Labour councillor Birgit Miller has resigned from the party to sit as an Independent member of Brighton and Hove City Council.
She won her seat – one of three in Goldsmid ward in Hove – at the local elections in 2023 and served as a member of the council’s cabinet until May.
She was replaced as the cabinet member for culture, heritage and tourism by Councillor David McGregor, instead becoming the deputy chair of the council’s People Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
Councillor Miller said: “I’m very sad to have to announce that, with immediate effect, I will be representing the residents of Goldsmid Ward as an independent councillor.
“I no longer have faith in the leadership of the current Labour administration and, under these circumstances, cannot sit as a member of this administration.
“I am also resigning my membership of the Labour Party with immediate effect.
“I continue to believe in the values of the Co-operative and Labour parties and remain fully committed to supporting both national parties and Andy Burnham as Prime Minister.”
Councillor Miller is the second Labour councillor in her ward to have resigned from the Labour group to sit as an Independent.
The former mayor of Brighton and Hove, Jackie O’Quinn, quit the party in February after having been a member for almost 50 years.
She sat as an Independent after resigning the Labour whip but later, at the start of May, she resigned from the council.
In June, Green candidate Nadia Barton Ahmad won the seat in the by-election that followed former Councillor O’Quinn’s departure.
The by-election was the seventh to have taken place since the local elections in May 2023, with another scheduled for September after Labour councillor Milla Gauge stepped down.
All eight by-elections followed the resignation of a councillor who had been elected as a Labour candidate.
The Greens have won three of the four most recent by-elections. Labour held the others, with one still to take place.
And, in addition to by-election losses, three Labour councillors, other than Birgit Miller, have become Independents since the local elections – Jackie O’Quinn, Ty Galvin and Bruno De Oliveira.
Councillor De Oliveira has since joined the Greens while Councillor Galvin was placed under investigation by Labour after a complaint although no details have been made public. He called it “vexatious”.
After the local elections in 2023, Labour held 38 of the 54 seats on the council – with 28 required for a majority – while the Greens held seven.
Now, Labour has 31 seats and the Greens have 11.
Councillor Miller is understood to have been trying to help a resident in her ward with a housing matter over the past few months.
She lost her seat in the cabinet within weeks of taking up the case although it is unclear whether the two events are connected.
At least some in the Labour Party seems to have integrity and thinks of the residents and not their own careers well dun and good luck.
Thank you for your support!
What a wonderful person standing up for what’s right and for sticking to her own morals and judgment. God bless you and good luck .
Thank you so much for your kind words and support!
Thank you so much for your support!
I suspect the leader of the council places a higher level of importance upon councillors towing the national party line than representing the needs and wishes of the electorate. If this is the case, the exodus is unsurprising.
This be why look up Milla Gauge Resigns After Months of Unanswered Safeguarding Questions in the PSHEbrighton
Oh dear… What a shame…. Never mind….
It would be great – as with any news story – that we could be told the facts.
In this case what were the real reasons, and the political differences, that resulted in this resignation?
Policy or ideology differences, and budget constraints, can indeed set councillors at odds, but we need to hear that detail.
The last person to resign from the national Labour government, is now re appointed as chancellor. (Not a job anyone would want right now, when the economy is f*cked.)
But let’s stick to honest reporting, in these difficult times.
A great loss, Birgit has been great support to our community of Conway to Livingston High and low rise properties. Always came along and supported initiatives and programmes of works.
I’m still a Goldsmid councillor, just not for Labour anymore. I will continue to do my best to support you and your fellow Conway to Livingstone residents. Thank you for your kind words!
She’s still a councillor who she’s not gone!
Muten next – to the Monster Raving Loony Party, obviously
Is it known what principles this councillor has actually resigned over? I’ve just seen their response to ‘Bash back’- the trans activist group that terrorises women, demanding they shut up, and vandalised the brighton centre, so that sadly suggests shes been complicit in enabling aggressors and failing to protect our cities CYP, women and girls- or made to toe a BHCC line. What a systematic failure in leadership at BHCC.
Also Labour council not enough is being done to support and protect the local Jewish community… ironically there are 3 active (and one closed) synagogues in Goldsmid Ward.
Why are they all falling out with Bella?
I would imagine is because what she says in public and how she behaves in public is totally different to what she does in cabinet and behind the scenes.
If that is the case she’s going against the current PM Andy burnham’s strong stand with the Hillsborough victim’s and post office victim’s.
