Hackney Labour councillor defects to Conservatives

Councillors Ian Rathbone, Linda Kelly and Deniz Oguzkanli

New Conservative councillor Linda Kelly with her fellow Leabridge (Labour) councillors Ian Rathbone and Deniz Oguzkanli

Hackney Labour councillor Linda Kelly has defected to the Conservatives.

Just after the directly-elected Labour Mayor of Hackney, Jules Pipe, heaped praise on her at last night’s Council AGM for her role as Deputy Speaker, she announced she was joining the Conservative benches.

Cllr Kelly said: “I woke up. I saw them for who they are. Hackney Council is run like a dictatorship. You are not allowed to disagree with Jules Pipe or his executive, they stifle all opposition.”

“I wanted the voice of my constituents to be heard and I felt that the best way for this to happen was to speak from the Conservative benches.”

As a councillor (in Leabridge ward, Clapton) she has the second highest personal vote in Hackney and her defection brings the size of the Conservative Group to five.

Cllr Michael Levy, leader of the Conservative Group on Hackney said: “We welcome Linda with open arms. The invitation is open for other members of the Labour Group if they really want the voice of their constituents to be heard.”

Commenting on the move, Conservative London Assembly Member and Hackney resident Andrew Boff said: “There are many hard-working Labour councillors who are fed up with the control-freakery of Jules Pipe’s administration. It must be like being a Member of Parliament in North Korea.”

Update 2.30pm Thursday 19 May 2011:

In a statement, Hackney Labour Party said: “It’s a shame for Cllr Linda Kelly that she has decided to join the Conservative Party, following nine years as a Labour councillor in Hackney.

“Cllr Linda Kelly wanted to become the Speaker of Hackney for a second time, and in a recent election, Labour councillors chose another councillor for the civic post.  Linda was not happy with this outcome and it seems that she decided she could no longer continue as a Labour councillor.

“She recently issued a statement saying: “The Con-Dem Coalition is attacking the fabric of a civilised society… We would like to see local Councils across London leading the charge and refusing to adopt cuts budgets as a result of government enforced policies and producing a Needs Budgets to show what should be funded…. We are facing a national and international emergency and this calls for exceptional measures to mobilise our people and defeat the Con-Dem Coalition.”

“It will be interesting to see what her new Tory allies in Hackney think of her anti Coalition Government stance.

“Leabridge ward had the lowest Tory vote in London in May 2010 (5.3%), so she has no mandate to continue as a councillor in that ward. Leabridge ward still has two hard working Labour councillors and Linda should resign and fight a by-election so that residents there are given the chance to decide on who represents their interests best.”

Leabridge ward Labour councillors Ian Rathbone and Deniz Oguzkanli said: “We regret the decision of our former colleague to leave the Labour Party and join the Conservative councillors on Hackney Council.

“We would like residents to feel assured that it will be ‘service as usual’ as we continue to work to serve the residents of Leabridge ward as Labour councillors committed to carrying out the Labour manifesto.”

Update 3.20pm Thursday 19 May 2011:

Commenting on Cllr Linda Kelly crossing the chamber, Mick Carty,  Communist Party of Britain candidate for Leabridge ward in last year’s local elections, said: “Kelly’s move has betrayed 2,878 working class voters in Leabridge Ward for no reason other than blatant opportunism, and petty self interest.

“There is no dignity in what she has done, and if she had any integrity she would resign immediately and allow the voters of Leabridge ward to choose not only who represents them, but in whose interests their representative will act”.

“Hackney Labour Party needs to look long and hard at itself as to how it could harbour individuals with Tory sympathies. There is a clear need for elected Communist representatives to ensure that Hackney Labour councillors are consistently held to account in order for genuine working class representation to take place.”

Update: 4.15pm Thursday 19 May 2011:

In response to the news of Cllr Kelly’s defection to the Conservatives, a spokesperson for Hackney Liberal Democrats said: “So, a councillor can cross from the Labour to the Conservative party and feel perfectly at home.

“It demonstrates how alike in some ways the two parties are: authoritarian centralists who believe in tight control and in telling people what to do. The only difference now appears to be economic – “cut now” or “cut later”, hardly surprising when both Blair and Brown saw themselves as Thatcher’s heirs.

