Far-Left MP Claudia Webbe Avoids Recall After Harassment Sentence Reduced by Judge

LONDON, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 27: Member of Parliament, Claudia Webbe, arrives at The City o
Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

Far-left MP Claudia Webbe has survived the prospect of facing an automatic recall petition after her sentence for harassing a women was reduced.

Webbe was elected as a Labour MP for Leicester East in 2019 but has since been suspended from the left-wing party following allegations that she had harassed love rival Michelle Merritt, who claimed that the leftist politician had threatened to attack her with acid.

Webbe was convicted over the threats in November but, while an appeal has failed to overturn her conviction, Judge Deborah Taylor said that the court has now determined that the MP did not make an acid attack threat, according to the BBC.

The judge did say she had threatened to release nude pictures of Merritt and had made a series of 17 silent phone calls to the woman, however, which the judge determined demonstrated “a course of conduct which amounted to harassment”.

Nevertheless, the court reduced the already feeble 10-week suspended sentence she was originally handed to mere community service, with the judge finding that Merritt had lied to the court about just being friends with Webbe’s then-boyfriend, despite having sent text messages discussing meeting up for sex as well as the purchase of a £120 sex toy, The Times reports.

The reduction of the sentence means that the far-left MP will not face an automatic recall petition, which would have put her fate as a politician back in the hands of Leicester East voters.

Following the court refusing to overturn her conviction, Webbe said: “I have never threatened violence, nor would I. I was deeply frustrated that my partner and Michelle Merritt had been socialising in the middle of the Covid pandemic.

“I was frightened and frustrated by his behaviour. But that fear and frustration could not and should not have been interpreted as harassment.”

The left-wing Labour Party, which suspended Webbe from its parliamentary party, meaning that she sits in the House of Commons as an independent MP, has called on her to resign from her position.

A Labour spokesman said: “The allegations in this case were extremely serious. The Labour Party rightly expects elected representatives to maintain the very highest standards at all times.

“Ms Webbe should now resign so the people of Leicester East can get the representation they deserve.”

Webbe, who replaced the also scandal-ridden Keith Vaz as the constituency’s MP, previously blamed her initial conviction on alleged institutional racism within the judicial system.

The MP characterised herself as “a black woman in a white court, facing a white system and white prosecutors,” and claimed that she was “deliberately targeted because I am vulnerable.”

“I know first-hand the sexism and racism institutions and media use to vilify black women,” she said.

The MP has a long history of making far-left statements, having previously opined that it was necessary to “abolish” the rich in order to fix climate change, despite her salary as an MP putting Webbe in the top one per cent of earners globally.

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