A former Big Brother contestant who heckled Sir Keir Starmer during his conference speech on Wednesday said she expects to be thrown out of the Labour Party.
Carole Vincent, 67, a carer from the Leyton and Wanstead constituency in east London, was among a group of party members who taunted the Labour leader and waved red cards at him as he closed the party conference in Brighton.
Ms Vincent told journalists after the speech that it was an “absolute disgrace” the Labour Party was not supporting a £15 an hour minimum wage and she expected Sir Keir to face a leadership challenge at “some point.”
She added: “He had ignored — and this conference has ignored — people that have been standing up and asking him to guarantee the 15 per cent rise for the NHS, a £15 minimum wage.”
Ms Vincent, a contributor to Socialist Worker who was previously stood for election for George Galloway’s Respect party, now fears she will be kicked out of Labour after goading the leader.
She told The Times: “I will get expelled for this but I’m a principled, decent, hardworking person. It is an absolute disgrace that Keir Starmer [was] not supporting a £15 minimum wage . . . it’s disgusting. He doesn’t represent the roots of a Labour movement and party.
“They don’t represent the red flag, that’s for sure. The red flag was built out of the blood, toil and sweat of the trade union movement, and that’s not what we’re seeing here.”
The 67-year-old heckler was previously a contestant on Big Brother 8 in 2007, where she came in fifth place.
Ms Vincent was also previously accused of taking a truncheon from a police officer during an anti-war rally that was organised after a state visit to London by former US President George Bush in 2008.
She was cleared after an intervention from left-wing politician Tony Benn who acted as a witness in her case.
Asked about the hecklers on BBC Radio 4’s PM programme, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for child poverty Wes Streeting said: “If you are going to do the work of the Conservative party for them, out you go, you won’t be missed.”
