Bradford councillor to step down in disgust at Labour war on democracy and lack of opposition
A long-serving Labour councillor has announced that he will not be standing for re-election when his current term ends in May – and while Richard Dunbar rightly points out the cuts and racism as major issues, he reserves a special parting shot for the ‘leaders’ – his quotation marks – of his own party.
Dunbar’s announcement is generally critical of Keir Starmer’s ‘performance’ and specifically his lack of opposition, the lack of policies or vision that is depriving communities of hope of something better – and Starmer’s constant war on the party’s democracy:
Hi Everyone,
I want to share some news with you all.
You will all know that I take very seriously my role as an elected member of Bradford Council for Thornton, Allerton and Sandy Lane. I have been in this position for nearly 8 years and at no point have I taken it for granted. I have used my position to try and better the lives of those I represent and stand firmly against injustice in Bradford and across the world.
In light of the above, it therefore gives me no joy, to announce that I intend to stand down as your Councillor after my current term comes to an end in May 2022. I have arrived at this decision following some significant changes in my personal life (all good) which for the time being I am unable to share but which would make it very difficult to carry on as a Councillor.
I need to assure you that this was by no means an easy decision to make but I want to thank the members of the Thornton and Allerton Labour Party for their support, my ward colleagues Sue Duffy and Bev Mullaney and, of course, everyone across the area for your support and challenge. I also have a great group of friends that have kept me grounded. I must also thank my mum who has always pushed me to work hard to make things better for others and challenge inequality at every turn. This is socialism and I am proud of it!
I believe passionately in the power of local government to transform people’s lives but this has been made all the more difficult under the Tories and their austerity agenda that has systematically attacked local authorities for the past 11 years. They should also be held to account for their ongoing racist implementation of the hostile environment policy and also for their catastrophic mishandling of the coronavirus crisis. I am sure a truly independent inquiry will lay this bare.
The last 17 months have been a real challenge for everyone but I must say I am deeply disappointed in the performance of the leader of the official opposition. For all the talk of levelling up and providing ‘new leadership’ it pains me to say that all we have had is an attack on party democracy and no policy programme that gives local communities and the country at large the hope it so desperately needs.
There are nine months to go before I leave office but I want to assure you that I will continue to work hard on your behalf up until that point. Whilst I suspect some people will be happy at reading this news let me be clear that when I do leave it won’t stop me from calling out injustice and calling on our ‘leaders’ locally, regionally and nationally to be bolder and radical when it comes to ensuring the people we serve have the best chance to not only survive but thrive in all aspects of their lives. The most important step they could take is to take more decisive action on tackling the harsh realities of climate change.
I can’t thank you the people of Thornton, Allerton and Sandy Lane enough for your support over the past 7+ years.
People told me back in 2014 that a young working class lad couldn’t win in Thornton, Allerton and Sandy Lane. Collectively we proved people wrong because we worked hard, are honest with people and we get results. I think to win with a majority of 52 the first time around to a majority of 1074 for my second term proves Labour knows how to win locally with the right policies and right people.
Rest assured I won’t be taking my foot off the pedal for the next 9 months. Lots of work still to do!
Thank you,
Cllr Richard Dunbar
Earlier this month Richard Hill resigned both his position as the chair of his local party and his party membership, similar citing Keir Starmer’s war on members and lack of opposition. The Labour party has lost at least 120,000 members since Starmer took over – and probably 150,000 or more when members who are simply allowing their subscriptions to lapse are included.
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No decent person should vote for those parasites. The only way i see is to return their brand of “loyalty” FULL STRENGTH from ever angle. No door knocking or letter sending or phone banking. ALSO – don’t DONT reply to their endless texts and emails appealing for help or to be councillors etc as i keep getting. It is just a means to gather info ie are u Socialist and support Jeremy. DONT give them intelligence.
Due to understandable frustration as hitherto ZERO attention to such basics, decent people felt their only option was to vent anger. Righteous anger, but that achieved nothing for us. It never does.
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I HOPE IT SOON GETS TO THE POINT WHERE THE SOCIALIST CAMPAIGN GROUP OF LABOUR COUNCILLORS PASSES A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE IN STARMER.
