Yvonne Davies accused Labour of forcing her out to cover up misdeeds by local right-wingers
Former Sandwell Council leader Yvonne Davies has announced her resignation from the Labour party, accusing it of failing both to serve local people and to protect her from misogyny and abuse. Her statement is below;
I have today resigned from the Labour Party, as it no longer embodies the values of fairness and justice that made me join and serve it almost 40 years ago. I do this with a very heavy heart having worked for the party all my adult life.
I was suspended from the party in July last year having served as the Leader of Sandwell Council from May 2019. My suspension was based on fabricated allegations of anti-semitism as a result of a cynical trawl that the Party made of my twitter account from 2017 and 2018.
That people would go to such lengths to discredit me did not surprise me. My leadership had been based on establishing a new moral framework for conduct of council business based on honesty, transparency and integrity. At the same time, it had become clear that previous conduct of some elected members had fallen well short of expected standards in public life. There were, and still are, outstanding serious matters involving serious misconduct.
That people were prepared to go to any lengths to protect their own interests and to try and bury the truth was not a surprise. However, I retained some belief that the Party would at least engage with the allegations so that I could clear my name and get on with my work in Sandwell.
‘In more than 9 months I’ve heard precisely nothing from the party’
It’s now more than 9 months since I was suspended and I have heard precisely nothing at all from the Party regarding a fair hearing.
This is a party that stands on a platform of fairness, equality and social justice yet it cannot even deal fairly and justly with its own members. It cannot even administer a bog-standard process that thousands of organisations manage routinely to deal with allegations against its ownmembers. Worse than that, the Party nationally is conniving with local vested interests to freeze me out and to bury the truth about wrong-doing.
I have made many representations to senior figures, including the leader, the deputy leader and the current Mayoral candidate for the West Midlands Liam Byrne – who all know the reality of past wrong-doing in Sandwell – but no-one has lifted a finger to get the allegations against me dealt with.
The Party has failed to protect a strong female leader who sought nothing more than to embody the best of Labour tradition in fighting for local, accountable, public services led by politicians embodying the best of public service values. It has acted disgracefully and dishonourably and lacks all moral authority – certainly in the West Midlands, and most particularly in Sandwell – to seek people’s trust confidence.
In Sandwell, an increasing number of people are starting to realise this. We have a so-called ‘local’ Labour candidates chosen by the Party nationally with no regard for actual local decision-making. These include a candidate previously disgraced for misuse of a council phone. We have long-standing, loyal and more importantly very effective councillors, elbowed aside.
But Sandwell people do now have some choices. We have a refreshing number of candidates for the local elections on 6 May standing as Independents. I would urge Sandwell voters to think long and hard about how they cast their vote this year. Labour has had absolute power in Sandwell for too long and has not served its people well. It needs to be held to account by a strong independent opposition, so please support your independent candidate.
Labour will put the Labour Party first; Sandwell need councillors that put its people and their services first.
Yvonne Davies resigned as council leader last summer during a public meeting of councillors. Watch her resignation speech here.
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This has a touch of the maureen lipman about it…I thought she (Davies) did the off a good while ago?
I think you need to read it again Toffee.
“touch of the maureen lipman”
Oh my, Oh my! How could you go so low? Maureen Lipman is a fake act when she is not acting and a real flop when she tries acting. To put a Maureen Lipman on someone is like putting a BoJo on someone!
You are a VERY! VERY! BAD! PERSON! The Toffee! VERY! BAD! INDEED!
Please watch your Maureen Lipman’s 😉 xx
Ah, I remember that photo from the video she’d made. I thought that was a resignation type thing. My memory’s not what it was.
My bad, as they say. 🤦♂️
The speech she made when resigning as council leader was impressive.
just another move from starmers right wing crew and nothing will change until he,s been ousted.
SteveH will be along to blame the “regional offices” any time now- AND to insist the AS Smear was justified.
kenburch – I have no idea about the details of what she has been accused of, do you?
She SAYS what it’s about in the article- she says that she was accused of AS based on what she calls a “cynical trawl” of her social media posts. It is quite likely-as is often the case with people destroyed through the AS Smear- that she doesn’t actually KNOW which of her posts the party considered “antisemitic”. And you know quite well that, in many cases, the party essentially implies that not only anti-Zionism, but simple non-Zionism(i.e., simply saying that you cannot support or defend the ideology of Zionism) or even simply criticism of what the Israeli government does to Palestinians is labeled as AS.
You know, as the rest of us do, that in some cases people have been suspended or expelled from the party simply for getting into an argument with people who simply happen to BE Jewish-even if the subject of the argument had nothing to do with Judaism as religion or culture or Jewishness as identity.
