Labour infighting rumbles on in LGBT row seat
Candidate has not condemned protesters
AFRESH row has broken out over Labour’s choice of candidate for the Birmingham Hall Green seat, with some local councillors and activists objecting to the prospect of city councillor Majid Mahmood being chosen.
Councillor Mahmood is understood to have been shortisted by Labour’s NEC along with Ibrahim Dogus, the current mayor of Lambeth, London, who is said to be close to Jeremy Corbyn.
Critics say Cllr Mahmood has failed to support the LGBT community in Birmingham.
Former Hall Green MP Roger Godsiff was de-selected by Labour’s National Executive Committee after local activists attempted to have him removed as the party’s candidate.
The activists were angry about his support for protests against pro-LGBT equality lessons at Anderton Park school.
It means the party must pick a new candidate to stand in the safe
Labour seat election.
But now, some activists say they fear the party is in danger of picking another candidate with similar views. They are backed privately by some city councillors.
Cameron Beavan-King, a member of the executive of the West Midlands LGBT Labour Group, said on Twitter: “Concerned that Majid Mahmood has been shortlisted for the Hall Green seat.
“He’s refused to sign a letter in solidarity in Anderton Park School and has displayed a remarkable lack of inaction that has shown a lack of willingness to stand in solidarity with the LGBT community.”
Complaints against Mr Mahmood include his apparent failure to sign a Labour Party statement expressing solidarity with the LGBT community as school protests took place.
He also took part in a meeting alongside one of the leaders of the protests, Shakeel Afsar, in the Labour Party room in Birmingham’s council house. The meeting was about the situation in Kashmir rather than schools.
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And e-mail exchanges show he opposed a schools programme called CHIPS, which was the predecessor of the “No Outsiders” pro-equality lessons that have sparked protests.
In a 2015 email to Birmingham City Council deputy leader Brigid Jones, who at the time was the Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services, he called for the CHIPS programme to be withdrawn from all schools, and said some parents would see it as “provocative, ad in direct conflict with their protective interests.”
He called for a working group to be set up to to deal with the issue, and said members should include Cllr Changese Khan.
In a separate email Cllr Khan set out his own concerns, saying: “The programme is unsuitable for young children of four or five to understand or appreciate matters of sexual relations, which is what the programme is in reality, however it is disguised with penguins or other animals.”
Cllr Mahmood was unavailable for comment as the Post went to press.