Never mind Max Headroom and Associates will be…”adopting a product-mindset using agile ceremonies, be empowered to make decisions and encouraged to focus on rapid prototyping, deployment and iteration.”
All is well in La La Labour Land.
News Just in…Launch of the “New Labour Together Hand in Hand Up The Mountain To The Fork In The Road” manifesto thingy…
POLL: Who would be best at handling the economy?
CON: 35% (-)
LAB: 16% (-1)
LD: 5% (-)
OTH: 5% (-)
None: 11% (+1)
Lowest Labour % since March 2020.
Via @YouGov
16 Aug (+/- since 19 Jul)
Jeezas! When People are FORCED into choosing, not only The Conservative TORIES, but The Conservative TORIES, led by BoJo the Inbred Buffoon, who has done nothing but fuck up the Economy, over and above anyone else, let alone Thatcher’s Neoliberal Neolabour Party TORIES! The Appeasement Party! Then you know British Politics’ is deep down the cesspit, dare I say deepest it has ever been!?
Can I just check, this is still Planet Earth and this a Not a Dream!?
https://www.rt.com/uk/532386-labour-keir-starmer-afghanistan/
Akshata Murty (Rishi Sunak’s wife who is worth £625,000,000+) has taken full advantage of the measures her husband put in place.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/two-rishi-sunaks-wifes-firms-24781792
Two businesses in which Rishi Sunak’s wife is a significant investor have gone into administration during the pandemic, owing money to HMRC.
One borrowed £1.3million from the government-backed Future Fund which Akshata Murty’s Chancellor husband launched last year.
Ms Murty is richer than the Queen, holding a stake in her family’s global IT business Infosys, which is currently worth £625m.
Former banker Mr Sunak has put his investments into a “blind trust” and is not required to name companies in which his wife has shares.
A Mirror probe has found she owns shares in Lava Mayfair Club Limited, which collapsed owing £43.7m, including £374,000 to HMRC.
Yup, that’s how You TORIES swing, SteveDavidH, Corruption, Greed and Warring!
skellyknelly – I do wonder at times whether you are a Tory plant.
Mmmmm, perhaps because I call you and fellow Neoliberal Neolabour Parasite Party TORIES out for what you are! That must ruin your pretentious ‘I’m literally a Socialist’ Statuses at your Soirees and Dinner Parties!
It is you who wholeheartedly support the TORIES not me, I want to vote the Parasite Bastards out! You on the other hand want them in for a continuation of 42 years of Thatcherite Neoliberal Neolabour/Conservative Party TORY HELL!
If there is a TORY plant here it is YOU and for the most, YOU Alone!
skellyknelly – ….and yet you are the saddo who repeatedly seeks to perpetuate a Tory government by discouraging people from voting for Labour with your pretend ‘lefty’ propaganda.
*Yawns*
It’s not difficult, stop acting Stupid! You are a Parasite TORY Party Infesting The UK Labour Party, you are the Enemy Sabotaging, Conniving from within The UK Labour Party!
YOU ARE NOT AND NEVER WILL BE “LABOUR”!
Thatcher’s Neoliberalism is not in OPPOSITION with This Government, it is an Appeasement for This Government!
Of the TWO TORY PARTIES YOU Neolabour Party TORIES are the Most Threatening to The PEOPLE of Britain!
Just to make it CLEAR YOU & YOUR THATCHERITE NEOLIBERAL NEOLABOUR PARTY TORIES ARE NOT “LABOUR” YOU ARE A PARASITE TORY PARTY INFESTING LABOUR!
skellyknelly- Thanks for the diatribe confirming what I said above.
You are stereotypical Tory!
Reality and La La Land are indecipherable, you just keep on believing your fantasies and tripe, but TORY is what you are no matter how much you try to hide it and draw attention away from it, TORY BOY!
skellyknelly – Lots of rhetoric and assertions but as usual bugger all evidence. I repeat, you are the saddo who is constantly trying to perpetuate a Tory government with your fake ‘[lefty’ propaganda.