That evolved round openness honesty and transparent and not covering up misconduct and failings. That is a waste of public funds and is probably exactly why essential services are all going and council tax is going up and Brighton and Hove City Council has to borrow more funds from the government.
Birgit Miller “I continue to believe in the values of the Co-operative and Labour parties and remain fully committed to supporting both national parties and Andy Burnham as Prime Minister.”
That be why other councillors have gone which would mean there will be more to follow.
it is the double standards and the othe dishonesty.
The Cabinet is backfiring and Sankey’s council is imploding. Only Reform can save us now.
Reform couldn’t run a bath so if that’s what you think will save you, privatisation of the NHS by the likes of the conservative parties wacho regects … Good luck donut.
Just be careful we don’t get a green majority by the back door, we are still recovering from the damage they did when last in office and who can ever forgive them for the i360 fiasco
I’ll never forgive the tories who also voted for the huge loan.
The greens never had a majority on the council.
That’s how Phelim got in!
I’m glad Cllr Miller is now sitting as an independent. From what I’ve seen of her she is a good councillor who cares about her ward.
The local Labour Leadership does seem to have an issue with challenge and questions – particularly in public. From what I understand their position is that policy is decided behind closed doors by a small group within the local Party – and then they expect all the Labour members to toe the line and whip the votes.
Given that they introduced a Cabinet system – where the Cabinet itself is drawn entirely from Labour and Scrutiny Committees are also all chaired by Labour (rather than opposition as other councils with Cabinet systems do) – it effectively removes any public debate or scrutiny. I’ve personally seen the Leadership take a similar approach to shutting down and dismissing questions from residents on issues that matter to them.
The leadership justifies this by saying that it is how to make progress on issues – but in my view it is leading to some really poor policy and people feeling dismissed. Maybe if they allowed more voices to be heard and policy to be debated in public we would have better governance in the City, people would feel they had a responsive council who cares about their views?
This isn’t an anti-Labour point. I think the local party should be looking at what Andy Burnham has been saying. He has been a long standing critic of the whipping system, arguing that it concentrates power in too few hands and weakens the role of elected MPs. I think you could say exactly the same about Brighton and Hove, just replacing councillors for MPs.
Something has seriously gone wrong with local Labour.
It’s all down to Ms Sankey and her echo chamber of idiots
You smell that…? that’s Bella’s career going up in smoke
Keep an eye out for the user known as ‘Benjamin™’ to appear on this thread, likely by Monday morning. It is telling that the most aggressive defender of the Cabinet on the Milla Gauge article—who spent days obsessively attacking dissenters and protecting the administration’s reputation—is currently nowhere to be seen here.
When they inevitably surface, watch the narrative. They will likely arrive with a fresh set of ‘talking points’ that align perfectly with whatever the Cabinet decides to say on this new resignation. It is becoming increasingly obvious that we aren’t dealing with a concerned resident, but an institutional proxy who waits for their briefing before they can participate in the debate.
My advice to other residents: don’t take the bait. Don’t fall into the ‘pedantry trap’ they use to derail scrutiny. They don’t want an honest debate; they want to exhaust you with grammar policing and deflection so you stop talking about the systemic failures of this Council. Recognize the pattern: they only appear when they have a script to defend the leadership. Don’t engage—just highlight the pattern.
Been enjoying the sunshine and hot weather, but nice to know you think about me often, Jo! Putting Jo’s interesting AI generated libel to one side, and she’s been insisting on hearing my opinion, my thoughts are that there’s not much to add here, because there’s little detail provided beyond the statement. Was it linked to Milla’s recent resignation? Wider policy? Or something completely different?
The best we can do is speculate. Billy articulated this well. Birgit’s comments give us some insights into where she feels the personal grievances lie, and if she would like to, she could clarify more specifically.
I am wondering if Ms Sankey will be spitting feathers over this resignation too and gibbering about “broken promises” as with the Gauge resignation. Don’t worry about the resident troll. He’ll be in need of a new bridge very soon at this rate.
Since you’re so quick to analyze everyone else’s contributions, I’m curious about your own history here. What year did you actually start posting on Brighton Hope News? And, looking back at our last message, do you honestly think we reached the point of ‘then,’ or are we still just avoiding the core issue
Thanks, I find challenging perspectives interesting, even if it does invite colourful language. I’ve enjoyed a lot of exchanges on various topics over the years for the last 6-7 years, helps to recognise patterns in debating strategy, and the common pitfalls like fallacious reasoning.
