Christine Shawcroft
 Christine Shawcroft      (politician) | ||||||||||
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Christine Shawcroft is an active member of the Labour Party having held office at branch, CLP and regional level for over twenty years.
She has been an elected constituency representative on Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) since 2002, and also ex-officio on the National Policy Forum. She is supported by the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance (CLGA) and is a senior member of the Momentum group.[1]
On 11 July 2016, Christine Shawcroft was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme and stated that the incumbent Leader of the Labour Party is not required to get nominations from Parliamentary Labour Party colleagues in order to stand in a leadership election. This was confirmed by the NEC on 12 July 2016 when it ruled that challengers, but not the incumbent (Jeremy Corbyn), will require nominations from at least 20% of the PLP.[2]
Tea with IS
In February 2016, at a meeting of London Labour Left, Christine Shawcroft reportedly suggested that instead of bombing Syria Britain would be safer if its defence policy was to have “cups of tea” with Islamic State terrorists. Responding to criticism, Shawcroft said:
- "Clearly these are jocular comments. They weren't taken at face value at the meeting and shouldn't be read at face value now. However, behind the joke there is a serious point: bombing countries doesn't seem to be improving our national security; we should be looking at other strategies to improve our national security and resolve conflicts."[3]
Labour Conference 2009
At the 2009 Party Conference in Brighton, Christine Shawcroft presented Labour's policy document on housing, saying:
- "In the past year, Alistair Darling announced £100 million for new-build council housing. In June, Gordon Brown announced a £1.5 billion package to deliver an additional 20,000 affordable, energy-efficient homes over the next two years. At least 11,000 of those are going to be social rented homes."[4]
Prospective Parliamentary Candidate
Christine Shawcroft was Labour's PPC for Meriden in the West Midlands at the 2001 General Election.[5]
