Ilford South Labour Party

Mike Gapes, MP for Ilford South, spoke to a meeting of local Labour Party members last Thursday night on the inhumane detention of 300,000 Tamil men, women & children by the Sri Lankan government. He will be supporting a resolution to the Labour Party Conference supporting the call by the National Union of Journalists to allow journalists to enter Sri Lanka to report on what is happening in the camps. British Tamils need to know what has happened to their relatives. The resolution also urges the government to press for the withdrawal of favoured trading status for Sri Lanka, which is currently being reconsidered by the European Union, until aid charities and journalists have free access to the country.

Two former Labour Councillors who have been deselected by the London Region of the Labour Party have defected to the Lib Dems. In doing so they betray those who voted for them because they were Labour candidates, their Labour colleagues locally and the Labour values they professed to hold.

Barbara White, speaking for the Local Government Committee of Redbridge Labour Party, commented:

“What has happened has nothing to do with the local Labour Party so I am puzzled and bitterly disappointed that these two councillors have turned their backs on their colleagues. Not only have they turned their backs on their colleagues they have treated the residents who supported them very badly. Did Cllrs Satnam Singh and Fiaz Noor change their political views overnight or have they been cheating on their supporters for a long time pretending to be something that they are not?

These two councillors have worked well for the residents of Redbridge for many years and how sad that because things didn’t go their way for once they now seem hell bent on destruction and they have thrown their core values out of the window.

Like many others I am saddened that people who you would expect to be pillars of society are adopting such a cavalier attitude and hurting those around them.”