Cathall ward councillor Jonathan O’Dea will not be allowed to stand as an incumbent in next year’s local elections after the Labour Party threw out his appeal, reports Marco Marcelline

Inset: Councillor Jonathan O’Dea, Credit: Waltham Forest Labour

Labour councillor Jonathan O’Dea’s appeal against his deselection as a candidate for the 2026 local elections has been thrown out.

Cllr O’Dea, who has represented Cathall ward since 2018, was not selected to stand in next year’s elections due to Labour Party concerns about his campaigning record and an Israel-Palestine ceasefire motion he submitted before it became wider party policy.

The councillor challenged this decision, refuting the selection panel and local party chief whip Steve Terry’s claims that he had not attended campaigning sessions as required between October 2024 and February this year.

But a letter from Labour’s regional executive committee, seen by the Echo, says that his appeal is rejected because he had “not satisfactorily demonstrated that the party had acted irrationally” in not selecting him to stand again.

The Echo has seen a data rectification request sent by the Cathall councillor in May, asking that Labour correct Cllr Terry’s “factually inaccurate” claims about his campaigning record.

The correction request prompted the party to clarify that the chief whip meant Cllr O’Dea had not attended any “whipped” campaign sessions, while accepting he had attended nine “non-whipped” group canvassing sessions between 17th October 2024 and 14th February this year.

Labour councillors are contractually obligated to attend campaigning sessions as directed by their borough organiser, however the Echo understands they are not regularly described as “whipped”.

In further documents related to the selection process, candidate assessment panellists “felt [Cllr O’Dea] had not fully appreciated the role of the whip and the need for discipline by submitting an Israel-Palestine ceasefire motion at a febrile time”.

Additionally the panel stated they “felt [Cllr O’Dea] did not give enough evidence, or show remorse, for why he submitted the motion… despite knowing party rules”.

Cllr O’Dea’s ceasefire motion was submitted to the local Labour party chair Sally Littlejohn on 2nd November 2023.

The motion read: “Waltham Forest Labour Group call upon the Labour Party to put to parliament that there is an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Palestine.

“The ceasefire should be implemented by all groups and individuals that are involved in armed combat. This ceasefire should be brought about in order preserve the lives of all Israeli and Palestinian citizens.”

Cllr O’Dea withdrew the motion on 6th November 2023, three days before Labour councillors backed a different motion calling for a ceasefire submitted by the party leader Grace Williams.

In his appeal, Cllr O’Dea challenged Cllr Terry’s assertion that he had made the motion “in spite of party guidance against such motions on the topic”.

A memo sent to Labour councillors by general secretary David Evans in October 2023 did not explicitly ban motions on Israel-Palestine, and instead warned against “motions at meetings that are prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the Labour Party and risk infringing the Labour Party’s Codes of Conduct on Antisemitism and Islamophobia”.

In its response to Cllr O’Dea’s data rectification request, the Labour regional executive committee accepted that he had not broken party rules, but insisted that information relating to the motion in the chief whip’s report was “not incorrect or misleading as to any matter of fact”.

Cllr O’Dea was not available for comment.

The local Labour group said it would not comment on the appeal decision.

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