Naz Shah: How Labour MP suspended over anti-semitic comments forged a political career after difficult childhood

From her traumatic upbringing to her grassroots campaign work and her suspension, the MP for Bradford West had an unusual route into politics

The Bradford native is one of only nine Labour Muslim MPs (Rex)

Naz Shah’s political career has been marked by two major events. While the first saw Ms Shah’s turbulent life story go viral, the second concerned a series of controversial Facebook posts.

The MP for Bradford West has been suspended from the Labour party for antisemitic and anti-Israeli Facebook posts which were recently unearthed by a newspaper and a political blogger.

The 42-year-old's route into politics was rather unusual. Her difficult childhood spurred her to take up grassroots activism and she worked as a disabled carer and mental health charity chair before embarking on a political career.

A traumatic childhood

It was Ms Shah’s life story which first thrust her into the limelight. After sharing the story of her childhood of abuse and dire poverty in an open letter to Urban Echo while she was running to be the MP for Bradford West in March of last year, her tale quickly went viral.

Deserted by her father at the age of six while growing up in Bradford, her family became homeless after her father absconded with their neighbour’s sixteen-year-old daughter.

Describing the moment she had to leave in her letter, she writes: "I remember being thrown into the back of a taxi with black bin liners full of our belongings and packed off from the family home on Hartman Place to my granddad's home in Kirkham Road".

Her mother then embarked on a relationship with a man who sexually abused her mother. At the age of 12, she was sent to Pakistan to escape the abuse and forced into an arranged marriage. While away, Ms Shah's mother laced her abuser's food with poison, killing him, and was in turn sentenced to 20 years in prison. Ms Shah was left to care for her sisters.

Unusual schooling

Her formal schooling stopped at the age of 12 when she was sent to Pakistan and Ms Shah did not sit her GCSEs until she was a mature student. It was after this that she found work as a carer for children with disabilities.

Ms Shah has said she directed her frustration from her childhood into her work. "I didn’t realise how much anger I carried inside me towards the ‘systems’ that failed me and my family because I had turned it into this force to change people’s lives," she wrote in her open letter.

Grassroots politicisation

The politician has said it was her difficult childhood which politicised her. Ms Shah, who is one of only nine Labour Muslim MPs, worked as a carer for disabled children, a Samaritans volunteer, chaired a mental health charity and worked as an NHS commissioner. She also spent 12 years campaigning for the release of her mother with the Southall Black Sisters.

A prominent figure in the local community, she then moved from activism to politics. She stood for the Labour party in Bradford West in March 2015 after the original candidate decided to stand down and beat George Galloway with a majority of 11,420 votes.

Facebook posts

Unearthed by right-wing political blogger Guido Fawkes and leading Jewish newspaper, The Jewish Chronicle, one of the most controversial of her posts is a fluorescent green graphic of Israel photoshopped onto a map of the US. The headline reads “Solution for Israel-Palestine Conflict – Relocate Israel into United States” while her personal caption proclaims “Problem solved”.

In July of 2014, she also wrote about a newspaper poll on alleged Israeli war crimes in the Gaza conflict, saying “the Jews are rallying to the poll”. She has also landed herself in hot water for comparing Israeli policies to those of Adolf Hitler on Facebook last September.

Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday, Ms Shah told MPs she "wholeheartedly apologises" for her past comments. But Jeremy Corbyn chose to suspend her as the row over antisemitism continues to engulf the Labour party. The party confirmed the decision in a statement: “Jeremy Corbyn and Naz Shah have mutually agreed that she is administratively suspended from the Labour Party by the general secretary. Pending investigation, she is unable to take part in any party activity and the whip is removed.“