Second Labour councillor to stand against his Party

A SECOND Labour councillor at Warrington is to stand against his Party in next month’s borough council elections.
Cllr Paul Bretherton, who was de-selected as a candidate at Rixton and Woolston at Labour’s controversial “night of the long knives” will stand as an independent in the ward.
He said: It’s fair to say that I am struggling to recognise the party right now, the party that has been a big part in my life for a number of years, and when I see the direction that it is taking and the strange decisions that it is making, then I‘m not all that sorry to be leaving it. The Labour party often over uses a line whereby it describes the Conservatives as ‘the nasty party’. I think the true holders of this title can be found a lot closer to home.”
Cllr Bretherton resigned from the party before announcing his decision and says he feels he can leave Labour with his head held high.
Last month, Cllr Bill Brinksman, who had also been de-selected by Labour, announced that he was to stand as an independent.
He was expelled from the party the following day.
Cllr Bretherton says he resigned from the  party after being threatened with expulsion by region party official who said they had heard a “rumour” he might stand against the party.
He said: “I have now turned the rumour to reality.”
The former committee chairman added: “I’ve taken the decision so that residents will now get a wider choice as to whom they wish to represent them, rather than ‘having two new Labour candidates dumped upon us that we don’t know, that we’ve never heard of, and that we do not want to vote for’.
“Not my words but the words of many people in the community over recent weeks, dismayed by my enforced removal, and equally dismayed by the calibre of the alternative choices on offer.”
Cllr Bretherton won elections for Labour in 2007, 2011 and 2015 in a ward always considered to be a marginal – increasing the Labour share of the vote on each occasion.