Labour councillor quits party

An Oldham councillor has reportedly defected from the Labour party just weeks before the local election.

Cllr Marie Bashforth will sit as an independent for the remaining eight weeks of her term.

Her departure comes after a decision was made not to put Cllr Bashforth forward as a candidate for the vote on May 7. A new candidate, Kathryn England, will be standing in Royton South instead.

Cllr Bashforth, who has represented her ward since 2013, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service she was left feeling ‘very disappointed’.
“I received a very blunt email saying I’d been deselected and I was devastated. I felt I’d been stabbed in the back,” she said.

“I do believe it’s because I challenged the leadership on a couple of things, including the length of time it took to deal with the CSE issue and Places for Everyone – especially because of Beal Valley. Perhaps that made me not the right fit for the Labour group.

“I haven’t walked away because of the challenge from Reform. I put myself forward as a candidate because I wanted to fight. Even if I’d lost, I would have preferred to go out fighting.”

Cllr Bashforth failed to attend meetings for several months following the news of her deselection. She was recently given a warning to attend a meeting before the end of March or risk losing her position. If a member does not show up to meetings for six months, their seat is automatically forfeited.

A spokesperson for the Oldham political group said: “We understand Cllr Bashforth’s frustration that she wasn’t selected as the Labour candidate in Royton South for May’s elections.

“It is genuinely regrettable that Marie chose to withdraw from Council business since that decision was made and has now chosen to end her time as a councillor like this.

“It’s not the outcome any of us wanted but we want to thank her for the contributions during her time.
“Cllr Bashforth has not raised these issues publicly or in private, and we are unsure why she thinks this is why the Regional Labour Party did not select her for Royton South.”

The spokesperson added that councillors’ focus ‘remains on setting a stable budget’. The council will convene this evening to vote on budget proposals that could see £8m of cuts and a 4.99 per cent increase approved for the borough.

Cllr Bashforth has made it clear she does not intend to join any other political group before the election and won’t stand as an independent in her ward.

Online, the local Reform UK leader coun Lewis Quigg revealed ‘a sitting Labour Councillor has resigned from the Labour Group’. He conjectured the departure was due to councillors in the group ‘losing faith’ in the Labour leadership.

But Cllr Bashforth denied that was the case, clarifying the choice was specifically due to her deselection.

The departure has not been officially confirmed with the council’s constitutional services. Once registered, the political makeup of the council will be: 26 Labour councillors, nine Liberal Democrats, nine Oldham Group independents, six conservatives, three Reform UK members, and six area-specific independents.