Anti-semitism and bullying drove a Brighton Labour councillor Anne Meadows to join the Conservatives, she said today.
Councillor Meadows is married to a man of Jewish descent and has spoken out about anti-semitism in the past.
The sun was shining and so pleased to be a part of the welcome to Cllr Anne Meadows into the @Conservatives Party this morning making Conservatives the largest party on @BrightonHoveCC @BHConservatives @KTConservatives @TonyJanio pic.twitter.com/qmEGPlsKGb
— Steve Bell (@SKJBell) February 20, 2019
But Brighton Kemptown Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle said on Twitter: “This is nothing but a barefaced career move from Anne.
“She wasn’t selected to be a candidate for Labour at the upcoming election, so she has betrayed the party for her own self preservation.”
This is nothing but a barefaced career move from Anne, she wasn’t selected to be a candidate for Labour at the upcoming election, so she has betrayed the party for her own self preservation. https://t.co/Ov1pXDRHDC
— Lloyd Russell-Moyle (@lloyd_rm) February 20, 2019
Councillor Meadows said: “It is typical that a Momentum MP would be miffed but I have been troubled by things happening to me in the Labour Party.”
The 61-year-old added: “And at my young age, how could anyone think it’s a career move?
“This is obviously a shock but I am tired of being a victim.
“The Labour Party is not one I recognise any more and, with the Green Party looking more and more right wing compared to the new Momentum party, the Conservative Party was a logical option for me.”
As a longstanding advocate of building more council houses and flats in Brighton and Hove, Councillor Meadows, who chairs the council’s Housing and New Homes Committee, added: “I am confident that we (the Conservatives) can pursue my goal of more homes for local people.”
Labour council leader Daniel Yates, who also represents Moulsecoomb and Bevendean ward, said: “We are obviously extremely disappointed by the decision of Councillor Anne Meadows to leave the Labour Party and join the Conservatives.
“Councillor Meadows has given many years of valuable service as a Labour councillor, and most recently as chair of the Housing and New Homes Committee, and much good work has been achieved since May 2015 which has benefited many in the city.
“We appreciate Councillor Meadows has concerns about some aspects of the direction of the Labour Party which she has expressed previously.
“However, unfortunately this move at this time will only give support to the Conservative Party when it clearly does not deserve support due to the austerity the Tory government has heaped on residents in our city and the Brexit chaos it has unleashed on the country.”
So wasnt it a career move when you ran to become an M.P Mr Russell-Moyle.
Thats all we have now is career politicians anyway.
‘As a longstanding advocate of building more council houses and flats in Brighton and Hove, Councillor Meadows, who chairs the council’s Housing and New Homes Committee, added: “I am confident that we (the Conservatives) can pursue my goal of more homes for local people.” ‘
… having been the party that flogged all the housing stock off on the cheap, in order to bribe people to vote for us.
People shouldn’t be allowed to switch sides without an election. This woman should resign from the council and then stand again. That way she’d be supported – or not – by those who vote for the party she truly represents.
She claims to have suffered “bullying” because of who her husband is. I don’t buy that. We hear a lot nowadays about senseless “prejudice”, and I agree that where it really happens it needs to be dealt with, but it seems to me that too many individuals of every “protected group” are merely capitalising on the current “victim” culture and reporting so-called “attacks” that never really happened.
Like most of my fellow countrymen and women, I treat people as people. We don’t CARE whether they’re jewish, moslem, black, white or green. Behaviour is the only thing that matters.
Decent people are decent people whichever group they belong to, and all groups have their bigots and trouble-makers. We can’t judge an entire group based on the behaviour of one or a few individuals.
Could it be that this councillor was “bullied” because of the way she behaves, rather than who her husband is? I don’t know the woman, so can’t answer that question, but it seems like a possibility to me.
Can anybody follow the spurious logic of your last paragraph? You say that you do not know the woman, and so cannot annswer your own question – and then proceed to answer it. Which pub stool did you send your message from?
As for people voting for a Party, it is not that, but people voting for the candidate they think best. Otherwise why does each Party go through a selection procedure for the candidate thought likely to do best?
Fact is people do not vote according to Party. All turns upon those not alligned to a Party but who are termed “floating voters”.
“Otherwise why does each Party go through a selection procedure for the candidate thought likely to do best?”
As ex-Labour, can vouch for the fact that the selection procedure is pretty much fixed by the shouty loudest people. From your local councillor in Brighton to the selection process that will see lots of really good MPs possibly being deselected by their local party before the next election and being replaced by those approved by Labour head folk.
The “selection procedure” is all fixed. For Labour, I know, and I assume also the Tories. We get who the parties want us to have and most vote on a tribal basis so they get away with it. Even if it means they are basically turkeys voting for Christmas because they don’t see beyond the tribal label. Labour isn’t for the working people any more. It’s for Corbyn and his friends to play out ideas they had smoking weed and talking in dingy flats in the 70s and the damage they have done to the party, from gassroots level to Parliament, could not have be made up.
So leaving a so-called anti-Semitic party run by a lifelong anti-racist campaigner to join one with a massive Islamophobia problem and members who use words like “Picanninnie” and “Bongo Bongo land”. Slow clap.