Defections since 2002 (L-W)

Continuing 'London Borough Politics' listings of all currently known defections of Cllrs since the last Borough elections in 2002. As before, additions/corrections welcome.

Again this list excludes Cllrs who temporarily defected and then returned home.

Merton

Cllr Horatio Cheng (Raynes Park) defected from the Tories only two months after his election in 2002. He applied to be a member of the Labour Group … but they (unusually but commendably in defection cases) required him to serve a year as an independent to test his new loyalties. He consistently voted with Labour in the Council Chamber … and they admitted him to the Group in July 2003.

Cllr Mike Fitzgerald (Abbey) was elected as a Labour Cllr but defected last month to become an Independent. He was reported as saying “I wasn't happy with the way the selections for the council elections in May were being done” … following the deselections of sitting Cllrs Mickey Spacey (St Helier), Mary Dunn (Lavender Fields), and Mike Tilcock (Pollards Hill). It’s rumoured that Fitzgerald might join a new ‘Pension Action Alliance' party … being set up by former Labour Leader Geoff Smith to oppose Labour at the 2006 elections. Spacey’s deselection has been attributed to some bizarre performances in the Council Chamber … including a call for the legalisation of all drugs, and a period as a low rent Jeremy Clarkson trying to out-petrolhead the Tories as Cabinet member for Transport.

Newham

See seperate post on 27th September.

Redbridge

Cllr Suresh Kumar (Valentines) was elected in a byelection as a Tory … but continuing scandal claims have led to his becoming an independent. Labour claimed vote fixing in relation to the huge number of proxy votes in the byelection ... which Kumar won by just nine votes. In 2001, Kumar had featured as one of the Mirror’s ‘dirty dozen’ of Tory candidates, largely as a result of his record of company liquidation with debts of over half a million … and then appeared in a bankruptcy notice in the local paper.

Richmond

Cllr Douglas Orchard (South Twickenham) defected in March 2005 from the Conservatives to become the UKIP Parliamentary Candidate in Twickenham. He is now the only UKIP Cllr in London … given that the two UKIP London Assembly members first defected to Kilroy-Silk’s Veritas ego-trip, and now have their own ‘One London’ grouping. Orchard was first elected in 1994, and was the Tories first Richmond Mayor when they regained control of the Council in 2002. Orchard had stood for the Tory nomination as the local parliamentary candidate, but explained his defection by claiming “I was prompted to join the United Kingdom Independence Party by a Liberal Democrat Councillor who raised the issue of the allegation against me of being racist when I was mayor. I informed him that I had never been a racist but was a nationalist, a patriot”. He got only 1.5% of the vote in the general election

Southwark

Cllr Kenny Mizzi (South Bermondsey) defected from the Lib Dems to the Tories six months after his election in 2002 … having defected the other way in 1997. He was executive member for social services at the time, and defended his previous Lib Dem loyalty saying “sometimes you have to support policies you don't agree with when you're in politics”. (© Stunning Revelations volume one). Mizzi is now a Tory Cllr for a ward with one of the lowest Tory votes in London … just 6% in 2002 compared to the LibDems’ 62%.

Cllr Tony Ritchie (Camberwell Green) was elected as Labour but is now suspended from the Group and sitting as an Independent … whilst awaiting a (Standards) Adjudication Panel hearing later this month into allegations that he clocked someone who was harassing him at a community meeting. Ritchie is a former Leader of both Southwark and of the London Fire Authority. Ken Livingstone used his powers as Mayor to veto Ritchie’s re-election to the Fire Authority in 2000 … they are reported to share a very longstanding hatred going back to the days of the ratecapping battles of the 1980s. There’s nothing like old comrades …

Cllr Dermot McInerney (South Camberwell) defected from Labour to Independent in 2003 … reportedly on the issue of Iraq. Sounds a bit like an MP defecting over refuse collection. Otherwise a pretty invisible figure … unless someone knows something that we don’t

Tower Hamlets

Cllr Muhammed Ghulam Mortuza (Spitalfields and Banglatown) defected from Labour to Independent in May 2005 … when he supported George Galloway’s anti-Labour parliamentary campaign in Bethnal Green and Bow. After lengthy negotiations, he’s recently formally joined Galloway’s Respect Party. Part of the deal is that he leads the two person Respect group … rather than Cllr Oliur Rahman (St Dunstans and Stepney Green) who was actually elected as Respect, at a by-election last year. Galloway was reported after his parliamentary election win as claiming that seven Labour Cllrs were about to defect by the end of May … particularly after the acrimonious ousting of former Labour Leader Helal Abbas by retread Leader Michael Keith. Only Mortuza has yet shown.

Cllr Ataur Rahman (St Dunstans and Stepney Green) was elected as Labour but now sits as an Independent, following suspension by the Labour Group in May 2003. He was suspended following allegations of involvement with a charity called MATT … which has been accused of corruptly accessing and using public funds. Key Livingstone regeneration advisor Cllr Kumar Murshid (Limehouse) was accused of more tangential links to MATT … but after investigations cleared him is now again a Labour member after a period of suspension. A further Cllr whose name came up in the MATT investigation, Nasir Uddin, resigned to cause the byelection in St Dunstans and Stepney Green won by Respect.

Cllr Nigel McCollum (Bow East) now describes himself as Independent Lib Dem, having resigned from the Lib Dems in autumn 2004. The Tower Hamlets Lib Dems have a record of splits and personal hatreds that at least matches Labour’s local record of ya boo internal politics. When they controlled the Council for two terms from 1986 to 1994, they ended up splitting into at least three factions … whilst Bow Cllr Ricky Hunn defected to be an Independent in the last Council term.