“If Linda Kelly had serious criticisms of the Labour programme, as we do, then she has always been free to voice them. We look forward to hearing them now.”

38 Comments

  1. BarryB on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 13:47

    At the May 2010 council election in Leabridge the Tories got 5.3% of the vote. This was their worst result in London. As 94.7% of the voters didn’t vote for the Tories I would argue that Kelly has no mandate to represent the people of Leabridge. She should resign the seat and fight a new election. I wouldn’t put any money on her doing this though!



  2. Linda S on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 14:02

    It’s a shame for Cllr Linda Kelly that she has decided to join the Conservative Party, following 9 years as a Labour councillor in Hackney.

    Cllr Linda Kelly wanted to become the Speaker of Hackney for a second time, and in a recent election, Labour councillors chose another councillor for the civic post. Linda was not happy with this outcome and it seems that she decided she could no longer continue as a Labour councillor.

    She recently issued a statement saying:

    “The Con-Dem Coalition is attacking the fabric of a civilised society… We would like to see local Councils across London leading the charge and refusing to adopt cuts budgets as a result of government enforced policies and producing a Needs Budgets to show what should be funded…. We are facing a national and international emergency and this calls for exceptional measures to mobilise our people and defeat the Con-Dem Coalition.”

    It will be interesting to see what her new Tory allies in Hackney think of her anti Coalition Government stance.



  3. Rosemary Sales on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 14:25

    I am shocked at the one-sidedness of your report. You quote comments from two Tories but none from Labour. You do not mention the circumstances in which she defected having just lost a vote in Labour Group. You also mention her personal vote, but not that her new party was overwhelmingly defeated in the polls.
    Linda claims to want to represent the voice of her consitutents but she will be unable to do so as a Tory, since only 5% of them voted for that party.



  4. HackneyCitizen on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 14:27

    We are awaiting a statement from Hackney Labour Party and will update the story as soon as we can. – Ed.



  5. Andrew Boff on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 14:34

    It’s the job of Councillor to hold the administration to account. The administration has powers of patronage. The administration may be tempted to use such powers in order to enforce discipline. Are Labour Councillors able to hold the administration to account in Hackney? If they criticise, what happens to them?
    Cllr LindaS tweeted yesterday “Is Linda really justifying her defection to the Tories on the basis of her opposing cuts…. excuse me while I LMFAO” You can look up the acronym.
    Some, like Linda Kelly, do not think the way in which Jules Pipe is making the cuts is a laughing matter. She wanted to be able to articulate her concerns. The Conservative Group is free from the stalinist tendencies of the current administration and enables her to do just that.
    As to the mooted by-election, I’m just googling similar statements to Cllr BarryB, when a LibDem defected to them a few years back … can’t seem to find any so I would be grateful if he could let me know where I can find them.



  6. Spirit Leveller on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 15:45

    I couldn’t agree more with Rosemary Sales about the one-sidedness of this piece of ‘journalism’. It’s frankly embarrassing that, as part of their personal vendetta against Jules Pipe, those who run this ‘community’ newspaper have colluded with the very party wreaking so much damage upon the people of Hackney.

    I happen to know Linda personally and like her a great deal. It is not, however, credible for her to suggest that the best way of representing the constituents of one of the most deprived wards in the country is as a member of a Conservative Party that has done, and continues to do, so much to immiserate the poorest and most marginalised.

    If Linda genuinely believes in the efficacy of the Tories’ slash and burn approach to public services whilst allowing wealthy individuals and big corporations to evade and avoid £120 billion in tax every year, she should be willing to fight a by-election on exactly that platform.

    As Nye Bevan once said of the Tories, Linda, “they have not changed, or if they have they are slightly worse than they were”…



  7. News From Nowhere on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 16:02

    @Andrew Boff – You’re keen to use “Stalinist”, anti democratic metaphors. But do you honestly think that over 1,000 people voted for Linda Kelly the person and not for Labour the party? Just looking at your party’s shocking performance in the ward, is Kelly’s defection not a denial of the clear democratic choice of the people in Lea Bridge?!



