Greens and LibDems vote to include Cllr Jo Bird, while Labour teams up with Tories to exclude her
Labour councillors in Wirral have colluded with the Tories on Monday to bar the borough’s only Jewish councillor from the council’s policy-making process – and the whole episode was caught on camera.
As Cllr Bird explained to the meeting, Labour expelled her for attending a meeting and signing a petition years ago – one of a huge number of retrospective punishments inflicted on now-former Labour members for actions that were perfectly allowed and legitimate at the time they were performed, against all legal precedent and principle.
And as she goes on to explain, while she is trying to serve her ward’s residents Keir Starmer and his factional allies are occupied with their war on Labour members and the party’s democracy.
There is no reason or requirement that independent councillors or councillors of any party cannot participate in these policy decisions. The council has 66 councillors – and 66 committee places.
Some councillors go so far as to call for a by-election – no such voices were raised by the Labour right when Jewish then-Labour MP Luciana Berger quit the party across the water in Liverpool Wavertree. And, though not Jewish, one goes so far as to deny Bird’s experience of anti-Jewish racism and say that he finds the party a better place now. Before the vote was taken, attempts were made to deny Bird a chance to reply to the comments made about her.
To their credit, some councillors spoke against it and spoke up for Bird and her diligence in her responsibilities on the housing committee.
Cllr Pat Cleary, leader of the Greens on the council, observed that having watched the debate so far he could understand why Cllr Bird was delighted to be free of the toxic environment Labour has become – and said that in any other setting the treatment of the councillor would be considered constructive dismissal liable to penalties.
Labour’s shame under Keir Starmer continues to deepen and darken. Watch in full:
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
No surprise there. The Tory party is the natural home for Starmer and the rest of the Blairites and RW of the LP. All mates together.
Green Party Councillor Pat Cleary is a staunch member of Wirral Council’s Employment and Appointments Committee, which gags crooked or awkward employees, gives them clean bills of health and pays them off with large quantities of our council tax before they depart. In the past this committee gagged two proven senior abusers of disabled people who later went on to land senior roles where thousands of vulnerable people relied upon their good will and integrity.
Be careful who you want as allies. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
The Green Party itself knows that some extreme hard-right neoliberals entryists have infiltrated their organisation. Same happened in West Germany & Austria in the ’80’s – and look who’s enabling the fascistic techno-capitalist coup there today (the Greens) over the covid omicron mandatory vaccination issue.
In Leeds NW, I have no hesitation lending my vote(s) to the Greens, but I wouldn’t in Scotland, Austria or Latvia.
Good one Wirral. Anyone thinking that the Greens are cuddly needs their heads checked. ☮ wobbly x
Disgusting treatment of Jo Bird. Shows Rightwing Labour and tories voting in harmony and being really bitchy. And democracy dies another death.
Sabine, beautiful post. X ✌
Neo-New-Labour Party does not ‘team up’ with the TORIES, they are the TORIES! Neo-New-Labour Party TORIES are the Grinch version of TORYDOM, They are Parasite TORIES and just like the Grinch, stole The End of 43 Years of Thatcher’s Neoliberal TORY HELL, just before crimbo!
Basically they are the Nastiest of the Nastiest TORY FILTH! Crush their seats at the next election Vote for their Strongest Opposition, who/whatever that is, of nasty, they are the nastiest, of the rest standing against them either not much better or not enough to ensure crushing their seats.
Wherever there are still Democratic Socialists Survivors Vote them in.
There can be no doubt that under the current two wings of the same political party (Tory Party and Red Tory Party) those associated with this letter, written in 1948,……
https://archive.org/details/AlbertEinsteinLetterToTheNewYorkTimes.December41948
…..including Albert Einstein, would be vilified as the highest and worst form of ‘racist’ in the Woke hierarchy of oppression.
