At least two of Labour’s sitting councillors have been deselected by party chiefs in a brutal process that has opted to discard the combined experience of 40 years’ service at the Town Hall
EXCLUSIVE by WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor
Inside Croydon has received information and confirmations from usually reliable sources that Karen Jewitt and Patsy Cummings are among those to have had their applications to stand again in May 2026 rejected.
Women councillors. Including one of colour. Between them, at least 40 years’ combined experience as councillors in Croydon. Hardly a good look. And a long way from a glowing endorsement of Labour’s current Town Hall team.
Inside Croydon has reported previously of an unusually high number of councillors, including cabinet and shadow cabinet members from Conservative and Labour groups at the Town Hall, who have chosen to stand down when their term of office ends next May. For Labour, these include Callton Young, the current deputy leader of the Town Hall opposition, and Stuart Collins, Tony Newman’s former deputy leader of the council.
In all, Inside Croydon is aware of seven of the 34 current Labour councillors who have chosen not to seek selection by their party. The non-selections means Labour will be losing almost 30% of its current crew of councillors.
Jewitt and Cummings were keen to continue as councillors.
But the Labour Party at regional and national level still do not trust their colleagues in Croydon to manage their own affairs, and certainly not to select candidates for local elections.
Croydon’s LCF – the supposedly influential Local Campaign Forum committee of apparatchiks from across the borough’s Constituency Labour Parties, who are supposed to oversee candidate selections and campaign strategies for all elections – has not had a formal meeting since the General Election in July 2024.
As Inside Croydon has reported, the all-powerful National Executive Committee and London region officials have taken on the task of drawing up shortlists from which members in the party’s ward branches will get to choose the candidates to represent them. What has all the appearances of a very bureaucratic Hobson’s choice.
Campaigning is already well underway for the May 2026 elections, with the larger political parties having all declared their candidates for Croydon Mayor.
Rejected: Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood councillor Patsy Cummings
Croydon’s local elections, including votes for 70 councillors, are due to be held on Thursday, May 7, 2026, alongside the borough’s second mayoral election.
But finding candidates to stand across the borough’s 28 wards may prove less-than-straightforward in the aftermath of the council’s financial collapse, especially for Labour, where party member numbers nationally have been in a tailspin despite last year’s General Election victory.
Or, more likely, because of what Keir Starmer’s party has done since forming the government.
Before their deadline for applications, Croydon Labour was sending out increasingly desperate-sounding pleas for people to come forward as possible candidates for the local elections to be held on May 7. “We need hardworking candidates from all backgrounds and experiences to help Rowenna and Labour win in 2026 and put People First in Croydon,” the local organiser wrote.
Just not the hardworking Thornton Heath councillor Jewitt, nor the experience and background offered by Cummings.
Other erstwhile loyal Labour members from minority backgrounds have also advised that they have also been blocked from selection, they allege because of adverse reports from their party branch – potentially written by possible rivals for selection in the same ward.
With Croydon Labour members being denied any say in the process so far, the potential for manipulation and fixes appears considerable. Croydon East CLP remains at the centre of a police investigation into data manipulation over their parliamentary candidate selection from November 2023.
Today, Jewitt and Cummings have been contacted for comment. Neither responded.
Patsy Cummings has been a Croydon councillor since 2017, but is already on her second ward (Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood), having failed to be reselected to stand in South Norwood in 2022. As a former staffer in Jeremy Corbyn’s office when he was party leader, the motivation for her deselection by current party chiefs is probably more obvious.
Rejected: Karen Jewitt has been a councillor for 30 years
For Jewitt, the rejection was a double-blow: as the manager of a local charity, she was already busy on Friday with the fall-out from losing premises for regular lunches for the elderly and disabled at Spurgeon’s College.
Jewitt has been a councillor in Croydon since 1994, first for Woodside and since 2014 for Thornton Heath ward.
Jewitt has been victim of internal Labour shenanigans before, being ousted from the selection process for Woodside ward 12 years ago when her “colleague”, Newman, wanted to hand a safe seat to the then “rising star”, Hamida Ali.
The former chair of the finance and general purposes committee, Jewitt blotted her copybook badly two years ago, using a rare opportunity to make a speech at full council in which she defended the conduct of Simon Hall, Newman’s cabinet member for finance.
But she remains respected among the clients of her charity, and by many of the residents of her ward, as a hard-working community worker, as demonstrated by her case load of councillor work. For the past two years, Jewitt has topped the listings for the greatest amount of casework undertaken among all Croydon’s 70 councillors.
Not, apparently, that that counts for much with the Labour Party.
Read more: Labour councillor’s Friends of Israel pose starts selection row
Read more: Fix! Internal Labour inquiry confirms selection stitch-up
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
