Labour RESIGNATIONS SURGE Right Before Elections!

Right, so More Labour resignations have hammered Keir Starmer leading up to polling day in just a couple days time in this years local elections, widely expected, despite the Tories mounting the most defences, to still be a bad day for Labour and frankly losing elected representatives as they have been doing in the lead up to said elections says it all – the people who stood to represent Labour no longer being able to stomach the direction the party has been dragged in by the Starmer regime any more than we as voters can, turned off and turning away.
So a couple more excoriating instances of quitting or indeed defecting as one instance has shown just rub salt in the wounds all the more.
But it is deserved not just because of how some have been treated by the party who may not be full throated supporters of the Tory tribute act Starmer has turned Labour into, but also because of how right wingers who have quit more because they’ve had to, criminality involved, have been let off relatively lightly for their crimes, something of a trend that has developed under Starmer and when contrasted with others who have had much stiffer sentences for far less, you wonder whether that them and us mentality amongst Labour figures and establishment structures doesn’t run too deep for comfort at the same time.
Right, so as we approach the 2025 local elections, the Labour Party finds itself embroiled in yet more resignation crises that really does hammer home the deep-seated discontent not just amongst the British public who are utterly disgusted that none of the change Starmer promised and still promises, has ever materialised, but also within the party itself, social justice and grassroots representation having gone out of the window in the name of more cuts, attacks on those on social security, pensioners and the very youngest kids in our schools amongst much more, the austerity of 14 years of the Tories has just continued under Starmer and councillors have been quitting for months, even more focus on those happening in the here and now though leading up to these local elections, it really doesn’t say much when elected representatives quit the party at a time when party support is expected and needed more than ever.
Just last Sunday saw the resignation from Newcastle City Council of jane Byrne, adding to an already significant blow to Labour's longstanding dominance on that Council.
Six months ago, six of her Labour colleagues ended 14 years of Labour control of Newcastle City Council as they resigned en masse, disgusted at the direction of the party.
Byrne’s departure now, following those earlier resignations now means that not only do Labour not have control of the Council anymore, but they now officially make up less than half of the Council itself. Her resignation now might be perhaps largely symbolic in effect, but it also very much underscores that broader narrative of disillusionment among party members and ordinary voters who feel alienated by what passes for Labour under Keir Starmer and her comments published alongside news of her resignation underscores that emphatically, Byrne having said that:
‘Under Keir Starmer it’s no longer the party of ordinary people. It serves big business & billionaire donors; demonises the poor; slashes support for the disabled; & says the answer to the housing crisis is to allow developers to destroy our environment.
As an elected Labour representative I thought I owed it to the Labour members who selected me for Monument & the residents who voted for me as the Labour candidate to stay in the party. This did not mean, however that I would ignore the party’s mistakes and failures.’
Byrne has said she will serve as an Independent until her time is up, when the entire council is up for election next year.
Loss of council control has become a trend for Labour since Starmer became PM.
A prime example of this situation happened in Broxtowe, as only back in January of this year, twenty Labour councillors, including long-serving council leader Milan Radulovic, resigned en masse, citing a departure from traditional Labour values under Starmer's leadership. Their grievances encompassed a range of issues, from cuts to winter fuel allowances and increased bus fares to the party's stance on the Gaza conflict and plans for local government restructuring. The formation of the Broxtowe Independents, later registered as the Broxtowe Alliance, signalled a collective stand against what they perceived as a centrist drift that undermined local democracy and social justice, but with so many of them having gone in one go and forming a rival bloc, they actually managed to take control of the council and now run it as a minority administration. All on Starmer.
In Lambeth, Councillor Sonia Winifred has just announced her defection to the Green Party. She had committed the cardinal sin of backing a ceasefire motion for Gaza all the way back in January of last year, resulting in her immediate suspension from the party, all because this was a position at odds with Labour's official stance at the time wehich was advocating for those ridiculous "humanitarian pauses"—let the aid in, don’t worry about Israel blowing it up right after. It was always a stupid position. Winifred ultimately quit the party in March of 2024, but has now thrown her lot in with the Greens having issued a statement reading:
‘I was a Labour councillor for ten years for Knight’s Hill ward in Lambeth and the Cabinet Member for Equality and Culture. Last year I took the decision to resign my seat because I no longer recognised the party I voted for and had believed in for so long. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make.
And then last week I joined the Green Party. Let me tell you why.
The decision to join the Green Party was not difficult. As a member of the Windrush Generation, I want my children and grandchildren to live in a community environment where they feel a sense of belonging, have a voice which is heard and listened to – where all young people can confidently plan for a future they can enjoy and afford. A greener future where ambition is welcomed not diminished.
Voting Labour won’t get you that. It will get you more of what we currently have: housing failures, mismanagement of our money, and a council that doesn’t listen to our concerns. I believe that the Lambeth Green Party offers something better.
For far too long Labour have taken our votes for granted. We will only get the change we need in this country if we have enough people fighting for it – and that’s why we need Green councillors. That pressure can only come from the Greens, another Labour councillor in Lambeth won’t make any difference.’
She’s absolutely right there and welcome to the Greens!
Yet on top of the loss of progressive councillors who are sticking to the principles of social justice and inclusion that brought them to va Labour Party that once stood for such things, are the apparently ongoing series of scandals involving other Labour officials, right wing ones, Starmer supporting ones, which have further tarnished the party's image.
Thre is for example the case of Sam Gould, the now former Redbridge councillor and aide to Wes Streeting, who this week received a suspended sentence for two counts of indecent exposure including one towards a 13-year-old girl. This echoes the case from last year of former Hackney councillor Thomas Dewey, who was convicted for possessing indecent images of children, getting a slap on the wrist, receiving just 150 hours of community service. And then there is also the case of Ivor Caplin, the Zionist and Starmer supporting former MP being investigated for engaging in sexual communication with a child, but no confirmation still at this point as to whether a prosecution is being moved ahead with, despite the fact the journalist who flagged Caplin’s online conduct up, very much being prosecuted, whistleblowing being criminalised, well that’s very Starmer isn’t it?
Labour have been losing councillors in droves, other councils, such as Wirral they have also lost control over due to resignations with similar
trends having been observed in other regions too, indicating the scale of the nationwide challenge before a party that has lost its identity and everything it once claimed to believe in, led by a man who only seems to believe from one moment to the next in what he thinks gives him some political leverage or advantage. The recurring theme is a disconnection between the party's central leadership and its local representatives, many of whom feel and quite rightly so in my view, that core Labour principles have been crushed and anyone dissenting over that getting crushed with it.
Labour deserves to have a shockingly damaging set of local elections here. With the Tories defending most seats, Labour may think they get away with it, if their numbers largely stagnate, but if they aren’t winning those seats back, someone else will be and if it is Reform UK that mop many of them up, the accusation that Starmer’s refusal to stand for anything, let alone traditional labour values is ushering in fascism will be an entirely accurate one.
If there is one former Labour councillor who really made their feelings felt and did it straight to camera at that, then Jakob Williamson of Wakefield Council did it and then some, a video that not only shows how pathetic the machinations of the Labour right are and how heavy handed with the disciplinary action they can be, but the price they pay deservedly for doing it. Get all the details of that story and watch the clip here in this video recommendation as your suggested next watch. Please do also hit like, share and subscribe if you haven’t already done so, so as to ensure you don’t miss out on all new daily content as well as supporting the channel at the same time which is very much appreciated, holding power to account for ordinary working class people and I will hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.