Evidence of what!? That you’ are indeed a Tory!?
Just read your posts, you practically live up The WORST TORY Leader Keith Loopholes Starmer’s Arse and You OOZE The Rest of Thatcher’s Neoliberal Neolabour Parasite Party TORIES, like a trained Parrot!
TORY BOY go and do something constructive you are really boring me, with your repetitive TORYSPEAK!
skellyknelly – Oh dearie, dearie me. I can understand your anguish but it is not my fault that all you and your small ilk have to further your factional cause is destruction You simply don’t have the numbers to do anything else.
FFS you can’t even find (never mind agree on) a credible leader to coalesce behind.
Not at all distressed, all so very predictable, so there you are then you have now agreed you are indeed a TORY and me and my small “(Lefty)” ilk who kick your TORY arses at every vote! That proves that you TORIES and your TORYDOM Robbed The PEOPLE The VAST Majority, in 2017 and 2019!
Isn’t it odd that me and my small “(Lefty)” ilk have left the UK Labour Party, because of your TORY Parasite Infestation, but there are still far more of us than you Neoliberal Neolabour Parasite Party TORIES, as voting proves!
Never mind us we will do fine, it is you and your Neolabour TORY ilk who need to think about a new leader pretty damned soon, I sense a Leader Challenge in the air!
As I said before, never mind us, we’ll be fine and quite possibly back in the driving seat, sooner than you think, so you better start thinking of people who could pretend extremely well to care about The PEOPLE of Britain MORE than they do The CITY of London!
Good Luck with that, TORY BOY!
skellyknelly – If telling lies all you’ve got is it any wonder you can’t make any consistent progress towards power. You are just a use
fulless idiot for Boris.When there is a leadership challenge, please remember to come back and tell me all about it
Wah, hah, hah, hah!
You’re hilarious…….almost!
BUT like “Labour”, you will NEVER come close, YOU’RE a TORY, TORY BOY!
I’m sure your outpost Skwawkbox will let us both know long before I can! 😉
From YouGov, that’s a shock!
The lowest economic credibility figure that Sir Keir the Billionaires Boy has ever produced I wonder?
Anyway, more than double the number of people prefer the Conservatives to “handle” the economy than Sir K of the billionaires. He’s flumoxed, no, not flumoxed, fuc*ed
His agile GPS might not be working properly, but it mean’s he’s up shit-creek without a paddle. I just hope his agile tea ceremonies are very very good and they can double as nose pegs.
I’m sure Steve H will be along in a moment to, either, verify – or correct – your musings, qwertboi.
Second thoughts, he may or may not be along in a moment. He seems to have become very choosy which discussions he does – or does not – take part in, of late. I suspect, this may be one he’ll swerve.
The little Rat has been AWOL on several posts just lately, some of the Posts and Comments are just too embarrassing to defend!
Again and again, social democrats across Europe have shifted to the right – and invariably, the outcome has been a devastating defeat, not a huge victory.
Social Democrats Need the Left, Just Look at Europe If you want to win, don’t marginalise the left. by Ell Folan
https://novaramedia.com/2021/08/18/social-democrats-need-the-left-just-look-at-europe/
That is the whole idea of Thatcher/Reagan’s Neoliberalism Plan, 2 Identically Neoliberal Parties One Pretending to be Left and the other with NO Pretensions. They succeeded in USA, nearly in France and on the cusp in the UK, only the Socialists, of any varying degree, will NEVER stop making ‘their’ Chosen Ones, Starmer, Macron, et al out to look like anything other than the TORY/Conservative/Neoliberal come Neoconservative, Pieces of SHIT that they are!
LONG MAY IT LAST!
Not Sabotage, Fighting FOR The PEOPLE!
https://youtu.be/dk6L7QiXdUc
If Counsellors/Candidates want to do this GREAT, ONLY we need an Alternative Party, ONE PARTY, not several Parties, that should be the Priority ONE single Alternative to Neoliberal Neolabour Party TORIES and ALL the new little Parties UNITE under that ONE Party!
All this has done is to provide a Candidate Vacancy that will be filled by a Neolabour Party TORY!
