Tanushka Marah – Hove candidate from Streatham suffers graffiti attack on eve of election

Police were called this morning to the election office of independent candidate for Hove and Portslade, Tanushka Marah, who hails from Streatham.

As campaign coordinator Libby Barnes arrived for the penultimate day’s campaigning, she was unable to enter the building due to superglue inserted into the front door lock of the Marah’s office.

However her attention was quickly drawn to the graffiti on the shop hoarding above the office, which had been spray painted to omit the letters T and the HKA transforming the words VOTE TANUSHKA to appear as VOTE ANUS.

Needless to say, Barnes was distraught, angry and immediately called the police and locksmiths and asked campaign volunteers to bring paint, tape and ladders to make repairs to the obscene amendment.

While waiting on police to arrive, Barnes marched across Church Rd to the nearby office of Labour’s Peter Kyle to ask for the popular local MP to make a statement condemning the damage.

She had a heated confrontation with Kyle spokesperson Chris Henry who insisted that “it was awful, just like what happened to Peter’s office, any political office is an important space for the work that goes on”.

After being repeatedly pushed by Barnes, he agreed to ask Peter Kyle to make a statement condemning the vandalism.

Barnes later told police, that as a predominantly women’s campaign, she and the other volunteers felt very threatened by “repeated intimidation from Zionists”, before visiting nearby shops with police to request their CCTV footage.

Last week a group of men in black paramilitary uniforms proclaiming themselves Zionists, delayed a fundraising event for Marah’s campaign where actor and writer Maxine Peake was due to attend.

The event in Circle Studios, Hove eventually went ahead after police were asked to attend for the protection of attendees, performers and campaign staff.

Background to Marah

Tanushka Marah is a British Palestinian woman from Streatham in South London, who is currently standing as an independent candidate in the constituency of Hove and Portslade.

Although she has lived in the Brighton Pavilion constituency for a number of years and is well know for her work as a theatre director in Brighton People’s Theatre, her family still live in Streatham and she maintains strong ties in the community here.

She has shared platforms nationally with other independent, including Jeremy Corbyn, Andrew Feinstein and Leanne Mohamad, while notable figures such as Ken Loach, Alexei Sale and Owen Jones have campaigned for her.