Suspended Labour candidate says he has been 'hung out to dry'

Labour candidate Andy Brown has been suspended by Labour but his name will still appear on the ballot paper

A candidate suspended by Labour after reports he shared "pro-Russian" material online has denied doing so - and claimed he has been "hung out to dry".

The party took action against Andy Brown over a 2018 article from the Russian state media outlet RT which questioned Russian involvement in the Salisbury nerve agent poisonings.

A separate shared post from the same time appeared to downplay allegations of antisemitism within Labour.

Mr Brown, who is standing in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, insisted he would never endorse such views, and suggested his Facebook account may have been hacked.

Labour took quick action against Mr Brown, suspending him pending an investigation, after reports about the posts appeared in the Press and Journal newspaper.

The party's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said Labour would not tolerate people who did not reflect its values.

"We’re not going to stand by people who are sharing pro-Russian sentiment – that is not Labour values and that’s why he was quickly suspended from the Labour Party."

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said the party had shown leadership by acting quickly to suspend Mr Brown.

Dawn Sturgess, 44, died after being exposed to the nerve agent Novichok, which had been left in a discarded perfume bottle in Amesbury, Wiltshire, in March 2018.

UK authorities believe the intended target was former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.

The shared RT article claimed the "toxin" used in the poisonings was "never produced in Russia, but was in service in the US, UK, and other NATO states".

Personnel in protective coveralls in Salisbury in 2018

A quote was also shared on Mr Brown's Facebook account , also in mid-April 2018, from a Jewish historian about allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party.

It said "the real issue... is that right-wing Jews in the Labour party and outside the party object to the fact that Jeremy Corbyn is a consistent supporter of Palestinian rights".

But Mr Brown, who described himself as a "centrist" Labour supporter who was not a backer of Mr Corbyn, said he did not recognise the material and denied sharing it online.

He told BBC News: "I didn’t share those. Where they’ve been shared from or how has someone accessed my account and shared them, it may have been corrupted at some point – but honestly, I did not share those."

Pressed on whether he could have forgotten sharing them, he insisted: "No, I definitely didn’t make that. I would never like these at all. It’s not the sort of comments I would comment on."

'Shocking treatment'

Mr Brown said he had not been contacted by the party to ask for an explanation prior to his suspension as a candidate.

"Nobody has checked this, it is quite shocking that I’ve been treated this way. I’ve been hung out to dry basically," he said.

It is too late to remove his name from the ballot paper but his suspension means he will receive no further support from Labour and will be an independent candidate.

The other candidates are Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, the SNP's Seamus Logan, Ian Bailey for the Liberal Democrats and Jo Hart for Reform UK.

During the SNP manifesto launch on Wednesday, party leader John Swinney was asked about a report that an SNP election candidate had once questioned whether President Assad was responsible for chemical attacks in Syria.

Mr Swinney said there was no doubt "the Assad regime undertook chemical attacks in Syria", but he would have to examine the candidate's comments before he could say if any action was required.

The election candidate ditched by the Labour Party for pro-Russian social media posts has stood for the party several times.

Andy Brown, described as a “local legend” by Labour supporters in Aberdeenshire, was a candidate in the Scottish Parliament election in 2021, and the council elections in 2022, as well as a council by-election.

Each of those contests took place after he made the social media posts which have now landed him in bother.

Despite being suspended pending an investigation Mr Brown’s name will still appear next to a Scottish Labour logo on the ballot paper.

But the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seat was never going to be a Labour victory.

This is very much a two-horse race between the Conservatives and the SNP. This is a new constituency following boundary changes, but calculations based on previous results in the area suggest Labour polled just over 4%.