Councillor rejected by Labour but adopted by Conservatives is suspended and now elected

A candidate in last week’s local elections who was barred from running for Labour after the Party was alerted to his history of inflammatory activity on social media but who was endorsed instead by the Conservatives as their candidate has been elected, even as the Party appears, ambiguously, to be trying to distance itself from him.

Shakeel Munir Hussain had hoped to run as a Labour candidate in Stockton-on-Tees in the local election as he has on previous occasions, but after being blocked by the Party, he then ran instead for the Conservatives in the Ropner ward.

Mr Hussain’s posts, shares and likes on Facebook allegedly include Rothschild conspiracy theories, comparisons of Israel to the Nazis, suggestions that Israel is in league with ISIS, and claims that “the world knows all too well that their governments are controlled by Zionist money” and that the Jews control American politics, all of which are antisemitic tropes.

Mr Hussain ran for the Labour Party in 2019 and 2021, before a member of the public drew the Party’s attention to his social media history. Most of that activity predates those elections and apparently was not picked up by the Party or was ignored. The Conservative Party then committed the same error.

After being alerted, the Conservatives appeared to try to distance themselves from Mr Hussain, with the Party revealing days before the election that he “would not be allowed to join the Conservative group on the council, if elected, until any investigations had been completed.”

Mr Hussain has now been elected, and the Conservative Party’s position is unclear, with the Stockton Conservative Group leader reportedly saying: “Ropner is a really, really great win. The two councillors who won have worked their socks off. They know the issues, the residents are fed up with Labour, they complain about the same issues time after time.”

Elsewhere, in North Lincolnshire, Conservative candidate Ashley Sykes, who was standing for the Ashby Lakeside ward, was suspended by the Party after allegedly sharing jokes about the Holocaust online. A spokepserson for the Conservatives said that the Party had “acted swiftly” to suspend Mr Sykes after becoming aware of the historic posts. Mr Sykes did not win his contest.

Campaign Against Antisemitism advocates for zero tolerance of antisemitism in public life. To that end we monitor all political parties and strive to ensure that any cases of concern are properly addressed.