A university student who was reported to the police for posing as a fake socialist MP as part of an art project has been kicked out of the Labour Party.
Goldsmiths University student Ellen Kenyon Peers sparked uproar on Tuesday after it was revealed she had passed herself off as the newly elected MP for Deptford and Greenwich - a constituency which is set to be created in the next election.
The 24-year-old - who called herself Ana Key - was accused of running a fake Twitter account where she offered help to constituents, using House of Commons headed paper for correspondence and creating a website to list fake constituency surgeries.
Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft, who represents an area close to Peers’ fake constituency, reported the student to police, slamming her actions as “extremely irresponsible”.
Foxcroft told the Telegraph: “As an MP I deal with thousands of constituents with emergency cases, some of them about very serious issues on housing or immigration.
“If they were to attend the advice surgeries that have been advertised on the website, the details of which look to be copied from my own website, it would be breach of data protection and could cause harm and delay to constituent’s cases - many of which are extremely sensitive and rely on urgent action.”
Peers defended herself by saying she had “no intention of deceiving people”, claiming the stunt was a conceptual art project to find out what it would be like to have a socialist MP.
In 2014, the student stood for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in the Blackwall and Cubitt Town ward election, winning 11 votes.
But in 2015 Peers went on to join the Labour Party, signing up after Jeremy Corbyn became leader. She now claims she has been expelled from the party.
She told the Evening Standard she has received a “standard legal letter” from Labour HQ cancelling her membership on the grounds she had written for the Socialist Party and stood for election on a “hard-Left ticket”.
Peers, who says she comes from a “traditional Labour-supporting family”, said: “My mum and dad were quite upset that I have been expelled from Labour.”
However, she claims that she has not been contacted by the police or Parliament over her stunt.
A Labour spokesperson confirmed that Peers is no longer a member of the party.