• I WAS disappointed to read tweets from Sarah Hayward supporting the misogynistic statements of Ian McKenzie, the now suspended senior member of Lewisham East Labour Party.

Ms Hayward is the former leader of Camden Council and an ex-councillor. In the past weeks she’s spread false accounts of Hampstead & Kilburn Labour meetings and has been quoted in the Daily Mail, The Times and the London Evening Standard which have all run these stories, without verifying her account.

Sarah Hayward is not a member of Hampstead & Kilburn Labour nor does she attend our meetings. Her credibility as a source is highly questionable.

Ms Hayward has further called for Hampstead & Kilburn Constituency Labour Party to be suspended. I would like to remind Ms Hayward the only gains for Labour in the local elections in Camden were made in Hampstead & Kilburn.

We won three seats from the Tories, running Jeremy Corbyn-supporting candidates in Swiss Cottage. In fact, the greatest swings to Labour were in wards with pro-Corbyn candidates, running on an unashamedly left-wing platform.

Even in the affluent Frognal & Fitzjohns ward we had our best result for Labour, running three committed socialists. Hampstead & Kilburn CLP also won three seats from the Tories in Brent.

There is no good reason to call for a successful CLP to be suspended. Other people were also quoted in the press, people who were not at the meeting in question.

It’s disappointing to see Labour members who have a public profile and a fondness for the publicity that comes from briefing journalists, misuse their privilege, briefing against their own to the press, sensationalising the goings on at private meetings they did not attend.

In the words of your editor: “…isn’t it time opponents of Corbyn made an effort to return to the proper standards of debate without resorting to wild calls for the Hampstead party to be suspended”.

REBECCA SHIRAZI
Vice-Chair (Campaigns)
Hampstead & Kilburn CLP