Labour female and BAME MPs call for meeting with Jeremy Corbyn over deselection

Labour BAME and female MPs have called for a meeting with Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday over concerns about the deselection of BAME candidates.

They are also concerned by a number of other selection battles that have turned nasty, involving BAME candidates. A big row is afoot.

A Labour source has said: "Momentum/leadership have totally destroyed the selection rules and can't even protect their own people."

Roger Godsiff is the only white man to be triggered. Credit: PA

Digging further, Kate Osamor's local party is a complex mix of rivalries, with ethnic divisions.

A Labour source suggests that with the trigger threshold set at a third of branches, it's easy for one faction to bring a candidate down and "the main victims are BAME and female candidates".

The sample size is small, but there is an argument that a pattern is emerging.

Margaret Hodge, Diana Johnson, Kate Osamor and Emma Lewell-Buck are all triggered, all female or BAME with Virendra Sharma also facing one in his constituency.

Roger Godsiff is the only white man to be triggered.

And I'm also hearing that the next candidate to be triggered could be Rupa Huq.

Again, a BAME woman.

It's too soon to draw empirical conclusions, but if the aim of re-selections is to increase diversity of candidates (as Momentum says), then so far it may not be having the desired effect.

Labour MPs including Lucy Powell and Jess Phillips have reacted to the comments that the Labour Party is targeting women, saying they saw this coming more than a year ago.

Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, said on social media: "The women's PLP have asked to meet with party bosses over the issue which appears to be targeting women.

"We warned this would happen, I'm not glad we were right," she added.

ITV News has contacted the Labour Party for a comment.