Some 20 members of Broxtowe Borough Council, including the leader, have left the Labour Party in protest against Keir Starmer’s leadership.
The councillors – previously part of a ruling group of 26 Labour members – will form a new independent party, and reportedly plan to run the borough council as a minority administration in the short term.
They have claimed that Labour blocked 10 councillors from standing in the Nottinghamshire County Council elections in May after they challenged the party on its cuts to the winter fuel allowance.
Council leader Milan Radulovic said Labour’s ‘utterly disgraceful’ decision to block the councillors from standing had put him ‘in an impossible position’, leading him to quit the party after 42 years.
He also slammed plans for local government reorganisation, and 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.’
In a statement, the group of councillors accused Starmer’s Government of abandoning ‘traditional Labour values’, citing cuts to the winter fuel allowance, the retention of the two-child benefit cap, increased bus fares, the ‘betrayal’ of Waspi women, and a ‘tepid response to the genocide in Gaza'.
They added that one Nottinghamshire county councillor and 100 local members had also quit the Labour party.