There are ONE of TWO Ways we can fight and win this, both will take several years!
1. Form ONE United Democratic Socialist Party FOR The PEOPLE, where Socialism is the common objective!
2. Fight the the Bastards, at the Ballot Box!
VOTE Neoliberal Neolabour Parasite Party TORIES OUT!
VOTE Democratic Socialist UK Labour Party MPs/Candidates IN!
We CAN’T DO BOTH, and I can’t see any other way to realistically, organised and planned get the Parasites out and have ONE OPPOSITION Party FOR THE PEOPLE!
Remind me again, who’s the current Shadow Chancer of the Exchequer? The pollees don’t seem to have had much confidence in whoever it is.
A perineal problem for Labour. Tell a lie often enough and it turns the truth on its head.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/06/24/the-tories-have-always-borrowed-more-than-labour-and-always-repaid-less-they-are-the-party-of-big-deficit-spending/
Oops – A
perinealperennial problem for Labour.Re Starmer: I think you were right first time – perineal
It’s Keir The Tory who’s the perineal problem for Labour.
kenburch – Well done, who’s a clever little boy then. Your reliance on pathetic schoolboy humour is revealing.
Your support for someone who runs the Labour Party like a bully rules a public school- and drives the party DOWN in the polls doing that- is what’s TRULY revealing. Why do you think Labour HAS to have a leader who treats the party’s left wing like they have no right to even be in the party? Who won’t admit that any possible past issue with AS has been put once and for all to rest and that nobody should be anathemised simply for rejecting Keir’s approach to that dead issue? Your posts would make sense if the leader-bully you unquestioningly defend had the party in the lead or in ANY improved position in the polls over the predecessor he sabotaged, but the polls are actually the same or worse, so again, what IS there to defend? How can you say that ANY of what Keir has done to the Labour Left could possibly be justified when it doesn’t even gain votes?
And how can you defend the slander and ouster of Ken Loach when you KNOW he’s done nothing at all to deserve it?
Do you really think it’s worth it to reduce the offer to “it’s enough to just get THEM out!”? Clearly, the polls show that the voters never wanted Starmer to reduce it to that, that THEY don’t believe that just electing something that CALLS itself “a Labour government” is a thing worth doing.
kenburch – My recollection is that the polls clearly showed that Jeremy was the most unpopular opposition leader in history.
@goldbach “Re Starmer: I think you were right first time – perineal”.
Might just be me 😃, but I associate my perineum with pleasure and the only people Keir Starmer is giving pleasure to as leader of Labour are the Trilateral Billionaires and their A team, the Conservative Party.
@SteveH“My recollection is that the polls clearly showed that Jeremy was the most unpopular opposition leader in history.”
I DO hope so. The polls are as – maybe more – likely to be used to influence voters than to reflect their opinions. It showed the billionaires and neoliberal hegemonists were tremendouly frightened by the very moderate and reasonable opinions and policies which Jeremy represented.
In exactly the same way that anyone with the basic epidemiological knowledge of a first year medical student who tells you how inappropriate and possibly dangerous it would be to take a covid vaccine is a “covid denier” or anyone who is pro-Palestinian is a “fucking anti-Semite” (As Dame Margaret Hodge erupted to NewsNight cameras).
Sometimes the powerful elite are just too easy to read.
qwertboi – The polls were absolutely spot on about the 19GE.
quertboi – however, it is half way between ……………. well, you know.
@SteveH That’ll be why 12.8 million people voted for him, then.
izzyorks – 12.8 million people voted for Labour
Unfortunately more of the working class voted Tory than voted for Labour (and by a significant margin). For the first time ever the Tory’s could legitimately claim to be the party of the working class. By far the most ‘popular’ reason given by ex Labour voters for voting Tory was not Brexit but Jeremy Corbyn.
And Corbyn is never going to stand for the leadership again, so his unpopularity- ALL of which was caused by the relentless slanders the Labour Right spread against him- is irrelevant. What matters is that the polls prove that Keir is not increasing Labour’s popularity now by attacking and driving out the Left, which means that his war against the Left, including his indefensible purge of Ken Loach, is pointless and needs to be stopped.
