Laura Pascal was reinstated as Labour’s candidate for the Hackney Council Cazenove seat by-election today on Wednesday night after having been suspended last week for her controversial views on biological sex and gender.
While Pascal said she was making an ‘unreserved’ apology for liking tweets which cause ‘offence…and hurt’ and removed a pinned tweet from her X feed which stated that she believed in the reality of biological sex, she updated her biography to read: ‘Feminist and unapologetic for my gender critical views.’
Her re-instatement means that if she wins tonight, she will sit as a Labour councillor, rather than as an independent councillor, a marked changed from the previous position of the party. Polling is taking place until 10pm this evening
Pascal said in a statement last night: “I offer a heartfelt apology to the people of Cazenove ward, Hackney and anyone who has been offended by my social media activity, which fell well below the standard expected of someone seeking election to public office. “It was a mistake to ‘like’ some tweets that caused offence and a great deal of hurt” “Ultimately, the people of Cazenove ward will make their own judgements on Thursday, but I hope they can find some reassurance in the fact that I have reflected deeply on my past social media activity and offer this apology unreservedly.”
The Labour Women’s Declaration, who had released a statement in defence of Pascal, have posted an update on X/Twitter. LWD also told ELL: “We’re concentrating on getting Laura elected today now that her suspension is lifted the campaign restarted…It’s going to be hard to make up for 5 days of not campaigning.”
Pascal, a self-avowed feminist, ‘policy wonk,’ and Democratic socialist, had previously worked in the Department of Health as a Policy Manager for Social Markets well as the G7 Stakeholder Engagement lead at Department of Education, for over ten years before her current work as Account Manager at Principle Consulting, a specialist public affairs, policy and campaigns social enterprise organisation.
Pascal was enthusiastically endorsed last November as the candidate for the Cazenove seat, vacated by the current Hackney mayor Councillor Caroline Woodley.
