A Tower Hamlets councillor has left the Labour Party over a reference Keir Starmer made to Bangladesh in relation to illegal immigration.
Councillor Sabina Akhtar, who had been deputy leader of the London borough council's Labour group, announced on X that she was quitting the party on Wednesday.
She wrote: ‘I find I cannot be proud of this party anymore when the leader of the party singles out my community and insults my Bangladeshi identity.’
It came after Mr Starmer referenced Bangladesh when asked how Labour would deport people who came to the UK illegally in a question session with readers of The Sun on Monday.
Mr Starmer had said: ‘At the moment, people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed, because they’re not being processed’.
He said illegal immigrants would ‘go back to the countries where people came from’.
On Thursday, Mr Starmer told reporters he had not intended to offend any Bangladeshi communities.
He said: ‘The reference in the debate the other day was an example of a country that is considered safe as far as asylum is concerned, and one of the countries that’s actually got a returns agreement with us, and that is actually a good thing where both we and Bangladesh can be proud of.’
Councillor Akhtar, who now sits as an independent, said the direction the Labour Party was heading in was ‘unacceptable’ to her and her community.
