Dear readers — when leaked audio of a Birmingham councillor talking to an ex-convict about a plot to remove a number of her colleagues from the council appeared online earlier in the week, several people swiftly reached out to us to make sure we were aware of the clip. “Presume you’ve already heard this?” one source asked The Dispatch. “This is the nasty side of politics,” wrote another. It wasn’t a good look at all for the councillor in the audio — apparently engaging in political scheming with a man who was previously sentenced to 12 months in prison for crimes related to an armed robbery in Newark. However, there may be more to the story. In fact, the councillor in the audio even believes she may now be the victim of a sabotage plot due to her attempts to expose a campaign of misogyny by her council colleagues. That’s today’s story.
On Tuesday morning, as politicians gathered at Birmingham’s Council House for perhaps the most important meeting of the year, something was stirring online. Labour was preparing to vote through the worst local cuts ever seen in this country, but WhatsApp groups on phones across the chamber were alight with messages about something else altogether.
A mysterious set of recordings had appeared on X, posted by a user with the name SandySmith52039. The six audio files were snippets of conversations involving a man and a woman engaged in the kind of political scheming that typically goes on behind closed doors.
In one clip, the pair appear to be discussing a plot to reshuffle the Labour cabinet in 2023. They consider the likelihood of Waseem Zaffar, a Labour councillor in Lozells, becoming the council leader and theorise who will be in his cabinet. Naming Muslims Labour councillors, the woman says “Mariam will be in there, Shabrana will be in there, Saima will be in there. All hijabis. He'll probably bring Rashad in there. All Muslims. How is that going to look?” In another, she says “What we need to concentrate on now is the downfall of Saima and Nicky.”
The woman’s voice, we can confirm, is the Lib Dem Councillor for Small Heath, Shabina Bano.
What’s unusual about the recordings, and what the poster is keen to highlight, is that the man Bano is speaking to isn’t a fellow councillor but an ex-convict. “Leaked audio of libdem councillor plotting with violent and dangerous criminal to target and remove councillors,” they wrote in the post. The man’s voice, claimed SandySmith52039, belongs to Abdul Khalique, who was convicted in 2017 of a crime relating to an armed robbery by a gang in Newark. For this, Khalique was handed 12 months in prison. In short, he’s not the kind of person a politician wants to be seen colluding with.
Who is SandySmith52039 and why did they choose this moment to publish the recordings? It’s impossible to say for sure but Bano is convinced it’s an act of sabotage — and she isn’t short of enemies (to be clear though, there is no evidence as yet to suggest who actually leaked the audio). She defected from Labour last year claiming to be the victim of a two year campaign of bullying and misogyny against several male colleagues, including her ward mate, Councillor Saqib Khan. Some of her allegations — such as phone calls being placed to her husband to baselessly allege she had had affairs with “white men”' were quite shocking. (To clarify, this allegation was not made directly about Khan).
Her complaints led to four hearings being scheduled. Three have already taken place. In two, the council has found no breach of its Code of Conduct. At Khan’s hearing last week, however, a panel found that in 2022 he exhibited a “pattern of behaviour which failed to treat Councillor Bano with respect.” The hearing only considered complaints about the time when Bano and Khan were sitting councillors, not during their campaigns.
The full findings are yet to be published. When we contacted Khan for his side of the story, a Labour spokesperson told us that he was expecting to receive official notice of his sanctions over the next few days. Until then, we don’t know which of her allegations are relevant to the decision. However, the hearing’s outcome — which for many was unexpected — has brought a long-whispered-about issue to the foreground. Although Bano is now a Lib Dem, she has maintained since 2023 that her old party contains “a powerful cabal” of Asian men who wield outsized influence. Khan, she claims, is one of them.
Commenting on the result of the committee hearing, Khan told The Dispatch: “Whilst I accept that the standards committee made a finding against me, and regret that such a process was necessary, the findings were clear that there was no basis to uphold the vast majority of the complaints made. The content of the recordings is deeply concerning, and I think it is important that the council looks into this.”