There is no way anybody can possibly think Starmer’s would do anything socialist or even “progressive” if he did manage to create a Labour victory, and there’s hardly anyone- other than the Tories- who could look at the polls and think Starmer is the leader Labour SHOULD have.
I’ll ask you again…what’s to like, Steve?
Nobody’s cheering him for driving the socialists away. Nobody’s applauding him for crushing internal party democracy or barring everyone but right-wingers from being nominated as Labour candidates anywhere. Nobody but reactionaries who would never vote Labour is applauding his flag fetish.
What’s to like?
SteveH davidH SH Caribbean branch, you know that’s a Mandelson Blair Evans Starmer Coyled lie. VILE LIARS that’s your lot.
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They wouldn’t have voted for a Keir-led, all-out Remain Labour Party in 2019, either. Labour couldn’t have won a “Get Brexit Done!” election with ANY possible leader-the votes weren’t there and there were NO significant number of Tory constituencies that would have flipped to Labour if had gone all-out Remain and pushed for a second referendum BEFORE the election when the votes for a second referendum BEFORE the next election could never have been found in then 2017-19 HoC.
kenburch – But Jeremy repeatedly promised us a members led party and JC has said on camera (on at least 2 occasions) since he stepped down as leader that around 70% of the members (and voters) wanted a CV and to remain in the EU.
Jeremy let us down by pissing about with constructive ambiguity for month after bloody month so that by the time he got round to getting off the fence nobody (from either side) could believe a word he said.
Wee fella having his arse handed to him again. 🙄
Well he is Max Headroom’s Chief Turd Polisher…..
Leave him alone. He knows that everything is Mr Corbyn’s fault – the empty shelves in supermarkets, England losing to India, the sole of my shoe having just come off, the Afghanistan debacle, millions in poverty around the world, Sunderland still being in the first division. The list is endless, and we should all have recognised where the fault lay.
goldbach – Don’t be silly. The reason Jeremy Corbyn failed is obvious, he lost the trust of the electorate.
I give you credit for having more of a sophisticated understanding than would seem evident from this simplistic comment, and that your insistence that politics is solely about one individual, who is the leader of a party at a particular time, is bred of something other than naivety.
goldbach – By far the most ‘popular’ reason given by ex Labour voters for not voting Labour in the 19GE was Jeremy Corbyn.
‘Popular’ – note the inverted commas. Therefore, bullshit.
Toffee – Not bullshit, I just thought that the word popular was inappropriate in this context. Perhaps it would have been better to say By far the most frequent reason given by ex Labour voters for not voting Labour in the 19GE was Jeremy Corbyn.
That was solely because the PLP spent four years endlessly repeating every slanderous lie they ever invented about Corbyn. Those working-class voters were never going to vote Labour with any Remainer as leader- they were automatically going to see ANY Labour leader who had pushed for a second referendum before the election as a dismissive elitist who didn’t care if they starved. The polls show they aren’t any more likely to vote Labour with a wealthy anti-worker Londoncentric snob like Keir.
kenburch – Jeremy Corbyn has said on camera that the vast majority of party members and voters wanted a CV and to stay in the EU. What purpose did month after bloody month of constructive ambiguity serve apart from destroying his own reputation.
SteveH david SH, it is clear SIR Starmer’s “Constructive Ambiguity” Remainiac plot gave Labour’s victory to Cummings’ Johnson. GE2019 Results Map prove that Mandelson’s Starmer and ALL your lot are mostly little sh**s. The rest are buckets of stale p*ss.
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windchimes – Whilst I agree with you that hiding behind constructive ambiguity is what destroyed the electorates trust in Corbyn I have seen no evidence whatsoever that the concept of ‘constructive ambiguity’ came from anywhere else but JC’s team. Jeremy was the first person I heard utter these words in relation to Brexit.
Unfortunately JC was the architect of his own downfall from the moment he pissed all over his own USP with this nonsense.
