A Green council leader contributed to the controversial manifesto for a Labour mayoral candidate, the JC can reveal.
James McAsh is now Green leader of Southwark council.
He defected to Zack Polanski’s party in February this year, claiming Labour was “no longer the vehicle for social justice I once thought it was.”
But before then he was one of the contributors to the manifesto for Rowenna Davis in her failed bid to become Labour’s Mayor for Croydon.
Her platform was criticised for promoting a “sectarian agenda” and included the claim that Israel’s actions in Gaza were “genocide”.
South London councillor McAsh was first elected for Labour in 2018. Labour controlled the council from 2010-2026 and McAsh was briefly elected Labour leader last year, but the party overturned the result.
During his time in Labour, the councillor for Goose Green ward was an active member of Corbynite group Momentum and was their candidate for election to the Labour Party’s London regional board.
A primary school teacher by profession, he described himself as “an active trade unionist in the National Education Union and President of my local branch, and a life-long socialist” and “a consistent supporter of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership since day one and spent one of my teacher summer holidays on his leadership campaign.”
Rowenna Davis’ manifesto in her campaign to become Croydon mayor featured seven references to Southwark.
Labour's defeated candidate for mayor of Croydon Rowenna Davis (Image: Rowenna Davis/X).[Missing Credit]
She narrowly lost the election to become mayor of the south London borough. Her manifesto labelled Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide”, and said she objected to the council’s pension fund being “used to support arms companies that are supplying Israel at this time”.
She was criticised by shadow home secretary Chris Philp, also the MP for Croydon South and by local sources from within the Labour Party.
However, local outlet Inside Croydon claimed that references to genocide were subsequently removed from her manifesto.
When contacted, Davis denied this was because of the JC’s reporting on the matter.
Even though McAsh’s involvement in Davis’ manifesto ceased when he defected from Labour to the Greens, one Labour MP questioned why he was ever asked to contribute to it.
David Taylor told the JC: "James McAsh was an enthusiastic supporter of Jeremy Corbyn while he was in Labour, as far as I'm aware, he's never apologised for this despite the shame, EHRC intervention and electoral disaster his time in office inflicted on the party. I'm glad he's realised his place isn't in Labour but in Zack Polanski and Mothin Ali's party, where I'm sure he'll fit right in.”
When contacted for comment, James McAsh told the JC: “I was commissioned to do some policy research for Rowenna Davis, helping to inform the development of her manifesto. This arrangement ended when I left the Labour Party. My role was research – I did not write the wording of the manifesto itself.
He continued: “My research did not cover Israel's actions in Gaza. When I was in the Labour Party, I was keen to work with impressive and principled candidates like Rowenna and am proud to have done so.”
Responding to Taylor, he said: “I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting David Taylor MP, but if he is ever in Southwark I would be delighted to show him around the great work we are doing in the borough.”
Davis told the JC that McAsh contributed “some excellent research to my manifesto” which she wrote herself, “taking into account his work and the contributions of hundreds of others” and that his contributions ceased when he left Labour.
She went on: “It’s no secret that my views on Palestine are stronger than the position of the government at the time. What is important is that the manifesto always maintained my commitment to strengthening ethical investment, and looking at arms companies as part of that, including, but not limited to, those supplying the state of Israel.”
In an article reflecting on her defeat, Davis defended her campaign’s decision not to attack the Green Party, saying: “people were not voting Green because they were ideologically wedded to that particular party.
"They were voting Green because they wanted a bigger politics that was courageous about taking action on social injustice and because they wanted a ‘truer’ expression of change that the national Labour party promised but hadn’t delivered or narrated.”
However, she was criticised by Oscar Harman, Chair of Streatham & Croydon North Labour Party, who disagreed with the decision not to highlight that one of their candidates, Mark Adderley, had been suspended by the party for comments comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and blaming Mossad for perpetrating “false flag” terror attacks against Jews.
Harman wrote: “Shamefully, Labour’s campaign in Croydon remained silent on the matter, so most voters never found out. He was elected in the ward I grew up in.”
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