  8. HackneyCitizen on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 16:22

    @Spirit Leveller

    We feel your criticism of our coverage of this story is unjustified. We have reported Cllr Kelly’s own comments and the comments of the two main political parties concerned: Labour and Conservative. We have also included the comments of other political parties as we have received them. We feel this is a balanced approach and find it difficult to understand how you can disagree. Had Hackney Labour party sent us their statement sooner, we would have included it in the original story. – Ed.



  9. Mick Carty on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 16:37

    Perhaps Andrew should actually have a look at socialist democracy instead of scaremongering. For example, in Cuba where the electorate have the power to recall representatives if they belief that that representative is no longer acting in their interests. Such a system would quickly resolve this fiasco and is surely better than democracy under capitalism where representatives are granted a blank cheque by the electorate for a number of years to do what they like and renege on a whole variety of pledges – just look at the record of the current coalition Government.



  10. BarryB on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 17:00

    The Tories now have a Councillor in Leabridge where their party “achieved” a 5.3% vote in 2010. Is that Tory democracy in action?



  11. Spirit Leveller on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 17:00

    So, Andrew Boff made an unsolicited call to you to make a ‘statement’ on the matter, did he? No, you contacted Tories directly, then ran an incomplete story in a bid to maximimise the damage to a politician that you have a personal vendetta against.

    If you didn’t have all the facts, you should’ve waited until you did before running the story.

    Sloppy stuff.



  12. HackneyCitizen on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 17:18

    @SpiritLeveller

    Hackney Conservative party made an unsolicited call to us this afternoon about Cllr Kelly’s defection.

    Once we had confirmed the facts of her defection, we ran the story.

    Contrary to what you say, we did have all the facts, but what we did not have, and still do not have, is comments from all the political parties in the borough.

    We have sought responses from them and will continue to update the story as we receive them – Ed.



  13. KathyB on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 18:34

    I was there too at last night’s Hackney Council meeting and I heard Jules Pipe politely but briefly thank Cllr Kelly for being Deputy Speaker in the middle of a long vote of thanks to the outgoing Speaker Cllr Mulready. It hardly amounted to “heaping praise on Cllr Kelly”. Was the Citizen there and have chosen to misrepresent what happened or are they simply reprinting the “unsolicited” Tory press release? Sloppy reporting either way I fear.



  14. Hakon Eyot on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 22:40

    Well done Cllr Linda Kelly.I’m amazed anyone has the guts to stand up to Chairman Pipe. Watch out though the Hackney Labour Mafia will be out to get her



  15. Andrew Boff on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 23:13

    @NewsFromNowhere – It happens http://bit.ly/kPUdw0



  16. The Great Smell Of Brute on Friday 20 May 2011 at 00:15

    I don’t often find myself supporting a Tory, but I certainly agree with Andrew Boff’s assessment of Jule’s Pipe’s leadership as ‘Stalinist’, given the extent to which the Labour Party whip has been used unnecessarily in the Council chamber.



  17. Luke Akehurst on Friday 20 May 2011 at 00:53

    Can we have a bit less bandying round of the term “Stalinist”? Stalin murdered millions of people, threw millions more in the Gulag prison camps and enslaved entire nations. I don’t think that’s an appropriate analogy for the current politics of Hackney Council.

    In the Labour Party we, like all the main parties, have a system where our group of councillors debates issues privately, sometimes very vigorously, then holds a democratic vote. The whole group agrees to go along to full council and support the majority position agreed at the group meeting. Councillors can break the whip and vote against the group, but when they do so they can risk losing the rights involved in being a group member, because if you don’t want to abide by collective group decisions you can’t be involved in shaping them.

    Linda Kelly seems unable to accept that her colleagues in group wanted someone else, Susan Thomas to be speaker. Some people felt it was unfair for Linda to get the job twice and someone else should get a chance, some were alienated by her public disagreement with our policy on the council budget, others just thought Susan was a better candidate.

    Most people would not walk away from the Party that had helped them be a councillor three times just because they did not win election to a ceremonial position they had already held once before. Most people would certainly not join the political party that was actually pushing the policy of cuts they had recently called for a more extreme policy of opposition to.

