Ex-Labour voters say party ‘kicked them in the teeth’, insists independent challenger to Jon Ashworth

In the seventh of our video interview series #CanaryCandidates, we meet independent candidate Shockat Adam – standing against Labour’s Jon Ashworth

Shockat Adam is standing as an independent candidate in Leicester South. And he told The Canary about a woman he met while canvassing:

Gaza has woken her up, because she has voted, I think her words were, “like a sheep”, followed the community and thought her vote didn’t matter, and Gaza has woken her up and she will never ever vote for the Labour Party.

He continued:

I have had elderly gentlemen who must be in their seventies… who have been members of the Labour Party for 50 years, ripping up their membership. I had a gentleman… who said ‘the Labour Party was my family, and they’ve kicked me in the teeth’.

Jon Ashworth had a chance, and he blew it

Shockat Adam is a health worker who has been voluntarily campaigning against racism for over a decade. He explained to the Canary that:

I have never been a part of a political party… I have supported only in one campaign – that was in 2019, now the independent candidate in Leicester East, who was then a Labour candidate, Claudia Webbe…

I’ve been in the heart of the community, I’ve supported individuals, I’ve supported institutions, and I’ve done this all completely free of charge. But then Gaza happens.

Labour’s Jon Ashworth has been in charge in Leicester South since 2011. And he, much like others in Keir Starmer’s top team, has been awful on the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Additionally, Ashworth is married to key figure on the Labour right Emilie Oldknow, whose name popped up a lot in the Labour Leaks scandal, showing how she allegedly conspired with others in the party to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn and undermine the movement surrounding him. Ashworth himself was also far from being an avid supporter of Corbyn.

In the early weeks of the genocide, Adam “went to see Jon Ashworth along with, I think there must have been about 25 of us”. As he said:

There was, at this stage, regardless of what he’s saying now, no tweet, social media post about the plight of the Palestinians.

We asked for three things… one was an immediate ceasefire… no semantics, no ifs and buts, just release a statement that you will call for a ceasefire and that the first opportunity that you get you will call for a ceasefire in the House of Commons.

And the second thing at the time we asked for was immediate access to humanitarian aid. And the third thing was to make some kind of admission that ‘maybe I should have said something sooner’… We gave him 72 hours. He hadn’t responded.

Then after two weeks, the leader of that meeting sent them an email, and he responded by saying ‘you know, I’ve been to see some private Muslim organisations and I’ve been to Palestine and I know what their plight is and I’ve always known what their suffering is, etcetera etcetera’, but it was still no statement…

That was the point where individuals within the community decided that, ‘you know, somebody needs to stand up’, and they spoke to myself and I consulted and there was a process, and then I decided to stand.

Shockat Adam: ‘people aren’t stupid, Mr Starmer’

Shockat Adam stressed that, today, “there’s absolutely no difference” between the Tories and Starmer’s Labour. And speaking about the Labour leader’s appalling stance on Gaza, he said:

No matter what he says now, we all heard categorically when he said Israel has the right to withhold power, and food, and water… They say one thing, you hear them say that thing, and then they’re ‘I didn’t actually say that’. You abstained from a vote for a ceasefire, but ‘no I didn’t abstain, I voted for an alternative’. It’s just semantics. It’s absolute semantics. People are not fooled…

People are not that stupid, Mr Starmer, and they will let you know at the ballot box.

Adam also emphasised the people power driving his campaign:

This is not my campaign. This is Leicester South’s campaign… We built a team… 90% of these are volunteers, from the community, young and old.

And in his opinion, we need to trust in the good nature of most voters in the country:

We have to reach out and believe that the people in this country overall, despite media rhetoric and negativity and Islamophobia, are extremely, extremely good…

We have to set the agenda as independents, have honest conversations and hold those in power accountable.

For more on Adam’s comments on the election and other issues, see the full interview on our YouTube channel:

Featured image via the Canary