The remaining Brent Labour councillors are apparently as jitttery as teachers before an Ofsted inspection as they await a second visit in January from 'Tatler's Troops' (Campaign Improvement Board). Further turmoil is expected with some surprises possible.
An article on Labour Hub, explains the background. Thanks to Labour Hub for permission to reproduce the article. The original article is available here: Labour Hub.
“Nightmare for Keir Starmer as he’s hit by five
Labour defections,” headlined the Daily Express. Five councillors in the London borough of
Brent have defected from Labour to the Greens and Green Party leader Zack
Polanski says his party is ready to “bury” Labour at next year’s local
elections as he welcomed them.
Another Campaign Improvement Board disaster
Four of the five councillors were barred by Labour from
running again in 2026 after the Party instituted a ‘Campaign Improvement Board’
to replace the local Party’s usual democratic selection process. Normally,
Labour allows local branches to select its candidates, but this time the Board
interviewed the would-be candidates and then either approved or barred them
from standing. The process was rubber-stamped by Labour’s National executive
Committee, with no right of appeal.
This controversial and undemocratic process has
been used elsewhere, most notoriously in Leicester. A Campaign Improvement Board was set up there
ahead of the 2023 city council elections, and local Party members were denied
the opportunity to select their candidates. Nineteen sitting councillors were barred, including all the Hindu
councillors, and a high proportion of BAME councillors. The demoralisation
and disgust at these manoeuvres meant the Party lost 22 seats in the subsequent
election. In
the 2024 general election, Leicester East was the only Tory gain from Labour
in the entire country and Leicester South was won by an Independent.
Notwithstanding the damage done, a similar process
was imposed on Brent earlier this year. Eight sitting councillors were excluded. All of them had signed a statement
calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in October 2023. All eight were from minoritised communities.
The flimsy justifications for the top- down
process, such as alleged concerns over the previous selection process in 2022,
look absurd, given that all steps in that process were fully coordinated with
and signed off by regional Party officials. Instead, the entire exercise smacks
of a factional strike against councillors who are out of step with the increasingly
right wing politics of the Party’s national leadership.
Statements from those leaving
On Monday, four of the sitting councillors, along
with one who was not barred by Labour from re-standing, announced they were
leaving the Party to join the Greens. A statement from the group said: “Like thousands of others, we
joined the Labour Party because we believed in building a fairer society. As
councillors, we took that mission into Brent, determined to stand up for the
people who placed their trust in us…
“We have now come to the realisation that we can no
longer play that role effectively while remaining within the Labour Party. We
always knew being a party of government would put the principles and values of
the party to the test, but we have watched as on every issue this government
goes further away from the founding Labour Party principles of democracy,
social justice and equality…
“We did not enter public life to serve a party
machine – we entered it to serve our residents and we will not abandon that
duty. That is why we are today resigning our membership of the Labour Party,
and joining the Green Party, becoming the first Green Group of Councillors in
Brent…
“We invite all who share this vision to work with
us in offering Brent a real alternative. Together, we can build a Brent that
puts people before profit, public good before private greed and hope before
fear.”
The councillors, including a former council Cabinet member and the
Labour group’s former chief whip, accused Keir Starmer of a lack of ambition to
deliver change, and criticised the government for “copying far-right policy and
rhetoric on migration”, being “complicit” in the war in Gaza and for “silencing
internal debate dissent”.
In a personal statement, Iman Ahmadi Moghaddam, who
served as the Labour group’s chief whip until his defection, said: “I have
given thousands of hours of my life to this party – knocking doors, delivering
leaflets, recruiting members, volunteering at conference, facilitating
meetings, giving presentations, and taking on countless other roles. I did this
because I believed Labour, in government, could deliver meaningful change and
move us towards a fairer society rooted in socialist values.
“I stayed even when I disagreed with decisions
taken locally or nationally. I stayed while experiencing bullying, racism and
Islamophobia that many long-standing members will recognise. I stayed because I
believed that, ultimately, Labour’s success would be in the service of the
people we exist to represent.
“But it has become impossible to ignore the reality
that Labour has already left the principles that brought many of us into public
life. Remaining a Labour member no longer feels like a route to change, and
increasingly feels actively harmful.