    Switching party seems an extreme and rather petulant over-reaction.



  18. LukeW on Friday 20 May 2011 at 01:36

    How can this women sign a statement on a Trotskyite website and paper “Hackney Unites” one month, and be aTory the next? At least one was lies. Probably both!



  19. BarryB on Friday 20 May 2011 at 05:58

    Only someone who has read and absorbed Stalins Collected Works could describe Hackney Unites as “Trotskyite”.

    The obvious answer to LukeWs question is that in between signing the statement and joining the Tories Councillor Kelly lost the Speaker election. Rather than accept the vote and possibly stand next year for the same post she threw a wobbly and joined the Tories. Sad.



  20. Jed Keenan on Friday 20 May 2011 at 10:44

    To the displeasure over the block vote of the Mayor and Cabinet in Group against Cllr Kelly over her public opposition to the policy decision of the Group not to set a ‘needs budget’ (see on Wikipedia From each according to his ability, to each according to his need) has to be added petulance towards the rest of the Group Members for voting against Cllr Kelly for the reasons detailed by Cllr Akehurst – support for Cllr Fajana-Thomas, Vice-Chair of the HN&SN Constituency Labour Party as well as long experience chairing many other voluntary governing bodies, and strong opposition to public opposition to the decisions of the very same Group Members by Cllr Kelly.

    Crap happens and Cllr Kelly is hurt, but that is no justification for hurting others. Trust has been broken; trust in her by Group, trust by Branch Members that reselected her as the Labour Party candidate, and the trust placed by Electors in Leabridge, such as myself, in her and Cllrs Oguzkanli and Rathbone to represent our democratic will. As I say, crap happens but then again Cllr Kelly has hurt me and many others and for political reasons can not apologise, and so for as much as I am angry at being hurt I have to empathise with Cllr Kelly because added to her public displeasure and petulance must now be added shame.



  21. Adam on Friday 20 May 2011 at 20:25

    According to Luke Akehurst:

    “In the Labour Party we, like all the main parties, have a system where our group of councillors debates issues privately, sometimes very vigorously, then holds a democratic vote. The whole group agrees to go along to full council and support the majority position agreed at the group meeting.”

    Yeah, that’s called ‘democratic centralism.’ Leninist and Stalinist.

    I don’t agree with calling Hackney Labour ‘Stalinist’ and I think some people throwing that term around in this thread probably don’t even know what that means. But Luke’s defence certainly doesn’t do much to help the anti-Stalinist cause.

    It’s a shame that we’re basically stuck having to choose between two equally worthless political parties. Neither side has any right to take the moral high ground. If Hackney Council was controlled by the Tories, it would be the same story all over again.



  22. Andrew Boff on Friday 20 May 2011 at 20:47

    Adam,
    If Hackney Council was controlled by the Tories, it would be the same story all over again.
    No it wouldn’t. For one thing we would give people the chance to remove the position of Mayor and introduce a system where the direction of the Council was controlled by elected Councillors. We would localise decision making by giving Councillors a budget to be spent in their wards and we would rely on the free press to disseminate information rather than use the self promoting “Hackney Today”.



  23. Adam on Friday 20 May 2011 at 21:03

    @Andrew – sure thing.



  24. jay on Friday 20 May 2011 at 21:13

    i worry about any development that gives Andrew Boff hope that a breakthrough for the Tories in Hackney is on the way. it’s not fair on Andrew and not fair on the people in and around a tiny area surrounding Broadway Market that have to deal with a new burst of his directionless activism. This is not a breakthrough for the Tories. It’s the usual sad defection story involving someone with no politics. Nothing has changed. The tories are nowhere in Hackney and Andrew is still a finely tuned, precision engineered vote repelling machine.



  25. Andrew Boff on Friday 20 May 2011 at 22:53

    @jay When it gets abusive – it’s working! Thank you.



  26. Hakon Eyot on Friday 20 May 2011 at 23:17

    Boff the comments on the Ginger blog are Hilarious!!!

