A WOODLEY-based councillor has quit the Labour party and will stand out the remainder of his term as an independent.
Cllr Carl Doran said he resigned due to the “anti-democratic antics of the national Labour party” and had nothing but praise for the local parties. Due to the borough boundaries, he was a member of both Wokingham Labour and Woodley and Earley Labour.
The Bulmershe and Whitegates councillor said: “I will sit as an independent, not part of any group, and I will not be standing for re-election when my time is up next May.
“Until then, I intend to continue to support my constituents as I have done since being elected in 2018.”
Cllr Doran said that leaving had been difficult.
“I feel really bad about leaving because Labour has been such a supportive group, like a second family,” he explained. “The anti-democratic antics of the national Labour party mean it has become an abusive relationship for me, and one I couldn’t continue further.”
He resigned in a letter to Labour’s national leader Keir Starmer. In it, he wrote: “I am a democratic socialist and I will remain a democratic socialist. I have always prioritised those aims in that specific order: democracy first and socialism second.
“It has become very difficult to remain in the party when your leadership and your team clearly does not have a working relationship with either of these concepts.”
Cllr Doran told Mr Starmer he had joined Labour when Jeremy Corbyn was elected as leader in 2015.
“I didn’t join because of Corbyn or his politics but of what his election represented: a party membership that welcomed the rejection of austerity and embraced the radical change required to put this country back on its feet and control back in the hands of its people.”
But Mr Starmer’s leadership has “stumbled from one unforced error to another” and “there’s almost nothing you’ve done that I could approve of,” which Cllr Doran felt has led to a year-long policy vacuum that played in the hands of the Conservatives.
“You have failed to oppose the worst and most right-wing Government in generations during a botched pandemic response that has killed 150,000 of our fellow citizens, including one of my own relatives,” he wrote.
“In my previous career, this would be considered “desertion in the face of the enemy,” and losing a little popular support would be the least of your worries right now”.
Cllr Rachel Burgess, who heads up the Labour group on Wokingham Borough Council, said: “I am very sad to see Carl leave the Labour Party.
“I know he will have thought about it at great length, and that it won’t have been an easy decision for him. Carl has worked hard for residents and for the Labour Party, and we will miss him.
“He leaves behind many friends and comrades. We all look forward to the time Carl feels able to rejoin the Party.
“I know Carl will continue to hold the Conservative Executive at Wokingham Borough Council to account and continue to be a strong voice for the people of Bulmershe and Whitegates.”
Following the ousting of Andy Croy in the May local elections, the Labour group is now two: Cllr Burgess and Cllr Shirley Boyt.
