“Two Greenwich Labour councillors – including a former cabinet member – have quit the party after being told they cannot stand in the council elections next May,” reports The Greenwich Wire. “They are among four sitting councillors that have been barred by Labour officials, while more than a third of women councillors have decided to not to stand again.”

Ann-Marie Cousins, a former cabinet member and the current councillor for Abbey Wood, and Lakshan Saldin, who represents Charlton Hornfair, will sit as independents until the election next May.

Ann-Marie Cousins said in a statement: “I always have and always will put the Community First. This is where my heart is. However, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, Labour councillors who really want to serve their diverse communities and show compassion on impact of international issues, such as what is happening to Palestinians in the Israel-Gaza war and the exploitation of minerals and people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are silenced by the Labour Party’s machinery and risk disciplinary action if they wish to speak out for their residents.

“That is why I am resigning from the Labour Party and will continue to serve my Abbey Wood constituents as an independent councillor.”

She added that “the current Labour Party is not honouring its historical legacy promises and is simply taking our votes for granted, while at the same time disrespecting our community values, voices and visions.”

Lakshan Saldin said: “My decision to resign from the Labour group comes after a panel appointed by the London-wide Labour Party decided I was not enough in line with the national party leadership to stand as its candidate in next year’s council elections. It follows logically that I should no longer sit as a Labour councillor.

“I have always sought to put residents first and, now I am free from the restrictions of being part of the council’s Labour Group, will be able to fight even harder for your needs and concerns without my hands being tied by the factional priorities of the Party’s national and local leadership.”

One local resident, a member of Saldin’s ward, wondered on social media:  “Does Labour have a plan for getting out the vote at the next election? This guy is my local councillor, very hardworking and always out delivering leaflets and knocking on doors. He seems to have been deselected for objecting to Starmer’s “country of strangers” speech. Who will be left to campaign?”

In June, Labour suffered a humiliating defeat in a by-election in Shooters Hill ward. Green candidate Tamasin Rhymes took the seat following the resignation of Ivis Williams, who was threatened with suspension by Labour after she had spoken up for residents angry about the planned sale of local land.

Party officials parachuted in Jummy Dawado as the candidate, who lost after a disastrous campaign in which she boycotted local hustings and criticised residents who were fighting against the land sales.

Now the ward has been denied the right to choose its candidates for next May’s elections. Labour’s Regional Executive Committee will impose its choices, leaving local ward members disenfranchised and demotivated in what was once a rock-solid Labour ward, but has now given the Greens a foothold.

The two ex-Labour councillors, Cousins and Saldin, will sit as independents in the council chamber alongside Majella Anning, who quit the Party after the Government’s benefit reforms passed the House of Commons earlier this year. In a statement in March, she said: “I cannot support a party which accepts gifts from millionaires only to enact policies that take away vital funds from the disabled.”

She added: “How can I defend the actions of the Labour government when I know exactly what misery these welfare cuts are going to mean for them? I refuse to support a party that balances the books on the backs of the poor.”

Greenwich Council’s leadership appears to have taken an authoritarian turn. One local activist told Labour Hub: “The recent resignations have less to do with sharp political differences and are more about the failure of two good community representatives to fit in with the exacting demands of a bunch of bureaucrats who want unquestioning loyalty from their Labour group. 

“They are quite happy to have on board deadheads who make no contributions to policy development and who sit in silence meeting after meeting but can be relied on to vote the right way. But they are trying to ditch anyone taking up local residents’ complaints about the bins not being emptied. They might also have demonstrated concern about the council’s refusal to discuss disinvestment in its Israel-linked assets which could have put a target on their backs.”

The removal of sitting councillors from Labour’s panel of candidates and the barring of local members from selecting their ward candidates seem to be increasingly common practice in the modern Labour Party whose leadership prize obedience over democracy and local support. Recently Brent councillors were treated in a similarly shabby way by the Labour machine when eight of them were undemocratically barred from running by an imposed laughingly mistitled ‘Campaign Improvement Board’.  Local members are fuming at the impositions at a time when their councillors are already likely to pay a high price at the ballot box for the failings of the national Party.

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