The disgraced former MP Keith Vaz has been belatedly kicked out of Labour after announcing he is standing in his old seat, Leicester East, for a new local party.
The former minister, who is running against an official Labour party candidate, was still a member of the party on Thursday when it emerged that he was standing in the constituency for the One Leicester party.
On Friday, the party rescinded his membership. He is still described in some party literature as the honorary president of Leicester East constituency party.
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The fact that he remained a member until now will infuriate many local party members who have been calling for him to be ejected for years. They have warned that he has been campaigning for more than a year, concentrating his efforts on the local Hindu community in Leicester East.
It comes four years after Vaz announced his retirement from parliament after being given a six-month ban from the House of Commons for offering to buy cocaine for sex workers and obstructing inquiries by the standards commissioner.
That’s a name I haven’t heard of in ages. The Vazinator as he used to be called.
I think he’s been called a lot worse.
Honestly. This seems more like a publity stunt then news.
Lets face it. He is running for an independent party. As an ex Labour MP he knows full well the rules mean leaving labour as a member.
So the fact that he did not do so. Is at best forgetting. But way more likely an attempt to gain this very news article. Because lets face it. Small party constituency candidates. Do not get the news he would be used to under labour.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The disgraced former MP Keith Vaz has been belatedly kicked out of Labour after announcing he is standing in his old seat, Leicester East, for a new local party.
It comes four years after Vaz announced his retirement from parliament after being given a six-month ban from the House of Commons for offering to buy cocaine for sex workers and obstructing inquiries by the standards commissioner.
He was given a six-month ban from parliament after an inquiry in to claims published in the Sunday Mirror in 2016 that he offered to buy cocaine for male sex workers while posing as an industrial washing machine salesman.
Separately, in 2021, Vaz was reprimanded after being found to have engaged in “sustained and unpleasant bullying” towards a parliamentary member of staff.
The seat, which has one of the biggest south Asian populations in the country, was won by Labour in 2019 (under slightly different boundaries), but there was a 14% swing towards the Conservatives.
The Labour mayor of Leicester, Peter Soulsby, previously said there were fears that having Vaz and Webbe run in the seat “might split the vote and let the Tories in”.
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