Kirklees councillor Ammar Anwar resigns during council meeting as Labour mayor sits stony-faced – but party panicking behind scenes after reports of further impending resignations

Kirklees councillor Ammar Anwar resigned from the Labour party last night, delivering his tearful resignation speech to a council meeting as senior Labour figures, including the mayor, sat stony-faced.

Labour’s control of the council is now in danger. Nineteen councillors had already issued a statement rejecting Starmer’s support for Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians and Anwar’s resignation is thought to be just the first of a string of councillors quitting, triggering panic among Labour officials who are said to be meeting behind the scenes to try to stem the tide.

As Taj Ali, who published video of Anwar’s speech, pointed out, Labour has already lost control of four councils – Burnley, Oxford, Norwich and Hastings – because of the complicity of Starmer and his front-bench cohort for Israel’s genocide, forced transfer and crimes against humanity:

'My 5-year-old daughter saw images of what was going on in Gaza. She said to me, "dad, what have you done about the videos you were watching?"' pic.twitter.com/kx9edDVKPd

— Taj Ali (@Taj_Ali1) January 17, 2024

While Anwar was comforted by a colleague at the end of his speech, the last few seconds of the clip shows hard-faced Labour figures

SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.

If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.