Haringey Lib Dem Councillor Defects to Labour
A second councillor in less than a year has resigned from the Liberal Democrats to join the Haringey Council Labour Group.
Councillor for Bounds Green ward Cllr Ali Demirci was welcomed to the Labour Group on Tuesday.
Cllr Demirci said:
"I became involved in politics because I wanted to fight injustice and I am joining Labour today because I believe that they are the party who have the best policies to tackle poverty and inequality in Haringey and across London. The Liberal Democrat party is nothing but a protest party, with no vision, no plans and no real concept of the injustice that still exists in Haringey. As a councillor for Bounds Green I have seen that it is the Labour party who have the vision and policies to improve the lives of local people; that is why I have decided to join them."
Ali is the brother of my Hackney Council Labour colleague, Cllr Feryat Demirci, one of a number of very able young councillors from the Kurdish community who got elected in May 2006. If Ali is anything like as effective a councillor and campaigner, and as good a colleague, as his sister, Haringey Labour have made a real coup in recruiting him.
The impact on Labour's chances of retaking the marginal parliamentary seat of Hornsey & Wood Green from the Lib Dems is also interesting, as with this second defection Lynne Featherstone MP's Haringey Lib Dems really seem to be in crisis.
posted by Luke Akehurst at 12:01 pm
13 Comments:
Wonderful news!
Congratulations to Haringey Labour Party.
12:39 pm, June 10, 2008
What policies is he referring to?!
12:42 pm, June 10, 2008
I guess this confused individual will be doing the decent thing and resigning from his seat, so there can be an opportunity for the electorate to have their fair say on who their representative should be now? Yes?
2:05 pm, June 10, 2008
tiny, can you name any examples of times when defectors (to any party) have stood down and recontested their seats before?
3:09 pm, June 10, 2008
" tiny said...
I guess this confused individual will be doing the decent thing and resigning from his seat, so there can be an opportunity for the electorate to have their fair say on who their representative should be now?"
Yes Merton in the early 80's. Labour MP switched to SDP stood down and lost to the Tories. IIRC the name Ian Douglas-Mann, but I am open to correction on this.
However since this "Banzaitian" example it has not happened since.
GW
6:32 pm, June 10, 2008
Would those be the same policies that have seen poverty rise nationally, especially amoung vulnerable groups or different ones???
7:41 pm, June 10, 2008
"IIRC the name Ian Douglas-Mann, but I am open to correction on this."
Bruce Douglas-Mann in Mitcham and Morden. He was a highly regarded trade union lawyer- serving my old union Equity up to his death.
9:11 pm, June 10, 2008
Frankly, at a time when labour are in the doldrums, the LibDems should be benefiting hugely. With people like me deciding to vote for them.
They are not. Because they selected a total lightweight as a leader who makes Cameron look substantial, and who is hardly placed to pick up former Labour voters when he seems so intent on being a pale blue Tory.
10:32 pm, June 10, 2008
Wonderful news as said by Tim F.
I think this is great for Haringey Labour and Bounds Green Ward, Ali is a hard working and fantastic councillor.
Tiny !! Im sure in 2010 the people of Bounds Green will have a chance to decide on whether Cll. Ali made the right or the wrong decision.
Whether he is Lib of Lab im sure this young councillor will continue to work hard for his constituents
9:46 am, June 11, 2008
tim f said...
tiny, can you name any examples of times when defectors (to any party) have stood down and recontested their seats before?
No, Tim, I can't. But I can't fathom how someone can do something as fundamental as leave a political party (when they have done something as important as put themselves up as candidate for that party) and join an opposing party going, as one assumes he/she has, against the will of the very people who elected them in the first place. (And I'm not supporting any of the parties on this point, I'm just suspicious of career politicians who want to be in power, regardless of which party they belong to.)
5:31 am, June 12, 2008
this is a harder left/more liberal seat than you give it credit for.
If the returns from the GLA elections are to be believed the labour candidate still faces a tremendous struggle.
If the prospective candidate is not even marginally to the liberal-left of the sitting Liberal she won't have a prayer.
She has to campaign against 42 days, start talking about getting out of iraq, talk down polyclinincs - in short get back the leftist labour voters who went LD last time as a protest vote at how far righ the sitting MP was as much as she was well respected and liked personally around the constituency.
3:22 am, June 13, 2008
She has to campaign against 42 days, start talking about getting out of iraq, talk down polyclinincs - in short get back the leftist labour voters who went LD last time as a protest vote at how far righ the sitting MP was as much as she was well respected and liked personally around the constituency.
I don't know who wozza is or where he or she lives but the above is crap.
In fact the far right and Lynne Featherstone agreed that the fascist murderer Sadaam Hussein should not be challenged.
What the GLA results show is that Featherstone (or Featherbrain more accurately - she has to be one of the most stupid members of parliament, as well as one of the richest) won because she swept up the Tory votes.
1:02 pm, June 13, 2008
Ali is thick and has nothing to offer. Therefore he belongs with the useless inept crooks who make up the Haringey Labour group.
4:57 pm, June 13, 2008
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