Labour selection contest candidate abstained during council vote on antisemitism definition
Lorraine Beavers, one of four candidates on shortlist for Blackpool North and Fleetwood seat, tells JN she 'fully' supports IHRA definition of antisemitism, despite abstaining on vote to adopt it, three years ago
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
A Labour councillor vying to become the party’s parliamentary candidate in the newly created Blackpool North and Fleetwood seat has told Jewish News she “fully” supports the IHRA definition of antisemitism, after concerns were raised about her decision to abstain on a vote on the same issue three years ago.
Lorraine Beavers, one of four candidates to make the shortlist for the newly created seat, abstained from a vote taken at a full meeting of Wye Council in September 2020 over the adoption of the definition into the council’s code of conduct.
At the council meeting, which was held remotely during the pandemic, Beavers spoke wearing a Palestinian style kufiya scarf. She was one of eight Labour Group councillors to abstain on the constitutional amendment , which passed easily, to include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism in the Council’s code of conduct.
Labour sources in the north west also told Jewish News that Beavers, who was an outspoken supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, had been a speaker at events organised by the left-wing Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) group, an organisation that have claimed attempts to tackle the party’s antisemitism problem were a “witch hunt” against socialists.
At a 2018 CLPD fringe event at Labour’s north west regional conference she was among speakers including Skwawkbox website founder Steve Walker, while the previous year she was on a list of speakers that included Pete Willsman, infamous for his Jewish “Trump fanatics” comment.
Fleetwood Town councillor Beavers, who is also deputy leader of the Labour Group on Lancashire County Council, told the 2017 CLPD meeting:”Our members are radical, our activists are radical….put our names forward and get off our arses!”
She has previously also been on the Momentum/CPLD slate of favoured candidates for Labour’s national policy forum.
Asked about the Wye Council vote, and her stance over the IHRA definition, Beaver told Jewish News this week:”I can absolutely confirm I fully support the IHRA definition of antisemitism.”
But one Labour source openly questioned Beaver’s conduct at the 2020 council meeting claiming she had failed to take the move by Wye Council’s leaders to recognise and combat antisemitism seriously enough.
They described the decision of the Labour Group to abstain on the vote as “shameful” and said the move was an “insult to the wider Jewish community in the north west.”
Beavers, who joined Labour 46 years ago, has won the backing of trade unions as she attempts to win the selection contest in the new seat, with a hustings due to take place on Saturday.
Her campaign website states:”I was born and bred in Fleetwood – where I still live today – and my track record as a campaigner and Labour activist is second to none. I have been proud to stand up and take on the Conservatives in Wyre and Lancashire and I am proud of what I have achieved, against the odds, in my community. ”
Also making the short-list are Michelle Heaton-Bentley, who had stood against the now departing Tory minister Ben Walllace in the Wyre and Preston North seat in 2017, Gillian Oliver, a Labour councillor in Preston, and Peter Wilson, deputy leader at Chorley Council.
Local party sources told Jewish News, Beavers stands a “good chance” of becoming the Labour candidate.
The new Blackpool North and Fleetwood constituency is one of Labour’s target seats to win at the next general election.
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