Following this morning’s news that Paulette Hamilton, Labour’s candidate in the Birmingham Erdington by-election, publicly weighed up the benefits of a violent revolution, two Tory MPs have now called for Starmer to immediately suspend the whip should she win tomorrow. She’s still the clear frontrunner, so that’s incredibly likely…

Both Tom Hunt and Gary Sambrook have now issued statements demanding Hamilton’s suspension, with Hunt issuing a Point of Order in the Commons this afternoon saying it’s “crucial” Starmer suspends her, and Sambrook also pushing for “immediate” action against her. So far, all Labour have said is “she has a point”.

Inevitably other Tory MPs, including Nadine Dorries, have also publicly condemned Hamilton in the last few hours – although so far only Sambrook and Hunt have called for Starmer’s personal involvement. Immediately removing the whip before she’s even given her maiden speech would surely be some kind of record…

Read Sambrook’s letter in full below…

“Dear Sir Keir,

As Leader of the Opposition, you have always maintained that our way of life is ‘a way of life that prizes tolerance, democracy and respect’. In light of those comments, I would like to ask you whether the following quote about an uprising from Paulette Hamilton, Labour’s by-election candidate in Birmingham Erdington, reflects those democratic values.

‘So, you talk about the bullets or the votes. I’m not sure. Although I believe in the votes, and I believe in our right to use that vote or destroy that vote. I’m not sure that we will get what we really deserve in this country using the votes. But I don’t know if we are a strong enough group to get what we want to get if we have an uprising. I think we will be quashed in such a way we could lose a generation of our young people. So, I am very torn. I went away and watched the Malcolm X film to make sure and listen to a lot of what he said, to make sure I was ready’
Other comments included a claim that ‘ethnic minority communities’ used postal votes to `lockdown’ votes and suggested they abused the postal voting system.

Hamilton said:
‘We can do a postal vote. There are other ways to vote rather than going out on the day. And the postal vote is the way some of our ethnic minority communities actually lock it down. Because what they do is whole families just have the postal vote, whoever comes in, hold this one tick postal vote goes back. And in one household, you can have eight votes, and it’s on lockdown our community’

Hamilton has also admitted to totally ignoring those who do not vote, saying: ‘There was a quote made about I have the rights and whether I vote or not, I still pay my taxes, rubbish. If you don’t engage, you don’t have any rights. I’m up for election this year. And we do a thing called voter ID. So we know every house in the city that people are in there that have voted, I will knock on the door for those who have put a vote down or set their intention, but those who aren’t registered to vote or have no voting intention, I will go by. How are their views going to get into the system if the people that are there are ignoring them totally’

The recently revealed clips of Hamilton show her spreading divisive conspiracy theories about ethnic minority communities in Birmingham — suggested that Muslim MPs and councillors don’t represent their communities, that Muslims are infiltrating our schools and political system as `trojan horses’ and calling Sikh’s ‘other people’ in comments which she herself admitted were ‘politically incorrect’. Hamilton also revealed how she had cynically tried to ‘infiltrate’ the Sikh community to gain votes.

In light of these recently revealed comments from Paulette Hamilton, which are entirely out of step with the Labour Party’s principles and mainstream politics, I am calling on you to immediately suspend Paulette Hamilton from the Labour Party before the by-election, disavow any support for her or her campaign, and commit to removing the whip from her if she is elected.”