“Under Keir Starmer, Labour has abandoned any
serious ambition to transform society. It has embraced austerity during a
cost-of-living crisis, sided with big developers and corporate interests, and
hollowed out internal democracy so that dissent is punished and conscience is
treated as a liability. The party is now dominated by a narrow, self-serving
clique more concerned with control and careerism than with delivering real
change.
“This is clearest on Gaza. What is taking place is
a genocide, with British roots and ongoing British involvement through arms
sales and the criminalisation of peaceful protest. Members and elected
representatives who have spoken out (from a position of basic human decency)
have been bullied, suspended or silenced. I include myself among them.
“At the same time, the leadership has chosen to
pander to the far right by scapegoating migrants and stoking division to mask
its own economic failures. This is not only a betrayal of Labour’s values; it
actively legitimises forces that threaten our communities and our democracy.
“There remain many members, Councillors and MPs in
Labour who are principled, well-intentioned and committed to socialist values.
Many of you will read this. This statement is not written in anger towards you,
but in sadness at what the party has become.”
Councillor Mary Mitchell said: “The Labour Party has left the values that I
stand for, and what the Party historically has stood for and achieved.
“In copying far-right policy and rhetoric on
migration, scrapping jury trials and the draconian policing of protest, we have
seen the Labour Party move to the right.
“In downgrading investment in the energy transition
and deepening fossil-fuel interests, the party has gone against manifesto
promises on tackling climate change and nature depletion.
“The appalling complicity in Israel’s genocidal
actions in Gaza and suspension from the party of those who call this out is a
stain on Labour’s historic record of free speech and human rights advocacy.”
Cllr Harbi Farah, former Cabinet Leader for Safer
Communities, said: “I am leaving the Labour Party because my values have not
changed; the party has. I still believe in a society structured around
solidarity and genuine systemic change. I am a socialist, and I seek a
political home that unambiguously champions these ideals.”
All the defecting councillors criticised the
restrictive internal culture of the Labour Party that had abandoned its former
inclusivity and openness.
Consequences
A London Labour spokesperson responded to the
defections, saying: “For the avoidance of doubt, all but one of the individuals
unveiled were not selected to stand for the Labour Party at the next election,
as they fell below the standards we require of those seeking to represent
Labour. The Labour Party operates rigorous and transparent selection processes
and maintains the highest standards for its candidates.”
Most local members would disagree. There was no
transparent selection process for the 2026 local elections – it was replaced by
a secretive, factional operation that carved out a number of excellent
councillors, many of whom enjoyed wholehearted support from their local members.
Brent councillor Shama Tatler is widely thought to
have had a hand in this undemocratic process, as she did in the Leicester
carve-up. She has now been rewarded with a peerage, as one of the 25 Labour nominees to the House of Lords last week. The list was one
of the most narrowly factional in many years – it includes Geeta Nargund, the
mother of the failed Labour candidate who ran against Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North
last year – she runs a private fertility clinic.
One of the ostensible justifications for imposing a
Campaign Improvement Board on Brent Labour Party was the significant drop in
Labour’s vote share and the problem of left-leaning voters migrating to the
Greens or independents. The consequence of the whole shoddy process is that
this trend is likely to accelerate.
Brent Labour has a massive majority in Brent, but
the Party’s national unpopularity is unprecedented. Locally, the Greens and Lib
Dems are campaigning hard and upsets are expected across the capital next year:
Brent is not the only borough experiencing defections from Labour.
The upshot is that politics for the foreseeable
future is likely to get unusually messy, with a number of credible parties
fielding progressive candidates. October’s Caerphilly byelection showed that in the right circumstances,
progressive voters can find a way to defeat both Reform and their imitators
within Labour, in that case voting for Plaid Cymru. This historic loss for
Labour, it should be remembered, was again the result of factional interference
in the local selection process, where an experienced and popular local
councillor was barred from running on spurious grounds.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the narrow faction
currently in control of the Party sees the latest resignations as a positive,
given their utter hatred of the left. If this proves to be a “nightmare”
for Keir Starmer, it’s very much a self-inflicted one.
