Don’t take a leak: Birmingham Labour bans councillors from breaks

Don’t talk to the press or even take a loo break during council meetings, councillors told as party emulates Keir Starmer’s Stalinism – while alderman pal of ousted MP has column in local paper to praise binned mate

Birmingham Labour has been accused of treating councillors like toddlers after banning them from speaking to the press, as Keir Starmer’s long-known Stalinism percolates even deeper into party structures.

The memo, sent to sixty-five Labour councillors in the city immediately after the far-right ‘Reform’ party handed Starmer a majority despite Labour’s huge fall in votes compared to Corbyn-led elections, was revealed by Harborne councillor Martin Brooks, who tweeted:

Just received an email from the Brum Labour Chief Whip telling councillors that we now can’t speak to the media without his permission. The entire social fabric of the city is under threat, yet our leadership believe it’s acceptable to silence local representatives.

Birmingham Labour – presumably afraid that one type of leak will lead to another – has a horrendous record when it comes to its treatment of council workers, women and even strong-minded councillors sticking up for their residents, yet did not ban councillors from speaking to the press. The mind boggles what the council must be planning under Starmer for such an order to be in place now.

Meanwhile, as councillors face a ban on speaking, right-wing city alderman – an admitted ‘lifelong pal’ of disgraced and ousted former Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmoud, who wrongfully dismissed a staffer after she blew the whistle on alleged ‘sadistic and criminal’ exploitation of Muslim domestic violence victims in unsafe situations by his alleged lover who also worked for him – was happily writing in the local paper about how ‘poignantly sad’ it was that Mahmood had been defeated by local pro-Palestine independent Ayoub Khan:

Starmer and party general secretary David Evans also covered up the abuse, evidence of which Mahmood did not contest during whistleblower Elaina Cohen’s employment tribunal, though this did not prevent Starmer claiming to be a champion of domestic violence victims.

The control-freakery of Starmer and his factional allies reflects a fundamental cowardice, anti-democratic instinct and lack of substance – unwilling to offer any real change for the better, they are determined instead to control the narrative in the hope of keeping the public ignorant about what they’re really getting up to.

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