Cllr Abdirazak Abdi, elected as a Labour councillor but latterly sitting as an independent after action by the Brent Labour Group, has been removed from office Brent councillors have been informed this afternoon.
Cllr Abdi's integrity and his courage in standing up for what he thought was right earned him respect from many but the emnity of Council Leader Muhammed Butt. He follows in the footsteps of former Kilburn councillor John Duffy who was also a thorn in the side of Butt & Co who do not value independence of thought or deed.
The statement sent to councillors said:
I’m writing to inform you that with effect from Tuesday 22 March 2022, Councillor Abdirazak Abdi has ceased to hold office as an elected member of the London Borough of Brent.
Under Section 85 (1) of the Local Government Act 1972 all Members of the Local Authority are required to attend at least one meeting of that Authority within a six month consecutive period to avoid being disqualified from continuing to serve as a councillor. Unfortunately, as a result of Councillor Abdi not being able to meet this requirement he has now ceased to hold office. The election to fill this vacancy will be undertaken as part of the local borough elections on Thursday 5 May 2022 and the notice of the vacancy has been posted today and can be found here: Election notices | Brent Council
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15 comments:
Can’t have that much integrity if he went to work so infrequently he was fired.
A fair point but he was excluded from committees as a punishment and Full Council is pretty much rehearsed with no real debate but much grandstanding.
But he could have attended full Council anyway to see what was going on, and so that he could retain his seat to fight on case work and campaigns.
Butt's vindictiveness and bullying knows no bounds
Martin, granted . But the criteria and resulting duty to attend Council meetings to represent constituents must be studiously discharged, whatever the "adversity"...in the same way the Labour Whip appears to have been broken, so has his duty under the law....consistent disregard for membership of organs of civil society, which must have consequences
Beside the - not unimportant - point that Abdi failed to fulfil the minimum legal requirement to be a councillor - turn up to one council meeting in 6 months, it is unfortunately the case that he has not responded on case work since resigning the Labour whip. Very disappointing for those of us who agreed with his objection to some of the planning decisions made by Brent.
The losers of all this Labour infighting are the electors in his ward. While he may have been subject to vitriol from the Labour Leadership the role of a Councillor is to represent and work for their constituents and that is what he should have concentrated on until the end.
The whole disgraceful saga raises issues of bullying, division and selection process within the Labour Party. How can we be sure about the quality and dedication of the 57 Labour candidates being put up this time?
While the Labour National Leadership is conducting a witchhunt against long standing socialists perhaps they should instead devote some time investigating the goings on within Brent Labour Party & Council group instead.
They don't need to investigate, they can see Butt and his family, plus a few other families and hangers on aligned to Butt's rule of the Distopia that is now Brent. Meanwhile, the various Labour candidates that were removed by Butt are being told that it was someone else, and they believe it!!!!!
There have been some decent Labour councillors in Brent, but a number of them are not standing again.
One of them wrote that their dissatisfaction was with the style of Leadershit. I don't think that was a typo!!!
I wonder who that "Anon 21:06 - One of them wrote that their dissatisfaction was with the style of Leadershit. I don't think that was a typo!!!" was?
Councillor Abdi I know when new to his job found it very difficult the way half of Brent Kilburn's population was already since 2010 held hostage inside the Growth Area red-lined zone surplus brownfield land of "let colonial re-development decide."
What is a traditional Brent councillor's role to be regarding such a Growth Area of more vehicle roads, more towers, population flood and more underground car parks- zoned, global fixed and re-developer pre-decided as a hyper extractive Magic Money Tree absolutist social experiment?
Better we have committed councillors who actually care and represent their residents' views like Abdirazak Abdi, rather than the raving developer champions like Nutt, Tatler, McLennen, Southwood (who should cross the floor and join the Tory Group) and a few other less obvious supporters of the various developers embedded in Brent who are also closet Tories. It is quite obvious that these councillors through their cabinet positions are changing the rules (as they did in Alperton and Kilburn to name just two areas) to suit their developer friends' needs as and when they are asked for.
'Principled', but could not find a way to attend a single Council meeting in 6 months.
Lack of support for the Labour Leader perhaps, along with several 1,000 previous supporters who will not longer support corrupt Butt
What are local councillors roles if they are representing voters trapped inside Brent's 8 Growth Areas of absolutist "let developers decide"/ housing as the only infrastructure (often built on housing support infrastructure become 'sites' instead)?
One councillor said to me the GA had made them "given up".
Surely it's democratic deficit forever inside these Brent 8 developer colony only zones by government design?
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