Sarah Teather's full personal statement on her decision not to stand in 2015

In just over a week's time, I shall reach the tenth anniversary of my election to Parliament in the Brent East by-election. I took some time off this summer and found myself reflecting a great deal on the last ten years.
It has been an enormous privilege to serve as an MP in Brent. Indeed, for me personally, so much of the last decade has been both rich and surprising. I am not sure that I would ever have expected to be elected so young, and I certainly never expected that I would have had the opportunity to serve in Government.

The greatest privilege of my work both as a constituency MP and as a Minister has been the gift of being able to share in the private joys and struggles of so many people's lives - many different from one another and very different from my own. I shall always be inspired by the profound courage and dignity I have witnessed in people I have worked with, often in the face of the most extraordinary difficulties.

Of all my parliamentary work, the campaign I remain most proud of is the campaign to get my constituent released from Guantanamo Bay. I shall always count the moment my constituent walked back in through his own front door and picked up his five year-old daughter for the first time in her life as one of the most precious of my life.

In Government, the moment I count as my proudest is the one where I listened to Nick Clegg announce our intention to end the routine detention of children in the immigration system - something I worked hard to deliver, in what, at times, felt an almost insurmountable battle with the Home Office. I feel humbled too to have been able to play my part in delivering the pupil premium to schools and to extend free early education to two year olds, and perhaps the work dearest to my heart, that of reforming the system of support for children with special educational needs.

There have been so many rewards to this work -- too many to list here. But having taken the summer to reflect on the future, I feel now that at the General Election, the right time will be right for me to step aside. I wanted to explain why I have decided not to seek re-election in 2015.

I first joined the party almost exactly twenty years ago, during fresher's week at university. It was then -- and still is now - absolutely inconceivable that I could ever join any other political party. As with most party members, there have always been a few issues where I have disagreed with party policy. But over the last three years, what has been difficult is that policy has moved in some of the issues that ground my own personal sense of political vocation - that of working with and serving the most vulnerable members of society. I have disagreed with both Government and official party lines on a whole range of welfare and immigration policies, and those differences have been getting larger rather than smaller. Disagreements with the party on other areas of policy I have always felt could be managed, but these things are just core to my own sense of calling to politics. I have tried hard to balance my own desire to truthfully fight for what I believe on these issues with the very real loyalty and friendship I feel to party colleagues, but that has created intense pressure, and at times left me very tired. I don't think it is sustainable for me personally to continue to try and do that in the long term.

I want to reassure people in Brent that I shall continue to work very hard to represent them over the next 18 months until the next General Election. My constituency office will remain open five days a week, just as it has always been. I shall be out campaigning for the local elections with my local LibDem team over the forthcoming months and will campaign to get my Liberal Democrat successor elected to Parliament in the General Election. In Parliament I shall continue with my work as Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees and will carry on making the case for a fair and humane immigration system as Parliament considers a new immigration bill in the coming months.

I hope that I have been able to support and represent the people of Brent well as their MP, but I feel rich beyond measure to have been able to do this work here. I shall always count myself indebted to those who gave me this opportunity to serve - to the thousands of constituents who voted for me and to the many Liberal Democrat supporters and members who campaigned and walked the streets for me over three elections. I hope that, over the last 10 years, I have at least gone some way in repaying the faith that so many have shown in me.

Sarah

'Sickened' Sarah Teather and Brent Lib Dems should disown the Coalition

Sarah Teather has said that is is 'appalled and sickened' by George Osborne's statement on the Philpott case and welfare benefits and today's papers report 'deep unease' amongst senior Lib Dems.

Sarah Teather MP, when in opposition and before she joined the Coalition government, had great respect among leftwingers in Brent but forfeited that by her actions and statements when in government. Since her sacking she has distanced herself from some of the Coalition policies, some would say she has rediscovered her conscience, others, more cynical, claim she is worried about losing her Brent Central seat. Whichever is the case the Coalition's policies are now so extreme and damaging that if she is really to stand up for her constituents she should be arguing for Lib Dem withdrawal from the Coalition.

So what of our local Lib Dem councillors? Where do they stand? There have been rumours that a Lib Dem councillor was preparing to defect to Labour but I have been unable to get any confirmation. Despite my political disagreements with Brent Lib Dems I do think that they include people of principle who must be sickened by their party's role in the Coalition.

