Veteran councillor quits 'immoral' Labour Party
A highly respected veteran councillor has quit the Labour Party accusing it of "losing its moral compass" under the leadership of Keir Starmer. John Warmisham, who has been a Salford councillor for 34 years resigned his membership last night.
His decision will be a major blow to the local party as well as an embarrassment for the national one. In a letter to Salford's City Mayor, Paul Dennett, explaining his decision his says: "I feel I have no option but to resign from the Labour Party, a party that through this current national leadership has lost its moral compass and no longer represents the communities that it was set up to serve."
Councillor Warmisham, 66, became a councillor in 1991 and went on to hold key posts including chairman of education, then chair of housing and chair of social services. He is currently chairman of the city's licensing and development panel.
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In his letter to Mr Dennett, he adds: "Cutting the welfare benefits to the disabled, the sick, the poor and the vulnerable, whilst committing billions of pounds to arms and supporting wars is immoral, as well as government ministers pushing pensioners, families and children further into poverty.
"This in no way reflects on you or the Labour Group who have stuck and continue to do so, to the socialist principles that the Labour Party was founded on.
"I will continue to serve my current term of office out as an Independent Socialist and represent the people of Pendleton and Charlestown Ward, who I care for very much, in the city I love."
Flying in the face of Labour's national policy to cut Winter Fuel benefit to some pensioners, Salford City Council diverted some of its funds to make sure all Salford people who were entitled to it in the city received it.
Politically Coun Warmisham is on the left of the party, as is Mr Dennett, and the city's MP, Rebecca Long Bailey, who was deputy to former Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
Councillor Warmisham had already announced that he intended to step down from local politics and not seek re-election in 2026.
Born in Higher Broughton, Salford, Councillor Warmisham, lives in the city, in nearby Broughton Park. He has been a key member of the ruling Labour Group in the city for three decades, but has a reputation for speaking his mind even if it clashes with local or national policy.
His background is steeped in the trade union movement. At age 16, he became a shop steward for apprentices working for the Manchester Direct Works Department. He was a union rep for 16 years.
For 12 years he has served on the European Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, and became leader of the UK delegation. A life-long Manchester United fan, he switched his allegiance to FC United after the Reds were taken over by the Glazer brothers.
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Some of that, Hill said, was about a greater recognition of the level of external threat and initiatives for greater integration, by teaching first aid in schools or encouraging more teenagers to join school cadet forces, a recommendation of the defence review. 'What you need to do is get people engaged in all kinds of different ways in support of their communities,' she said. Hill said she saw that deindustrialisation and a rise of inequality in Russia and the US had contributed to the rise in national populism in both countries. Politicians in Britain, or elsewhere, 'have to be much more creative and engage people where they are at' as part of a 'national effort', she said. If this seems far away from a conventional view of defence, that's because it is, though Hill also argues that traditional conceptions of war are changing as technology evolves and with it what makes a potent force. 'People keep saying the British army has the smallest number of troops since the Napoleonic era. Why is the Napoleonic era relevant? Or that we have fewer ships than the time of Charles II. The metrics are all off here,' she said. 'The Ukrainians are fighting with drones. Even though they have no navy, they sank a third of the Russian Black Sea fleet.' Her aim, therefore, is not just to be critical but to propose solutions. Hill recalled that a close family friend, on hearing that she had taken on the defence review, had told her: ''Don't tell us how shite we are, tell us what we can do, how we can fix things.' People understand that we have a problem and that the world has changed.'
