Labour ‘offers up struggle’ in Clacton as candidate despatched to the Midlands

Labour has been accused of giving up the fight against Nigel Farage in Clacton as the candidate has been reportedly sent to campaign in the West Midlands.

Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, 27, who is one of only a handful of Black male candidates standing for the party, was selected in the seaside seat that the Tories won with a 24,702 majority at the last election.

The focus on the constituency has soared since Mr Farage announced he would be standing there for Reform UK.

It is now claimed Mr Owusu-Nepaul has been sent to the West Midlands and the local campaign in Clacton has been told to stop printing leaflets and banned from using campaigning software. Keir Starmer denied the allegations, insisting his party is “fighting everywhere” and that Mr Owusu-Nepaul is an “excellent candidate”.

As standard, Labour’s candidates in non-target constituencies are told they must put in hours campaigning in winnable seats.

Labour HQ are said to have been angry that the Labour candidate, who has been noted for his fashionable attire, gained viral attention when he bumped into Mr Farage when campaigning on the high street, the Guardian reported. “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,” a source told the newspaper.

In a letter to Labour’s general secretary David Evans, Martin Suker, Mr 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.”

Local Labour activist Tracey Lewis quit the constituency Labour party after Mr 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?”

In an interview with Politics Home last week, Mr Owusu-Nepaul said he was running to be MP “for every Black and brown person in the country”. The Tories are ahead of Labour in the polls in the seats, with some having argued Labour should take a back seat. “If I’m honest, of course I’ve thought that, because in my hearts of hearts I would rather the Tory get back in than have Farage,” the candidate admitted in the interview.

Asked if Labour should be taking the fight to Reform UK in Clacton or were leaving it to the Tories, Mr Starmer said: “No, we’re fighting everywhere, including Clacton. We’re deploying our resource across the country, including in Clacton. Yes, we want to take the fight to the Tories and Reform wherever they are. So, we’re not backing down in Clacton. We’re not backing down anywhere across the country.”

Pressed if activists could campaign in Clacton, the Labour leader added: “The Chief of Operations tells people where we most want them to go and fight but we’ve got to fight in Clacton, of course we have. We’ve got an excellent candidate there, he actually works for me, he’s fantastic. So you know, I’m very supportive of both him and the campaign that he is running. He’s doing something incredible, in Clacton, which is being that positive candidate in difficult circumstances.”