Labour ‘not putting up a fight’ against Farage in Clacton

Jovan Owusu-Nepaul was ‘seconded’ to the West Midlands on the basis that Clacton was not a winnable seat for Labour. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Labour has been accused of “not putting up a fight” against Nigel Farage in Clacton after the party’s candidate was instructed to leave the constituency after “distracting” from Keir Starmer’s campaign.

Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, 27, who works for Labour’s equalities team, was installed by the party last month to contest the seat, weeks before Farage changed his mind and decided to stand in the Essex constituency.

Owusu-Nepaul has since been “seconded” to the West Midlands, while the local campaign in Clacton said that it had been banned from printing leaflets, blocked from using campaigning software and had access to the campaign’s social media overriden, with posts deleted on X.

Labour regards Clacton as an unwinnable seat, with the party gaining just 15% of the vote in 2019, when the Tories won a 24,702 majority.

Members of Clacton’s constituency Labour party (CLP) had been expecting a “well planned but low energy” social media campaign.

However, Owusu-Nepaul attracted attention on social media after he was photographed bumping into the Reform UK leader at an opening of a new food truck in Frinton earlier this month, with pictures going viral.

A campaign source said Labour headquarters had been angry with the traction Owusu-Nepaul was getting. “At one point [Jovan] was getting more retweets than Keir Starmer. The officials were furious with him and said he was distracting [from] Starmer’s campaign,” they said.

The Guardian reported last week that dozens of Labour candidates have been blocked from accessing the party’s canvassing systems, which help them drum up support from voters, because they were deemed not to be campaigning enough in target seats.

Tracey Lewis, a Labour activist from Clacton, quit the CLP after Owusu-Nepaul was sent to campaign in the West Midlands.

She said: “I’m a lifelong Labour supporter and will continue to be even though I’ve quit my place on the CLP, but if they can’t put a fight up against Nigel Farage, then who are they fighting for?”

Chris Bee, another member of the local party, said: “Our candidate gets some real traction and with a week-and-a-bit to go they pull him out and will not allow him back into the constituency to fight for a place in this area’s most important election in a generation. This is absolutely disgusting on every level.”

In a letter to Labour’s general secretary, David Evans, seen by the Guardian, Martin Suker, Owusu-Nepaul’s election agent said: “Reform UK stands for everything we the Labour party stand against … and I’m struggling to come to terms that it appears the party doesn’t even want to be seen to be putting up a fight.

“Jovan was told [by an official] to never come back to Clacton, and yesterday, was instructed to move to the West Midlands region.

“I’m concerned there will be follow-on questions: members, supporters and more worryingly donators will be both angry and upset that it appears like the party that they have a great hope in isn’t doing anything to show a battle front to what many see as a catastrophe not only for Clacton, but for the parliamentary system entirely.”

Suker said the local party had requests for new leaflets turned down and access to the canvassing system removed. “Now I have no candidate to put in front of the people for them to see us at least trying to ‘Save Clacton’,” he added. “This could be very damaging to the party’s image.”

Labour has been urging candidates to campaign more in target seats and diverting activists away from the Liberal Democrats’ priority seats to those where it stands a better chance of winning against the Tories. Clacton activists had been twinned with nearby Colchester.

A Labour party spokesperson said: “We are working hard to deliver as many Labour MPs as possible in the general election and our campaigners are bringing our message of change to people across the country.”