It was midnight when Maurice Mcleod received the email. Mcleod, a councillor in south London, racial justice activist and former journalist, had found out he would not be allowed to run as a parliamentary candidate for Labour.
“I can’t lie, I was absolutely devastated,” he said. “Not because I think: ‘Oh, I’m brilliant, I should be an MP,’ but I felt that – maybe naively – they would look at me and go: ‘He’s been active in the Black Lives Matter stuff. He brings an audience that we’re not very good at connecting with. He’s worked with Starmer on race policy.’
“But it feels like they just looked at me and went: ‘Yeah, lefty, Corbyn. Blocking you.’”
