Six of Labour’s 34 sitting councillors have been deemed not good enough to be candidates for the party at the 2026 local elections – including a council shadow cabinet member and a 2024 parliamentary candidate.
EXCLUSIVE by WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor
National and regional Labour Party chiefs have blocked another four sitting councillors from being selected to stand again at next May’s local elections.
The blocked councillors are Eunice O’Dame (Bensham Manor ward), Enid Mollyneaux (also Bensham Manor), Sherwan Chowdhury (Broad Green) and Alisa Flemming (Norbury Park).
They bring to six the councillors who have had their applications rejected to stand for the party in May 2026, after Inside Croydon reported earlier this week how Karen Jewitt (Thornton Heath ward) and Patsy Cummings (Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood) had also been rejected.
That’s five women councillors. Four of them black women. And this in a political party accused in a report it had commissioned from barrister Martin Forde of operating a “hierarchy of racism”.
Labour’s candidate selection process for 2026 has so far been controlled by the all-powerful NEC, the National Executive Committee, and officials from the party’s London region office.
Rejected: shadow cabinet member Enid Mollyneaux
The local party is still not deemed trustworthy to manage its own affairs since senior figures from Croydon Labour crashed the council’s finances in 2020. One of the borough’s constituency Labour parties, Croydon East, remains the subject of a police investigation over its parliamentary candidate selection in 2023.
After Inside Croydon broke the news of the first of the Labour rejections, Councillor Jewitt issued a statement on social media in which she said: “I am disappointed and very sad to say I have not been selected by the Labour Party to represent Thornton Heath again in next year’s elections.
“Obviously, I will still be active in my ward till next May. To represent my home ward has been the honour of my life. A huge thank you to all who have supported me.”
And there has been an outpouring of overwhelming support for the councillor and charity worker in response to the news.
Jewitt, one resident said, “has been a model example of what a publicly elected official should be”.
Hard-working: Karen Jewitt
Another warned, “Sort out yourself Labour. You are losing loyal voters by the bucketloads. Do you really think getting rid of committed councillors like Karen and Patsy are the way to win an election?”
One iC reader posted a comment to this website: “Karen Jewitt has served as a Thornton Heath councillor for several years and quite frankly is the most active of our three ward councillors! Whenever issues are reported to her, she takes them up and gets results! She knows our community well… I doubt if her replacement will be able to do half of what she does! I certainly won’t be voting for them!”
Another wrote: “It’ll be interesting to see who London Labour deem to be better candidates than these two long-serving councillors.” London Labour will be providing a fait accompli candidate short-list for each ward, where members will finally be allowed some say in who are to represent them in next year’s elections.
“I’ve known Karen for about 15 years and had dealings with her both personally and professionally. In all aspects, even when we disagreed, she has been utterly on the side of the community she represents. This is a massive loss to that community,” said another iC reader. “Labour have not only lost their way nationally but also locally.
“This is an utter disgrace.”
Rejected: Alisa Flemming was at the heart of Croydon Labour’s top team with Tony Newman (right) and MP Steve Reed. But she was still selected to stand in 2022
And another warned: “If Labour want a win in Croydon, they need to be serious about how they manage this selection process.”
Labour’s latest decisions also expose an inconsistency over who is, or is not, suitable candidates for the party.
Alisa Flemming was among the Newman Numpties who torpedoed the council’s finances. Flemming was cabinet member responsible for children’s services in 2017 when it failed an Ofsted inspection, causing the council to throw at least £30million at the department to recruit more social workers and attempt to remove children in council care from risk of harm.
Despite her record in office and links to the discredited Town Hall regime, in 2022, Flemming was deemed to still be suitable to stand as a Labour candidate in the local elections. For 2026, Flemming is no longer good enough. Has anything really changed?
Likewise first-term councillor Eunice O’Dame. Just last year O’Dame was deemed to be good enough to be a Labour parliamentary candidate in the General Election (albeit in unwinnable Kingston and Surbiton). Now, she is not acceptable. Even providing an online endorsement for Labour mayoral candidate Rowenna Davis was not enough to save her. So again: what has changed?
The unusually long rejection list also shows a lack of confidence in the current cadre of Labour councillors, and Croydon Labour leader Stuart King’s judgement over his shadow cabinet team. Enid Mollyneaux, another first-term councillor, is King’s choice as shadow cabinet member for community safety. Yet the nameless and unaccountable NEC officials have decided that Mollyneaux is not fit even to be a council candidate.
Rejected: Bensham Manor councillor Eunice O’Dame
The letter to unsuccessful candidates states that the decisions are not subject to appeal, while giving no reasons for the deselections. Some rejected candidates are thought to have already contacted London Labour HQ to seek an explanation.
The candidates will have gone through four stages before these decisions: their own application, an interview and a report from their branch officials (with the suggestion of a bit of score-settling having played a part here), plus a report from Labour’s chief whip at the Town Hall.
This latter report will have included details of the councillors’ “campaign activity”.
So it is likely that some may have been rejected for not delivering enough Labour Party leaflets – surely the antithesis of what you might want from a ward councillor, working on behalf of their residents rather than their party?
In the case of Sherwan Chowdhury, it could well be that the lack of evidence of work as a councillor may have told against him.
Toss-car winner: Cllr Sherwan Chowdhury
Chowdhury was first elected to the council more than 30 years ago, though he has never made much of a mark. Deselected by party members in Norbury Park ahead of the 2022 elections, he scrambled himself back on to the council when an unexpected vacancy appeared in Broad Green.
He won’t survive this time, as the selection decisions were taken soon after Inside Croydon published its annual Toss-cars, our listing of the laziest councillors at the Town Hall.
After a fourth place in our Toss-cars in 2023 and second in 2024, this year Chowdhury finally claimed top spot, after official records showed he did just three pieces of casework through the council’s members enquiry system in 15 months.
So maybe the officials at Labour HQ didn’t get all their selection decisions wrong.
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.
Read more: The Toss-cars 2025: We name Croydon’s laziest councillors
Read more: Labour deputy leaders Young and Collins to stand down in 2026
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
As featured on Google News Showcase
- 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
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
I hope Labour NEC do not stop the cull of these Labour councillors I have my own Personal list which is Councillors Young, Hay- Justice King, ( who works for Terrapin a lobbying firm retained by CPFC and who wined and dined Reed) Herman not selected but parachuted into South Norwood,and any that were in Newmans or Hamida Ali’s administrations. None have been held to account. This is not a popularity contest it’s against fit for purpose in representing the people.
Probably all too left wing and too working class for Croydon Labour.
Hey Andy, any
More jokes?
I don’t know enough about the other two to comment but Eunice and Enid have come out with Nightwatch and met some of the neediest people in the borough. I found them to be sensible, caring councillors whose disappearance from the political scene would be a loss to the people of Croydon.
If Labour regionally do not trust Croydon Labour to run their own affairs then Croydon voters will be cautious about Croydon Labour being trusted to run Croydon council.