You know as well as anyone else that a large number of people have been branded antisemitic simply for expressing their support for Corbyn or disagreeing that he deserves to be made a pariah within the party.
You know full well that the entirely Gentile-controlled disciplinary bodies in the party have gone to the absurd extreme of accusing JEWISH members of the party of being antisemitic- even though it obviously goes without saying that nobody who is Jewish can BE antisemitic, because nobody can possibly be bigoted against their own identity.
You know further that people are even called AS simply for saying they don’t believe other people accused of AS are guilty of the charge.
You know that, in many cases, accusations of AS are simply a means of forcing people who supported Corbyn out of the party just for the SAKE of getting people who supported Corbyn out of the party- And I think you’d have to agree, were you acting out of any level of personal decency, that there’s no good reason for Starmer’s relentless purge of everyone who doesn’t despise Corbyn to continue.
You also know that people of AS are often never told what exactly it is they said or did that let to the accusation- and that if a person isn’t told what their offence was, there is no possible way for that person to offer any effective defence against the accusation or accusations made against them.
Obviously Yvonne Davies doesn’t KNOW what she said on social media that warranted the accusation of AS- Obviously, if she doesn’t know, there is a good chance she actually did nothing to merit the charge and knew that, even though she was likely innocent, she was doomed to be found guilty in an unjust and illegitimate proceeding.
Given that you know all of that, can you kindly refrain from your usual “we don’t have the information so we can’t legitimately discuss this” bit?
It’s obvious that, once again, this is yet another stitch-up and that the only reason the party moved against this woman was that she isn’t an obedient robotic Blairite.
kenburch – Instead of writing an essay on what you presume other people know you could have been a little more succinct and just admitted that you don’t know either.
I do know and I just told you. This woman was falsely accused of AS- mainly for, as somebody else in this thread noted, the “crime” of signing an advert saying the Israeli government has too much influence in UK politics- something even YOU would have to admit isn’t remotely close to AS. You’ve been given a clear answer to your question.
kenburch – …. and what do you expect me to do with these scant details.
The “scant details” are all SHE was given about her own suspension. What I’d expect you to do is to at least admit there is a strong liklihood that an injustice was done to this former council leader, and at least consider calling for an end to the AS Witchhunt, and an admission by Starmer that signing an advert saying that the Israeli government has too much influence in UK politics is not, in any universe, equivalent to bigotry against Jews- that Israel is simply a country, it is NOT synonymous with Jews and Judaism, that the restrictions Keir has imposed on what Labour members can say about it are utterly unreasonable- there is no decent reason to require Palestinians who are party members to declare themselves Zionist, since there is no longer any way to be a Zionist and not support every single thing Netanyahu does to ordinary Palestinians- and to at least be open to the thought that what Keir is doing on this issue needs to STOP. Is that really asking too much of you? Nobody in the party every said anything about the Israeli government that anyone could seriously equate to AS in any case.
As I recall she was accused of “being anti-semitic” because she had signed a petition asking for a parliamentary debate on whether the government of Israel had undue influence in UK politics. I think this was following the revelations in the Al Jazeera investigation, “The Lobby”. Not an unreasonable request one might think. I’ll check the details.
It seems that she had shared the link on social media too. Horror of horrors??
Misogynists everywhere! All men hate women & if you don’t believe me just watch EastEnders. I was a lone parent & fought for an order of residency & parental responsibility in a ‘Family Court’ just over 20 years ago. The dominant ‘Man Bad’ narrative hasn’t changed, especially for white working class males. Having been accused of being an abusive lower class male, living in inner city Toxteth I must be an abuser. Not only must I be violent but also a paedophile & as the only man in the court room I felt slightly intimidated. No actual evidence was presented, just a series of stereotypes (aka Tropes).& repeated accusations. It appears that my son had been subjected to a series of ‘tests’ without my knowledge, but a female psychologist independently wrote a letter to the court (unknown to me), suggesting the child was exceptionally well adjusted & spoke with great affection about his father. She complained that I was never involved in the endless loop of female health visitors & social workers; as well as social psychologists & medical practitioners. She was quite correct, I was never consulted in any decision about my son; I was just an abusive white gypsy working class male.
There were 2 major reasons why I was awarded custody & things were looking bleak until my barrister eventually introduced me to the female judge as a Senior Lecturer in Film; Media & Politics & we spent ten minutes discussing my job. I was no longer just a white working class male from Toxteth.
Humans are an evil, wicked specimen of existence! Stay Strong! Solidarity!
What does any of that have to do with what we are discussing here?