Our Sutton politics editor, ROSE HILL, on the selection row that threatens to scupper LibDem hopes of winning back a key parliamentary seat
Dumped: David Campanale claims an orchestrated bullying campaign was waged against him
Liberal Democrats are tonight staging a selection meeting to choose a new candidate to stand for their party in the upcoming General Election in the winnable Sutton and Cheam constituency, in the knowledge that the member they picked two years ago is contesting his de-selection through a formal complaint to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
David Campanale claims that he was dumped as a candidate because of his Christian religion, and he accuses the party of having a “hostile environment” for people of faith which “emboldened those who believe Christians should be driven out of public life”.
Campanale has complained that there was a two-year campaign against him by members of his local party and a number of LGBT+ activists which saw him “ghosted” by local party officials.
Campanale’s EHRC appeal is understood to have come after he considered, and abandoned, other, legal routes of action.
Campanale’s complaint centres on what he has characterised as an “ambush” meeting organised by LibDem peer Lord Tope, the former MP for Sutton and Cheam. It is understood that Campanale secretly recorded the meeting.
Peer review: Lord Tope staged the meeting with Campanale and Sutton LibDems
Campanale claims that during a two-hour “grilling”, he was branded a “Christian nutter” for saying he would “vote with my conscience” on extending the abortion time limit. He said he was told: “You are not a liberal.”
The local party association said it would refuse to campaign for Campanale, due to objections to his involvement in the Christian Peoples Alliance a decade ago. The CPA is a fringe, right-wing group which opposes abortion and whose leadership has in the past compared gay rights activists to Nazis
Campanale left the CPA in 2012 and says now that he did not agree with its tone or priorities.
The Campanale letter to the EHRC said: “This evidence depicts a supposedly liberal organisation allowing clear religious discrimination and hostility to thrive within its ranks.
“It suggests that Mr Campanale was driven out from his democratically elected position not because of any objective failings or wrongdoing but because a vocal group within SBLD [Sutton Borough Liberal Democrats] refused to tolerate his Christian worldview.
“Although Mr Campanale has submitted evidence of religious discrimination, harassment and victimisation perpetrated against him to party authorities at all levels over a two-year period, no appropriate action has been taken.
“We believe that only an external investigation by the EHRC can now secure justice.”
Hustings are being held tonight to replace Campanale as the parliamentary candidate for a seat which has been held since 2015 by the Conservatives through Paul Scully.
Earlier this year, Scully announced that he would be standing down as an MP at the General Election. Councillor Tom Drummond, the leader of the Conservative opposition group on Sutton Council, has been selected by his party to stand in place of Scully.
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