Breaking: 6 Nottingham councillors quit Labour to form indy group

Five Nottingham City councillors have quit Keir Starmer’s Labour party today to form the ‘Nottingham People’s Alliance’ (NPA) group on the city council. The resigning councillors, who are enough in number to form the official opposition on the council, say NPA is a left-wing party with a “progressive socialist platform”.

Councillors Kirsty Jones, Naim Salim, Anwar Khan, Imran Jalil, Faith Gakanje-Ajala, along with Cllr AJ Matsiko, who left Labour in April, say they oppose Labour on “national and international issues” as well as the control-freakery of Starmer’s Westminster machine. They will also ally with already-formed Nottinghamshire groups the Broxtowe Alliance, which controls Broxtowe council, and the Gedling alliance.

Cllr Jones said:

Labour has failed my community, our city and the country. I think it is dead to be honest. This is the beginning of the end of the Labour party’s dominance over Nottingham.

We are against council cuts, we want to improve the economy locally and we want to have the freedom to speak out about national and international issues which we care about.

A Labour party spokesperson said something not worth quoting in full about not being the party of protest and accused the NPA of not delivering on Labour’s promises – which is a bit of a laugh considering Starmer never saw a promise he wasn’t ready to break in a heartbeat.

Featured image via X