Rebel quits council Labour group

REBEL councillor Kevin Bennett has quit the Labour Group on Warrington Borough Council.
The Fairfield and Howley councillor (pictured) has told Labour chief whip Brian Maher and deputy chief whip Tony McCarthy he intends to stay on the council as a Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) councillor.
His resignation follows a series of disagreements between himself and the Labour Group going back some two years.
He has been suspended from the group, at first for six months and later indefinitely.
Prior to that, he claims he was “dragged” before the group whips on numerous occasions for spurious reasons.
He said: “Enough is enough. I’m not prepared to put up with this any longer.”
Cllr Bennett said he was suspended from the group in April 2013.
He last met the party whips in December last year when they told him his situation would probably be raised at a group meeting on January 22.
But this meeting was cancelled.
He said: “All I ever asked for was the right to speak within the confines of the Labour Group, but this was on many occasions denied to me and I have been ‘dragged’ into the whips on numerous occasions for spurious reasons.”
Cllr Bennett said he made a legitimate “call in” on the council’s decision to outsource adult social care as, as a result, was asked to meet the whips on December 12 when he was disciplined for making a comment to the press regarding the lack of democracy within Warrington Borough Council.
He then found himself facing further suspension.
“While I’ve been attacked for opposing cuts/privatisation and proposing the living wage, as a TUSC councillor going forward, I will fight for these policies and against the proposed four-year austerity budget, on the basis of my trade union and socialist values – not the Tory-lite agenda of New Labour!”
No-one from the Labour Group was available to comment.
But leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, Cllr Ian Marks, said: “The forced discipline in the Labour Group following the investigation by the national Labour Party into alleged malpractices has been blown apart by the resignation of their most principled and passionate member. But it is not clear that the divisions in the local party have been healed.”