Tag Archives: Phil Gaskin

BRISTOL LABOUR PRE-ELECTION MELTDOWN IS ON!

LOckleaze councilliors and new candidates (2)
‘Disappeared’ Labour candidates

At the end of last week Labour Councillor for Avonmouth Jo “Hippy” Sergeant quit the Labour Party. Before running for the hills she fired off a letter revealing the Reverend and his council’s Labour Group as a misogynistic bullying hell.

Now, this week an entire ward committee has quit the party. Here’s what they say:

To members of Lockleaze Labour Party

We are writing to you to let you know that we, the committee of Lockleaze Labour Party, have taken the decision to resign. We feel that we have no other choice.

In October 2020, a meeting was to held to select two candidates to stand as councillors in elections to be held in May 2021 as both our longstanding councillors Gill Kirk and Estella Tincknell were retiring. The process was overseen and approved by the Bristol Labour Party Campaign Forum which was responsible for the selection of candidates.

There were six excellent local candidates. The two candidates selected by due process were Alfie Thomas and Anna Lart Greene (see attached photo). Both are in their twenties, committed to the local area and able to speak up for local people on Bristol City Council. However, our chosen candidates were blocked by the South West Labour Party Regional Director and no one from Regional Office has talked to us about reasons for doing so.

Instead, Regional Office took over the selection process. They have not met their timetable for the selection of candidates which means that we still do not have Labour Party candidates in place for May’s election, despite campaigning officially starting on March 15th. Therefore, our position as committee members is not tenable.

We regret the decision we have had to take but have been given no alternative.

Lockleaze Labour Party Committee,

Do Rees and his right wing regional office cronies think Bristolians will vote for any old crap put up by the disorganised bent shambles that now passes for our local Labour Party?

LABOUR PURGE LATEST

Reports emerge of more Labour Party madness in the lead-up to Christmas as apparatchiks from the party’s South West regional office turned their attention to the Bristol East Constituency Party. And the party bureaucrats are now so keen on purges that although the chair and secretary in Bristol East had resisted a Corbyn-supporting motion passed by their membership earlier this month, they got purged anyway! 

This means that the elected leaderships of Bristol’s North West, West and East Consituency Parties have all been suspended without explanation by their party. Nationwide, 40 more CLP officers were similarly removed during the week before Christmas.

In Bristol North West, now managed by Councillor Brenda Massey, who’s previous career high was quietly decorating George Ferguson’s useless rainbow Cabinet, and the South West Regional Office, requests to hold a constituency party meeting have been directly refused by the regional apparatchiks. They insist the next constituency meeting will be an AGM to elect new officers some time next year at a time they decide.

Looks like an interesting year ahead in Labour politics …