I cannot deny that Paul Lorber has shown real commitment to the libraries campaign in the Save Barham Library group where he has been unstinting of his time and energy. Similarly I have respect for Ann Hunter's decision to leave the Labour Party over the war in Iraq. Recently Barry Cheese has been a passionate campaigner for keeping Central Middlesex A&E open and opposing privatisation of the NHS. Alison Hopkins has impeccable credentials a s a community campaigner.

So far Brent Lib Dems locally have been remarkably untainted by the party's role in the Coalition and they have been helped by Brent Labour's supine approach to making council cuts. The Lib Dems have been able to oppose cuts at the local level but avoid the electorate making a link with the Coalition's austerity measures. Although they have entered local government ostensibly with a view to making life better for people  Brent they have failed to challenge the Coalition's attack on local government.

 However as Teather increasingly distances herself from the government positioning herself for the fight of her political life at the General Election, chickens will start to come home to roost.

Brent Lib Dems though should go beyond electoral manoeuvrings and consider the principles and practicalities involved. Can they, as liberals, standby while major sectors of the population are stereotyped, maligned and scapegoated? Can they remain silent while families are disrupted, pulled up by their roots and made to move outside of Brent away from their family and friends. Are they going  to tolerate more children falling into poverty? Can they tolerate the poor being made to pay for the economic crisis while the rich get richer?

 Does the argument that by participating in the Coalition the Lib Dems are restraining the more extreme elements of the Conservatives hold water any more when anyone can see the extremism of current policies?

Surely Sarah Teather and her colleagues in the local party must now call on their party to leave the Coalition.

General Election campaign starts early in Brent Central

 With Sarah Teather pedalling furiously leftwards to distance herself from the Coalition the Labour Party has named Brent Central as one of its target seats with a claim that they would need only a 1.5% swing to Labour to win the seat. LINK

Dawn and friend

 Brent Central Labour Party will be starting the selection of their General Election candidate soon. As, unless the Coaliton falls apart, the next General Election is not until May 7th 2015,   we can look forward to a long-campaign of press releases and photo-calls over the next two years or so.

Former  Brent South MP Dawn Butler has made sure she is seen at high profile events in the constituency and told the Evening Standard in October that she would stand to 'exonerate herself' over the expenses row she was invoved in when  an MP. LINK

Zaffar Kalwala

There have been rumours that thrusting young councillor Zaffar Kalwala is interested. He has certainly concentrated his fire on  Sarah Teather consistently over the last two years from his Stonebridge base as well as the council chamber LINK

It is generally thought that Teather's campaign last time was to the left of Butler's and some Labour Party members are opposed to her reselection, not least because of issues over her expenses when she was an MP and even the controversy over an endorsement of her by Barack Obama on House of Commons notepaper LINK although at the time she was stoutly defended by James Powney LINK  Her current website leaves a lot to be desired.LINK  However others dismiss Kalwala as a light-weight and rumours that James Powney is interested, having proved his mettle in making cuts, have been discounted.


It  looks as if the net will be cast wider and there is always a possibility that Labour nationally will sponsor a 'big name' candidate from outside of Brent.

Meanwhile locally it is unclear whether the twin strategies of Teather's rebellion and the local Lib Dems posing as anti-cuts activists and avoiding being tainted by the Coalition cuts will keep Labour at bay. There was some recent press coverage that suggested the Lib Dem vote in local by-elections was holding up despite the Coalition and that voters were separating local from national issues in their voting intentions.

Perhaps it is time for Brent Lib Dems to put that to the test in the two council seats where their councillors no longer live in Brent.

"Don't be Seduced by the Trappings of Power" Lucas to Clegg

Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion and leader of the Green Party has issued the following statement on the discussions taking place this weekend:

These are uncharted waters for all politicians. But this only makes it more important that Nick Clegg makes his decisions based on the clear steer given to him by voters.

In this election the British people have brought in a House of Commons in which a majority of MPs are from parties which support reform. A clear majority of people in the United Kingdom voted for reform of our political system. Therefore any arrangement between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives must include genuine and comprehensive reform of the political system. A commission, inquiry, or any other delaying tactic will not be acceptable. There should be a referendum before the end of the year which includes options for a genuinely proportional system not the self-serving system of AV which is even less proportional. The people should be asked what voting system they would prefer. That is proper democracy.

The first past the post system has created a situation where people cannot vote positively for the candidate or party whose policies they most agree with. Instead, they are forced to vote in fear, working out how to vote to keep out the party furthest away from them in policy and values. This leaves us a grotesque democratic deficit and a poor basis on which to govern.

The Liberal Democrats must not be seduced by the trappings of power. The people have voted for reform: Nick Clegg must not betray them.

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