    @NewsFromNowhere – It happens http://bit.ly/kPUdw0



  27. Luke Akehurst on Friday 20 May 2011 at 23:25

    Hi Adam

    what I have described isn’t Leninist “democratic centralism”. If it is then the Tories and LDs are also Leninists because all the main political parties expect their group members and MPs to vote with the collective group decision, All I’ve described is a system of party political groups and whips, which would only cease to exist if all councillors were independents.

    The definining characteristic of Leninist “democratic centralism” is “That all decisions of higher bodies shall be absolutely binding on lower bodies and on all Party members”. This is not the case in any of the main UK parties: Labour councillors in Hackney decide our own group policies collectively but locally amongst ourselves, they are not dictated to us by the national or regional party.



  28. Adam on Friday 20 May 2011 at 23:41

    Hi Luke – I’d argue that the spirit is the same, if not the specifics.



  29. noseyparker on Saturday 21 May 2011 at 06:49

    I too am offended by all these accusations that Mayor Jules Pipe is acting in a Stalinist manner:

    http://tiny.cc/PipeNorthKoreanStyle



  30. NoopyDoopy on Sunday 22 May 2011 at 10:35

    Hooray



  31. NoopyDoopy on Sunday 22 May 2011 at 11:29

    @BarryB

    She should have gone to the Liberal Democrats..

    But they’re so unpopular on a national level that she never considered the more obvious move.



  32. BarryB on Sunday 22 May 2011 at 11:48

    Im sure she considered all her options.



  33. Matt Woods on Sunday 22 May 2011 at 13:00

    Far be it from me, as a Conservative to intrude on Labour’s private grief, but I do think it’s a bit puzzling that someone can issue a statement attacking our party one week, then be joining us the next.

    Local politics all over the country is full of examples of councillors making gravity-defying switches of allegiance, (most of them catalysed by being passed over for a plum job or place on a junket, and following a chucking out of the toys from the pram). That probably shows that Hackney council, like many others, is a little club of people in it for themselves, for whom political allegiance is a means to an end- getting elected and getting their hands on all the trappings.

    While it’s nice to have another “Conservative” councillor in the People’s Republic of Hackney, I can’t imagine Linda’s going to be joining me in calling for a slashing of housing benefits, or pressing for cuts in council spending, or pressing for the (antonymically-named) “Learning” Trust to be sacked and more free schools to be set up.

    We need power to be devolved to an even lower level- ward by ward, street by street. Urban Parishes, run by people who care about their communities and not by the parties, could be the way forward.

    It isn’t just Hackney Labour that’s a farce, it’s HACKNEY POLITICS that’s a farce.



  34. Seamie mulready on Friday 27 May 2011 at 20:46

    Stop using the terms Stalinist and Trotskyite you silly silly people.

    “People’s repuclic of hackney” – grow up.



  35. hey on Monday 30 May 2011 at 21:10

    @seamie, Does the Truth hurt?



  36. Seamie mulready on Tuesday 31 May 2011 at 18:34

    not really – my IQ is above 12



  37. Leabridge resident on Friday 3 June 2011 at 22:13

    I may not agree with Linda Kelly’s decision to join the tories but I totally understand it.
    Hackney Labour is like a macho stalinist administration: 90% of the seats from less than 50% of the vote!
    They do what they want, afford an ‘internal’ opposition which is just a farce, have many unnamed ‘fronts’ in Hackney (it’s Labour alright but they won’t tell you) like the ‘Clapton conference’ and other ‘neighbourhood groups’. They simply despise every single dissenting voice, be it Tory, LD, Green or real Labour (you know, the ones who were supposed to care for people). If Pipe and his cronies were Tories, would you be able to tell the difference? Really?



  38. Hackney mug on Friday 3 June 2011 at 22:32

    Hackney citizen – subject for investigation (and you all readers / internet users): Labour councillors addresses were all published when they stood for election.
    Not only does it show that many do not live in the ward the ‘represent’ but if you look up the property’s value, using sites like zoopla.co.uk/house-prices/ you’d find how much they’re worth, e.g. on Sutton Square, a key Labour agent’s house for a mere 950,000…



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