Corbyn was in a bind- ANY Labour leader would have had to take the position he took- and in hindsight, can you not admit that “soft Brexit” was the best that could be done given that it was impossible to GET a second referendum prior to the election, and given that Keir’s abandonment of Remain as soon as he won the leadership proved that he was never even a temporary Remainer for any reason other than his determination to destroy Corbyn- given that ANY move away from the “we respect the results of the referendum” was CERTAIN to cause massive losses in the Red Wall areas, under any leader and on any manifesto? Why SHOULD Corbyn have committed the party to a pre-election referendum everyone knew could never be achieved, knowing that doing so could only cause massive losses in seats Labour HAD to hold onto to get anywhere close to victory?
Look, I was Remain myself during the referendum, because I believed- I now know this was wrong- that supporting Remain was the only way to protect immigrants and oppose xenophobia. I now know that it wasn’t and I accept the facts that the North, the North West, the North East and the MIdlands are anti-EU and will always be anti-EU, since the EU left ALL of those areas completely out in the cold on economic investment, bringing prosperity to Scotland, London and the South but systematically excluding the Leave-voting areas from investment and any share in economic benefits, and that there was no chance of getting the EU ever to stop its exclusion of those areas. I believe the EU was the author of the Leave victory both through that exclusion and through its incapacity to change on that issue.
Corbyn. who was slandered as having caused the Leave victory in the referendum- in fact, he did and said everything he COULD have did and say to defeat Leave, and was guilty of no offence other than calling on Remain supporters to acknowledge that Leave supporters had valid grievances with the EU that Remainers needed to be addressing but weren’t- never deserved to be treated as if he could have singlehandedly won the day for Remain but somehow just refused to do so. Leave prevailed because the Remainers ran a completely incompetent campaign for their cause, and there was NOTHING Corbyn himself could have done to overcome that.
It should have been enough that he pledged a second referendum if elected; there was no reason to demand he fight for a second referendum BEFORE the election when there was never any chance of getting one and when actually MANAGING to get one was going to doom Labour to massive losses in Leave-voting areas whenever the subsequent election was held, no matter who was leading it, and no matter what manifesto Labour fought that election on. There was nothing ANY Labour leader could possibly have promised to Leave supporters in the Red Wall that would ever have persuaded them to let that go.
Just admit that and move on already, SteveH.
kenburch – We had already left the EU months before Keir was voted in as leader. It wasn’t a battle lost, we’d lost the war.
Starmer was right there was bugger all point in continuing to obsess about the EU.
Why are leavers still obsessing about Brexit
SteveH18/08/2021 AT 11:01 PM
kenburch – My recollection is that the polls clearly showed that Jeremy was the most unpopular opposition leader in history.
Which makes keef look worse than fucking useless then, doesn’t it, stevie boy?
Getting thoroughly tonked by THE most corrupt, THE most useless government and PM in all history, and instead of gaining ground, the utterly inutile keef has managed to lose support from across the spectrum of the party.
How many NCV’s did Corbyn endure? How many members were there under Corbyn as opposed to today?
Not only did keef conspire to hand the rags their eighty seat majority, the slimy reptile is actually ensuring their popularity is maintained or even perhaps increased by keef’s attempts to out-tory the fuckers. Nobody knows who he is. Nobody knows his policies, other than those that are in line with the current shower’s.
And that’s despite the msm being extremely patient AND helpful towards him – something Corbyn NEVER had (You’re the one still believing it was all Corbyn’s fault, like they want you to believe, like the good little dunce you are.)
So, what’s your excuse for keef being beyond shite then? Tell us a policy? Explain a difference between keef and de piffle?
Nah…It’s all Corbyn’s fault, innit? And keef’s just best of a bad bunch, isn’t he?
God, but you’re irredeemably dense. Criminally so. So much so that the eugenicists have a point.
Best of a bad bunch…Mmm….
“Mohamed was beaten, hung from the ceiling for an entire week, Mi5 agents observed his punishments first hand – his captors slashed his penis & chest with razor blades, scalded him with hot liquid. Mi5 were involved. Keir Starmer declared Mi5 would not be prosecuted. ”
https://twitter.com/PhillipsBarrie/status/1428355314462564359?s=20