It has been a difficult 24 hours for Labour’s Tara-Mary Lyons, the borough councillor for Hatfield Villages.
The Labour Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) said today: “The NEC has not endorsed Tara-Mary Lyons as the Labour Party candidate for Welwyn Hatfield.”
The NEC did not offer a statement about why the decision had been made.
Cllr Lyons was announced as Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Welwyn Hatfield on April 15.
The news comes just after yesterday’s town council elections, in which Cllr Lyons - who is already borough councillor for Hatfield Villages - stood as the Labour candidate for the Villages ward of Hatfield Town Council.
In a tightly-run race, Cllr Lyons was pipped to the post by just 36 votes by Conservative candidate Kim Langley.
Referring to the NEC decision, Cllr Lyons said that the local party had vetted her.
The process involves the local party putting a candidate forward and the NEC endorsing it.
“There was a mistake on my part.
“This is entirely down to a mistake that I made.”
Cllr Lyons was under the spotlight late April over her use of Twitter and apologised for some of her tweets.
READ MORE: Labour’s sweary Tara-Mary apologises for tweets [WARNING: LANGUAGE]
She said she didn’t regret apologising for the tweets adding that they were historical tweets and that “anyone who knows me knows I would never ever offend anyone”.
She congratulated Labour’s Lucy Musk, who succeeded in a close race against the Tories in Haldens ward last night.
“The local party are amazing, so are the NEC,” Cllr Lyons said, adding that she considers people in the local party to be friends. “They’re a fantastic bunch.
“I love Labour, I always have and I always will.
“I love their work, their manifesto and their promise of hope.”
The councillor said she plans to continue her political work, reiterating her interest in the area.
“There’s such a lot going on there, there’s a lot of work to do.
“There are so many local issues that need to be fixed.
“I plan to keep on and keep up the good fight for the many.”
The Welwyn Hatfield Times has approached Welwyn Hatfield Labour leader Kieran Thorpe for comment.
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