Claudia Webbe
Claudia Naomi Webbe is a British Labour Party politician who is the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Leicester East. She was elected in the United Kingdom general election of 2019. She was previously a Councillor and the Cabinet Member for Energy, Environment & Transport in the London Borough of Islington, and was a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party from 2016 to 2019.
Early life and education
Webbe was born and brought up in Leicester, and has family members living in the constituency. She studied social science at De Montfort University, Leicester, then later a MSc in Race and Ethnic Relations at Birkbeck, University of London.Having participated in its development in the mid-1990s, Webbe was the chair of Operation Trident, a community led initiative to tackle gun related homicides disproportionately affecting black communities.
Political career
Webbe was a policy director and adviser to the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, she was responsible for culture, cultural strategy, sports and tourism and she was a member of his election campaign team in 2000 and 2004.Webbe wrote of Livingstone when in 2006, he was found guilty by the Standards Board for England's Adjudication Panel of bringing his office into disrepute and suspended from office for four weeks. Webbe said that "I have worked with Ken in numerous anti-racist organisations and campaigns including the Anti-Racist Alliance, the National Assembly against Racism and while I was director of Westminster Race Equality Council, he took up cases that I referred onto him for support. His history of work in the anti-racist movement is unquestionable." Livingstone's suspension was later overturned by the High Court.
She was elected to Islington London Borough Council in 2010 as part of the Labour majority controlling the council, representing Bunhill ward, and re-elected in 2014, and 2018. She served as the council's executive member for environment and transport.
In 2016, Webbe was elected to the Labour Party's National Executive Committee, finishing third in the ballot with 92,377 votes. She is a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. In 2018, Webbe was shortlisted to become the Labour candidate in the Lewisham East by-election, but finished third in a vote among local party members and was not selected.
In July 2018 she was elected Chair of the NEC Disputes Panel.
Parliamentary career
She was selected as the Labour candidate for Leicester East at the 2019 UK general election. Her selection resulted in the resignation of the constituency Labour party chair, who described her selection as "a fix", and many in the local British Indian community were angry that none of their candidates were interviewed.Webbe was elected as the Labour Party Member of Parliament for Leicester East in 2019, holding the seat for Labour with a substantially reduced majority of 6,019, down from 22,428 in the previous election two years earlier. An organisation under the name Operation Dharmic Vote targeted the Leicester East seat running an attack campaign against Webbe, criticised as "divisive and racist". "Dharmic" refers to religions that originated in India: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. A leaflet circulated during the election campaign asked voters whether they wanted amrut or "poison" – implying the Labour candidate, Claudia Webbe.
Anti-gun crime advocacy
In his 2007 Callaghan Memorial Lecture in Cardiff, Tony Blair, commenting on gun crime, said that we cannot pretend "that it is not young black kids doing it" and stated that the black community "need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids". In response, Webbe described the Prime Minister's comments as a "kick in the teeth" to the historical and ongoing work of the black community, arguing that "In the absence of statutory provision, black voluntary, community and faith organisations had historically stepped up to the challenge to provide vital...self-help organisations so as to meet the needs of... vulnerable children and young people and challenge inequality and racism". Webbe argued that, far from sitting back, it was the community itself that was providing a safety net of services, support and action to protect young people from harm, adding that in her opinion Blair was "wrong to assert or imply that this is a 'black problem': the bullet does not discriminate in its effect, and neither is the black community responsible for the manufacture, supply and importation of dangerous weapons."Following a number of murders of children in south London in February 2007, Webbe appeared on several radio and TV channels to discuss the issue.
Operation Trident
Webbe was the head of the Operation Trident Independent Advisory Group, created in 1998 as a result of community pressure to tackle the disproportionate effects of gun violence on black communities. Webbe led the media campaigns group of Operation Trident, responsible for leading its campaigns. Following the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, the Metropolitan Police launched a dedicated Operation Trident police response unit, whose remit was to prevent, investigate and solve gun related murders where both the victim and the assailant are black. In 2010, it was reported that Operation Trident would be disbanded as part of spending cuts.Webbe was the chair of the Operation Trident Independent Advisory Group at the time of the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan and asserted that many black people see Duggan's shooting as "yet another unjust death in custody" and that young black people in Tottenham are "still six, seven, eight times more likely to be stopped and searched than their white counterparts".
In February 2013, Trident was reformed as the Trident Gang Crime Command to focus on youth violence, with the police chairing the Trident Independent Advisory Group itself. Webbe opposed the change, and called it "a backwards step on race".