The Labour Party has picked NHS manager and physiotherapist Daniel Yates to stand for Brighton and Hove City Council in one of the party’s safest seats.
Mr Yates was chosen to stand in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean at a selection meeting held in St George’s Hall, in Newick Road, Moulsecoomb, yesterday morning (Saturday 25 October). He will stand alongside sitting Labour councillors Anne Meadows and Mo Marsh.
Mr Yates stood as a parliamentary candidate in East Worthing and Shoreham in 2001 and 2005 where Tim Loughton is the Conservative MP.
He is also credited with being a prime mover behind the creation of the citywide Brighton, Hove and District Labour Party in 2012. It was formed from a merger of the three separate constituency parties.
His partner Karen Barford is standing for Labour in Queen’s Park at the local elections in May next year.
The vacancy in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean arose when one of the three sitting councillors, Leigh Farrow, 59, was deselected after a disciplinary hearing.
Councillor Farrow was found to have sworn at a colleague, Councillor Chaun Wilson, in a private meeting at Hove Town Hall in June. He said that he swore in her presence rather than at her.
Only two members of the Moulsecoomb and Bevendean Branch Labour Party were present because the branch has been suspended until the outcome of an investigation by Labour’s regional director Malcolm Powers.
The branch is accused of meeting to discuss Councillor Farrow’s case, against party advice, and then commenting publicly on it.
The branch supported Councillor Farrow who was told that he would not be allowed to stand at the local elections next May.
Branch members were told that it was also suspended because of a series of leaks of confidential Labour Party information and communications to the media.
Congratulations to @danieljyates on joining the @bhlabour team for the 2015 local elections as a candidate in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean.
— Cllr Warren Morgan (@warrenmorgan) October 26, 2014
@warrenmorgan @bhlabour thanks! Excited about joining such a great team in the ward and across the city so unexpectedly. #labourbrighton — Daniel Yates (@danieljyates) October 26, 2014
I wonder which one of this parnership will make a faux pas?
Shocking opportunist and I hope the residents of Moulescoomb and Bevendean see him off at the elections.
Dan Wilson withdrew as a candidate because of the “toxic” situation in that ward that sees a sitting cllr barred from seeking re-election and the ward party suspended so they had nothing to do with this man’s selection it seems!
Squalid, I call it, and this man clearly has no pride as he seeks power for himself regardless and before problems in that ward have been resolved. I can’t respect such a candidate.
There was only one candidate to choose from on Saturday. Only one person cold blooded enough to go over the heads of the suspended branch members and feeling absolutely no moral compulsion to stand aside from the ward turmoil until it was resolved.
I wonder how this absurdity is even legal, frankly.
Do the public get any say in the selection of their candidates? I did not even know this was happening and I live opposite St. George’s Hall. Clearly the underhanded way in which these selections/deselections have been handled without the knowledge of the majority of the local electorate, and then expecting the local electorate to vote for them as a result …. I don’t like underhanded transactions and if the public are barred from selection and deselection processes, that says a lot about what they think of us as the electorate fodder, and it will say a lot when we come to vote at the polls in the very same building!!!!! I bet we do not even see the new candidate until voting time.