflected an “extremist” politics.

No examples of this hate or extremism were provided. Not a single policy published in our Camden People’s Manifesto could rightly be described as hateful or extreme. It called for sensible, inclusive and progressive solutions to the crises facing Camden and the world.

I have spent most of my life fighting all forms of hate and discrimination. It is why I stood with Mandela in fighting apartheid both in South Africa and in exile, and why I stand with Palestin­ians now.

I do so because it was actual hate and extremism that killed dozens of my family members in the Holo­caust, and which led the apartheid government to assassinate and torture my comrades in the ANC. I’m used to these sorts of slurs.

But I’m genuinely appalled the Labour Party has smeared all 7,300 people who voted for our grassroots campaign by implication.

Does the Labour Party believe that 20 per cent of the ordinary people who voted here – the nurses, doctors, teachers and stay-at-home mothers – are motivated by hate and extremism?

Is it extreme to want to use every legal mechanism to stop the killing in Gaza we watch daily on our phones?

What about people who want to live in decent housing and want rent controls? Or who want a constituency MP who makes a positive case for immigration and cele­brates our local diversity rather than singling out the Bangladeshi community to The Sun?

Our campaign was a joyful expression of how to do politics differently. Many couldn’t help but smile when they witnessed colourful mass bike rides run by volunteers or hilarious speeches by local treasure, Alexei Sayle.

All online volunteers signed up to a code of conduct and respect was at the heart of our campaigning message and strategy. Suffice to say, our campaign HQ didn’t receive a single complaint from the public about the conduct of volunteers throughout the campaign.

Keir Starmer’s vote this year was half of what he got in 2019. The country has seen voter turnout fall to its lowest level since the introduction of universal suffrage.

Voters in Camden and the country are send­ing a message that they want something different – something more humane and hopeful. But instead of listening, the Labour Party lashes out.

And so the local party copies the national party by rewriting grassroots independent campaigns around the country as paroxysms of harassment and extremism. It is an approach that reveals a real disdain for vibrant participatory democracy – which is exactly what we intend to create in Camden.

ANDREW FEINSTEIN