The council elections are little more than 10 months away, but suspicions of selection stitch-ups are already circulating among Croydon Labour’s members. By WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor
Tactless or cynical: Croydon Labour councillor Chrishni Reshekaron (centre) with the Labour Friends of Israel banner
Between now and next May, we can all confidently expect to receive a series of leaflets, get knocks on the door and have banal social media messages thrust our way in which Croydon’s Labour Party will ask the borough’s voters to place their trust in them at the 2026 local elections.
Yet the Labour Party itself still won’t trust Croydon Labour to manage its own affairs, as they struggle to find 70 members prepared to let their names go forward on to ballot papers for the possibility of becoming a councillor for the next four years.
The closing date for applications for selection as a Labour council election candidate was last Friday. But members in some wards around the borough are increasingly suspicious that they will be denied a proper say in who gets to stand for their local party, which has effectively been in “special measures” with Labour since they crashed the Town Hall finances in 2020.
Shortlisting candidates for most of Croydon’s 28 wards is a function which under normal circumstances would be conducted by small meetings of grassroots members, providing at least the appearance of some kind of local democratic process.
But this year in Croydon, the members won’t do the shortlisting: the all-powerful NEC will do it for them.
In West Thornton ward, where there is a significant number of Muslim Labour members, concerns have been raised over how one of their councillors, Chrishni Reshekaron, has been seen offering support to Labour Friends of Israel – and how the NEC-run shortlisting could be used to prevent her possible deselection.
Originally an organisation for Labour MPs, Labour Friends of Israel’s members have included Tony Blair and now include Keir Starmer. But it has been subject to investigations in recent years for its close links with Israeli Embassy staff, possible funding from the Israeli government and involvement in “plots” to bring down British MPs who favour recognition of a Palestinian state.
Campaign buddies: Reshekaron (left) with Labour’s mayoral candidate, Rowenna Davis
Labour Friends of Israel never discloses who its funders are.
None of Croydon’s three Labour MPs – Steve Reed OBE, Sarah Jones or Natasha Irons – appear in lists of members of LFI, although Reed is among several members of Starmer’s cabinet to have received donations from pro-Israel lobbyists, the most notable being millionaire Trevor Chinn.
Councillor Reshekaron has represented West Thornton ward since 2022. In February this year, she was photographed at Labour’s Local Government Conference posing with a Labour Friends of Israel banner.
Other councillors’ membership or support for Labour Friends of Israel is not known. It is not something that has to be declared by councillors among their interests on the council website.
Shadow cabinet member Christopher Herman, a councillor for South Norwood, had a spell working for Labour Friends of Israel. Perhaps mindful of the sensitivities on the matter, Herman has annotated his online profile with an asterisk: “Three-week internship”.
Several party members in Reshekaron’s ward have expressed their disquiet over her apparent support for Israel at a time when tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed or displaced from their homes in Gaza, and are now being left to starve, in what independent, international agencies have described as war crimes and genocide.
“At best, the councillor’s action was tactless,” a senior local Labour figure told Inside Croydon. “At worst, it was a cynical ploy to appeal to some of the party’s powerbrokers.”
Although a first-term councillor, within days of being elected in 2022, Reshekaron was propelled into the key council shadow cabinet position for homes under her group leader, and ward colleague, Stuart King.
Reshekaron, who works for the charity Refuge, is known to be politically very ambitious, perhaps in pursuit of a safe Labour parliamentary seat (if any such thing might still exist in these turbulent times). She was imposed on Labour members in Sutton and Cheam as their candidate in last year’s General Election, where she made little impression on the electorate in a Tory-LibDem contest.
Reshekaron is also thought to be a close colleague of Waddon councillor Rowenna Davis, Labour’s candidate for Mayor in 2026.
A source who described themselves as “close to Reshekaron” told Inside Croydon: “Chrishni is good enough to succeed in politics without having to abandon her principles and values. It beggars belief that anybody would want to be friends with a genocidal, apartheid regime whose prime minister is a wanted war criminal.
“Chrishni really does need to choose her friends more carefully.”
A Labour member in West Thornton told Inside Croydon: “We’d like the opportunity to choose who represents our ward at the Town Hall. And Chrisni isn’t it.
“We are suspicious of the NEC, though, and we reckon there might be some kind of stitch-up.”
Ward members will get to vote on the approved shortlists presented by the NEC. “They could just present a fait accompli: three candidates for the three available places.”
Councillor Reshekaron was approached by Inside Croydon to clarify her position around Labour Friends of Israel. She did not respond by the time of publication.
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