Took me a minute to understand what you’re referring to – that the same things come up as discussion? Pretty much across councils, you always see the same sort of topics. Even government follows the same sort of patterns, every time there’s a new party in place the first order of business is to undo what the last party did. Something worth reflecting on, especially on places like here, is that we’re the vocal minority. We rarely hear from the passive reader, and there are many people out there who simply do not care either way!
There are some aspects that are systemic, which cannot be solved by a local council alone. There’s others that are so divisive that they get so emotionally spicy that it loses all sense of constructiveness; we can refer to the previous article for an excellent example. Also, in my experience, it’s difficult to debate without making it personal.
I appreciate your candor. Since we are on the subject of patterns and transparency, I have two specific questions that would help clarify the context of your analysis for the rest of us.
First, while you mention a 6–7 year history, your engagement on Brighton Hope News appears to align specifically with the legal and administrative issues that began surfacing around December 2022. Second, the style of your contributions is consistently structured with a level of legalistic precision that suggests a professional background in law or formal advocacy.
For the sake of open debate, would you clarify if those observations are accurate? and, if so, how do you reconcile a claim of long-term observation with the fact that your focus appears to be a reactive defense of the current administration’s recent crises? a direct answer would be helpful so we can all understand the context from which you are arguing.
Certainly, I can answer those, and I also appreciate the more genial tone. My introduction aligns with some personal things in 2020 which I don’t intend to share, so it’s not an accurate observation. The second one is a bit closer to the mark though, one of my qualifications is in Law, although I do not have a direct professional background in it.
Interestingly, I’ve had a similar discussion before regarding how position myself in discussions. Generally speaking, I would gently say that comments here tend to be adversarial toward the council, regardless of who’s in charge, by their very nature, look back to articles when it the makeup of the council was different to see this in action.
Many times I engage with people, it’s because they speak from a perspective that may be lacking information, nuance, or being presented in a way that demonstrates bad faith dialogue. These are the more interesting conversations to have, because we can challenge the premise of why they think that way. Conversely, simply saying “I agree” isn’t very insightful or interesting to read, so I rarely reply to people in this way.
I can see why that would seem like reflexive defence, but it’s more about testing someone’s logic holds up under scrutiny. That’s doesn’t always have to be contrarian, previous article is a good example of that. It is probably reasonable to say we all are agreed that the protection of children is a good thing, and the subject is a complex one and those nuances are were we have differing thoughts. Through a high quality discussion, it can reveal gaps in information or logic that benefit everyone reading. One person presented some research, and that improved my knowledge on the subject, and opened up an interesting tangent, for example.
Admittingly, that doesn’t always happen; people can get very upset when their thoughts are challenged in this way, and as you’ve seen, it can sometimes devolve into something not very useful.
I appreciate the confirmation regarding your background; it certainly clarifies the source of your adversarial style.
You frame your behavior as ‘testing logic,’ but for many residents, it comes across as disruptive gatekeeping designed to silence genuine concerns by focusing on pedantry and academic abstraction. It is a recurring pattern that your contributions align consistently with the tenure of the current Council leadership and appear only when that leadership is under fire.
Many of us are observing the current instability within the Council, and I suspect we will see further resignations in the coming weeks. At this stage, the readers have enough context to decide for themselves whether you are participating in good faith or acting as an institutional proxy. I have no interest in further ‘logic tests,’ so this will be my final contribution to this exchange. The floor is yours, should you feel the need to have the last word.
Oh, I’m confident you’ll have further things to say down the line and I’ll continue to engage where I see fit. But I am concerned when you say you have “no interest” in your points being tested or challenged. That suggests a reluctance to have your ideas examined, which isn’t conducive to healthy debate. I hope you might reflect on that privately.
As for the AI-generated claims: I’ve already explained why they don’t match reality in the previous article, so I won’t repeat myself. It’s a genuine shame you’re not interested in accuracy, truth, or nuanced discussion, preferring to comment on the person, rather than the topic. Anyway, I’m sure this conversation will come up again in another six months like it usually does!
He should focus on his many community organisation roles over in East Brighton….
If he is like this here, imagine all the plotting he does in those community organisations, watch this one, he needs a wash.
Finally we have someone with a moral compass that we can respect