A woman who has suggested that last year’s Manchester Arena bombing might not have happened is unlikely to be endorsed by Labour’s national executive after being selected as the party’s candidate for the winnable seat of Worcester.
Mandy Richards’ Twitter account claims there were “no images/footage of physical damage” from the bombing that killed 22 people last May, and also says there was a “convenient shortage of evidence” in the murder of MP Jo Cox.
There is some surprise that Richards, who has applied for Westminster and local government seats before, could have been selected in ignorance by the Worcester party.
Candidates are asked to declare on the application form that they have done nothing to bring the party into disrepute. Richards allegedly did not fill in the form correctly, nor did the selection committee question her about her social media history.
But since Richards was selected at the end of last week, worrying aspects of her past have emerged. She has been placed under “civil restraint” by the high court, preventing her from bringing any legal action without judicial approval. She is reported to have made “false and vexatious claims” against MI5 and MI6 and a long list of others, including her GP and Thames Water.
Two years ago, she crowdfunded an action in the high court claiming 20,000 votes had gone missing when she stood as a candidate in local elections. The case was thrown out, but only after a dozen people had been called to give evidence about allegations of “state-sponsored organised crime”.
Five years ago, Richards, who lives in east London, wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian complaining that Labour did not treat ethnic minority candidates fairly.
The affair is troubling for the party because Worcester is exactly the kind of seat it needs to win to have a majority at Westminster. It was held by the Conservatives last year with a 2,500 majority after the Ukip vote collapsed, breaking mainly in Labour’s favour. It would go Labour on a 2.5% swing.
“Worcester woman” – a married, working class mother of two – became an icon of New Labour in the 1990s as the target of the party’s marketing strategy.
Labour gave up vetting shortlists of candidates centrally more than a decade ago, partly because it was seen as a way of exercising undue control over who was selected. However, selected candidates have to be endorsed by the NEC.
