Twenty Labour Councillors in Nottinghamshire have quit the Party in protest at its direction under Keir Starmer, accusing it of betraying the working class people who elected them.

The Councillors  all sit on Broxtowe Borough Council. They say that Labour has “abandoned traditional Labour values” and criticise policies such as cutting the winter fuel allowance, retaining the two-child benefit cap, the increase in bus fares, the “betrayal of Waspi women pensioners” and the leadership’s “tepid response to the genocide in Gaza.”

Council leader Milan Radulovic, a Labour member for 42 years, is among those leaving. The Councillors plan to set up a new independent party and run the council as a minority administration.

Ten of them were apparently  blocked from standing for Labour in the selections for Nottinghamshire County Council after they had criticised some of the leadership’s policies.

“I cannot support and will not support another centrist government intent on destroying local democracy and dictating national policy from a high pedestal,” said Milan Radulovic, who is also opposed to proposals to merge different tiers of local government. Radulovic has led Broxtowe Borough Council on a Labour platform for over 20 years across several administrations.

Another councillor, Ross Bofinger, posted a picture of a cut-up Labour Party membership card on social media alongside a statement that read: “I’m leaving the Labour party because it has grown increasingly distant from ordinary people.” He also criticised Broxtowe’s MP, Juliet Campbell, whose imposition as Labour candidate in 2023 led to the resignation of the local Party’s entire executive committee, as “almost invisible.”

The group claim that 100 local Labour members have also left the Party and say they will be standing candidates in the May 2025 local elections.

Broxtowe Labour Councillors have been critical on the Starmer leadership in the past. Their radicalism and committed community organising approach helped them gain control of the council in 2023.

In October 2023, within days of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza beginning, they called for an immediate ceasefire and expressed their disappointment at the Party leadership’s “failure to reject Israel’s collective punishment of civilians in Gaza.”

Earlier that year, local activists accused Party officials of imposing an outside candidate to stand in the upcoming general election. Broxtowe’s selection committee announced their resignation after Greg Marshall, Broxtowe Borough Council representative for Beeston West, was kept off the shortlist. “The constituency party has been sidelined throughout the entire process, and our choice of candidates has clearly been rigged to suit the leadership’s preference,” a statement said.

Marshall had been Labour’s candidate in the 2017 general election, when he came within 864 votes of beating the incumbent Tory Anna Soubry, and again in 2019. In the selection process for the 2024 general election, he had the backing of eight trade unions.

Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP said at the time: “There is no person better equipped to stand for Labour in Broxtowe than Greg Marshall, a principled socialist and trade unionist working for years at the heart of his community. Many will consider that this decision debases the selection process.”

Today’s resignations piles the pressure on Keir Starmer, whose ratings are tumbling in the polls. Former Labour NEC member Mish Rahman expressed his solidarity, calling the Councillors “some of the best public representatives in the country.”

Labour’s former Director of Policy under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Andrew Fisher noted: “A party that crushes dissent will eventually crush itself.”

A Momentum statement said: “The decision of 20 Labour Councillors in Broxtowe to leave the Labour Party is a symptom of the Labour Right’s authoritarian crackdown on local democracy and will have damaging consequences for the Party at the ballot box.”

Image:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nottinghamshire_UK_locator_map_2010.svg Source: Ordnance Survey OpenData: County boundaries and GB coastline National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Author: Nilfanion, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.