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2 days ago
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Twenty councillors at a local authority in Nottinghamshire have quit Labour, saying the party has “abandoned traditional Labour values” under Keir Starmer’s leadership.
The move means Labour has lost overall control of Broxtowe borough council, which it gained in 2023, and those defecting include the council leader, Milan Radulovic, who had been a party member for 42 years.
In a statement, the councillors – who will now sit as part of a new Broxtowe Independents party – said: “It is with a heavy heart that we can no longer be in a party that has abandoned traditional Labour values under Keir Starmer’s leadership.”
They were particularly critical of the cut to the winter fuel allowance, the bus fare increase and Labour’s plans to scrap two-tier county and district councils, which are to be merged to create large unitary authorities.
Radulovic said: “I believe the concentration of power in the hands of fewer people, and the abolition of local democracy through the current proposals of super councils, is nothing short of a dictatorship, where local elected members, local people, local residents will have no say over the type and level of service provided in their area.
“I have therefore been left with no alternative. I cannot support and will not support another centrist government intent on destroying local democracy and dictating national policy from a high pedestal.”
One 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.”
The councillors claim about 100 grassroots Labour members in the area have also quit the party, and that 10 members of the group were blocked from standing as county council candidates in May’s local elections after openly criticising the winter fuel allowance cut.
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Broxtowe Labour group said: “It is incredibly disappointing that some Broxtowe councillors have decided to leave the Labour party and sit as independents when they were elected on a Labour ticket just over 18 months ago.
“These defections have no effect on the commitment of the remaining Labour councillors in serving our residents.”
The borough of Broxtowe lies to the west of Nottingham, and the council has fluctuated in political control since its creation. Most of the borough falls into the Broxtowe parliamentary constituency, a marginal seat gained by Labour in 2024 and represented by Juliet Campbell.
The former Broxtowe Conservative MP Anna Soubry, who quit the party for an independent group and backed Labour at the last election, said the councillors who had quit “never supported Starmer ... their treatment of their party’s parly candidate from the time of her selection was appalling”. Soubry said Campbell “deserves the support of everyone in Broxtowe”.
In April last year, before the Labour party was elected into government, 20 Labour councillors from Lancashire resigned in protest at the party’s leadership, saying it “wants to control anything that any councillor wants to say”.
Broxtowe’s Labour group has had a number of high-profile disagreements with the national party in recent years. Members protested at the decision not to allow Greg Marshall, the former two-time candidate in the area, to stand again in 2024. Marshall had been one of the candidates during the Jeremy Corbyn years who was seen as close to the former Labour leader.
A Labour insider said at the time that Marshall’s inability to win in the previous two elections demonstrated the need for a fresh pair of hands to win the seat, but the decision to bar him from the selection process led to an outcry from local councillors and trade unions.
The former Labour MP Rosie Duffield also quit the party earlier this year to sit as an independent, citing the winter fuel payment cut as well as a refusal to lift the two-child benefit cap. Duffield had clashed previously with the Labour leadership and some party members because of her gender-critical views.
