The former Labour MP for Ilford South Sam Tarry stood in solidarity with striking workers on a picket line, and that was enough for the Labour right to orchestrate his deselection as Labour’s general election candidate (via an incredibly dodgy voting system).
The guy they picked to replace Sam Tarry was the leader of Redbridge Council Jas Athwal.
Keir Starmer defended the deselection of numerous Labour-left politicians like Sam Tarry, and their replacement with Labour right-wingers, by saying he wants "the highest quality candidates".
With a portfolio of 18 rental properties Athwal became the biggest landlord in parliament after he took Sam Tarry’s seat, one of 26 new landlord MPs on the Labour benches, bringing their total to 44 out of 405.
Just a couple of months after Athwal took Tarry’s seat in parliament a BBC investigation found that Athwal’s properties are infested with black mould and insects, and that residents are afraid to complain about the conditions they’re living in for fear of revenge evictions.
Once the scandal broke, Athwal made the situation even worse by admitting that his properties did not have the licences required under a council scheme he himself introduced as leader of Redbridge Council, and that he’s been breaking the law by refusing to rent to tenants on Housing Benefit.
He then tried to shift the blame for the horrible state of his properties onto his letting agent, claiming that he had no idea of the conditions his tenants were living in; the "leave if you don’t like it" responses to their requests for repairs; or their fears of suffering revenge evictions.
Seeking to blame the letting agent really let the cat out of the bag by demonstrating the idle and exploitative nature of landlordism. Athwal outright admits that he doesn’t even do anything, he just collects the money by virtue of having hoarded a load of property, then pays someone else a cut of the profits to administer the properties without even bothering to check up on what they’re doing.
This case raises a fundamental question about Landlord politicians. How is it not a massive conflict of interests for someone to be both your landlord and your elected representative?
Who are people supposed to complain to if their landlord has been breaking the law, and/or forcing them to live in squalor, when their landlord is also their local councillor/MP?
Just a few weeks prior to these scandalous revelations Keir Starmer booted six Labour MPs out of the Parliamentary Labour Party for daring to vote against the poverty-spreading Two Child social security cap, but somehow he thinks that being a lawless slumlord is absolutely fine, so Athwal gets to keep the Labour whip.
So just to recap. Sam Tarry was booted out for the "crime" of showing solidarity with striking workers, and six other Labour MPs were suspended for voting against child poverty, but Athwal can stay as a Labour MP despite being the worst kind of slumlord who openly admits to having broken the law!
The Labour Party was founded to give ordinary people a voice in parliament, and to protect the working classes from exploitative capitalists and landlords, but it’s been so comprehensively stolen by liberal-capitalists that the Labour benches are now stuffed with landlords; Labour MPs get purged for supporting striking workers and voting against child poverty; the party leadership is bankrolled by wealthy capitalists; and Labour MPs are free to operate slums with impunity.
Keir Hardie and the other noble socialists who founded the Labour Party must be turning in their graves at what the party has become.
Setting up a small monthly GoCardless subscription really helps too.
The fact that Starmer thinks Athwal is the finest candidate is beyond me this man is the worst kind of parasite. Disgusting conflict of I retests as well. I feel so sorry for his tenants
Yet another reason to condemn Starmer's authoritarian rule.