On another note, listening to the debate, it’s clear from the Labour representatives comments that the only criteria of any importance is whether you are in the right gang. The point of the LP is to advance values and principles which have now been abandoned in favour of an approach which would make Stalin and Beria blush.
In effect what those sorry excuses for human beings, never mind Councillors on the Labour side are saying is the gang is the be all and end all, the only viable point, of what they are engaged in. This trumps any values and principles and is a betrayal of not only those principles and values but also existing and previous generations who have fought for those values.
Such people and those who shill on heir behalf are not worth talking to/engaging with and are unfit to participate in any civilised society nor represent it.
Not at all different to The USA – We just have Blue TORIES and Red TORIES, Blue Keef is as much a Blue TORY as Biden is a Red Republican.
One big Happy Destructive ‘rat king’ of Thatcher/Reagan’s Neoconservative flavoured Neoliberalism: Search and Destroy, Take, repeat, repeat, repeat,……!
One day like a rat king they will have destroyed and taken everything and up there in their towers they will look down at their wasteland and realise, ‘Now I have Absolutely NOTHING!’
“It is the Base of the Mountain that sustains life, not the Tops!” Robert M Pirsig.
I have watched the video with disgust – and blatant injustice
in what the Labour Councillors said ..
So they expect Labour Councillors to be Time Lords now?
As for the previous behaviour of Councillors who supported her –
well I could see nothing wrong in their statements
So true Jo. Exactly as you said, when we leave Starmer’s factional takeover of the LP, we are freeer to stand for justice and radical options.
For those of you who haven’t seen it, here’s some video of former hard right Labour councillors colluding with Tory councillors in a failed effort to SILENCE Jo Bird, as she spoke with dignity about her family’s awful treatment by Nazis during the Second World War:
https://wirralinittogether.blog/2021/01/23/video-watch-clear-antisemitism-seen-in-wirral-uk-as-councillors-get-up-and-walk-out-on-a-jewish-member/
I see fatty foulkes had plenty to say for himself… His missus let him out, has she?
Congratulations to all involved – A must read
Three activists who defaced an Israeli drone engines factory in the UK were found not guilty of criminal damage on Monday…….
Government prosecutors had brought charges against what had become known as “the Elbit Three” after they took action in February against the UAV Engines factory, an Elbit subsidiary in Shenstone near Birmingham…………
The group occupied the factory rooftop, chained factory gates to disrupt business as usual, splattered the building with blood-red paint and even smashed windows.
Despite all this, the court on Monday acquitted the three of criminal damage….
Judge Marcus Waite said that prosecutors had not shown that conviction would be proportionate with the defendants’ freedom to protest, Palestine Action said in a statement.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/not-guilty-palestine-action-acquitted-first-trial
??? slightly off topic ???
Cant bring yourself to find anything to defend the nasty Labour councillors – so go for deflection?
felixross – I know that it is off subject but I wanted to share the good news. Aren’t you also delighted at this news. If I was seeking to distract then I would be thanking you for amplifying my distraction.
?? of topic ??
I gave him a ‘like’ thinking exactly the same thing, but…. After some of the stuff he’s been posting recently, it’s good to know his moral compass works on some issues…
I see Harriet Harman has announced she will not stand again and is very happy with the Labour Party under Starmer Chameleon.
Late post but reading the article because of the present( 14/04/2023) events in Gaza and Uk. It was good news then and I hope we get a similar result now. Did Harman stand for PIE?
There you have Labour’s machine politics in action. Dismal people. My party right or wrong. The Labour Party has rules, the apparatchik says. Yes, and it not only breaks them willy-nilly, it also breaks the law. Many expelled people have made Subject Access Requests and had no response. The law requires a response within 30 days. Labour is fascistic in in its current organisation and actions. Blind loyalty to that is about as morally vacuous as you can get.
I have family on the Wirral if Jo Bird resigns, will make my way down and campaign for her
Send a message to the torags who stood up and Temporary Embarrassment
Off you must fuck