Twenty councillors have resigned from the Labour Party and gone independent. The councillors, who sit on Pendle Borough Council, Nelson Town Council and Brierfield Town Council, represent the biggest single exodus under Keir Starmer’s leadership.

One of the twenty, Councillor Mohammed Iqbal, said: “In the last few weeks there has been a culture developing from the national Labour Party that seems to want to control anything that any councillor wants to say.”

He added: “The party nationally seems to want to control who can stand where and when. We don’t think that’s right so we have taken the difficult decision to resign.”

Elsewhere he was reported as saying: “Senior figures within the party are attempting to stifle free speech and threaten dedicated councillors with removal as candidates. I, for one, cannot stand by and allow this to happen. The bullying needs to stop.”

Another, Pendle Borough leader Asjad Mahmood, said: “Over a recent period, senior party officials have attempted to impose their ideas at a local level. I was elected to serve the public, not party officials.”

A Momentum spokesperson said: “Keir Starmer’s authoritarian, anti-democratic approach to internal party affairs is costing Labour councils, councillors and members. Coming days after it was announced that another 25,000 members have quit Labour, this is further evidence that the leadership is alienating vast swathes of our Party’s core support.”

Over 70 Labour councillors had already quit the party over Starmer’s Gaza failings. Labour has now lost majorities on at least five councils as a result of resignations.

More than half of voters back an immediate suspension of arms sales to Israel. One poll put the number at over two thirds of British voters – and this was conducted before Israel’s attack on an aid convoy this week, which killed seven aid workers.

Meanwhile 130 MPs from across the House of Commons are calling for the UK to “immediately suspend export licenses for arms transfers to Israel.”

The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy has produced a model motion along the same lines.

Model motion
Suspend the provision of weapons and weapons systems to Israel
 
This CLP notes:

• On 3rd April an open letter, signed by more than 600 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges, including former Supreme Court Justices and the Court’s former President Lady Hale, was sent to the Prime Minister, reminding him of the UK government’s obligations under international law to “suspend the provision of weapons and weapons systems to the Government of Israel”;
   
• the death toll in Gaza has now risen above 33,000 Palestinians (the majority of whom are women and children), plus humanitarian aid workers from other countries (including Britain);
   
• the International Court of Justice, on 26 January 2024, found it plausible that Israel’s attacks on Gaza are in breach of the Genocide Convention;

This CLP believes the UK should suspend all exports of weapons and weapons systems to Israel.

This CLP calls on the Labour Party frontbench to demand the Tory government suspend all weapons and weapons systems exports to Israel.

Motion to be sent to Leader, Deputy Leader, Shadow Foreign Affairs, and NEC members.

Email addresses
keir.starmer.mp@parliament.uk
angela.rayner.mp@parliament.uk
david.lammy.mp@parliament.uk

Other NEC members can be emailed here.

Background information

A short version of the 3rd April UK judges’ and lawyers’ open letter to the Prime Minister is here.
The full letter is here.  Lord Ricketts, a former UK national security adviser, has said  arms sales should be suspended here.  

Image: Ceasefire demonstration, London, February 3rd, c/o :Labour Hub.