A Ramsgate councillor will now carry out his role as an independent after quitting the Labour Party.
Mark Hopkinson represents Sir Moses Montefiore ward and was elected as a district councillor in the 2019 elections.
But he has now left the party blaming events at a national level.
In a lengthy statement, he said: “The current Tory government is chaotic, self-serving and ideologically blinded to the incredible damage they have done to our society in the last 13 years. They don’t represent or understand ordinary working people and ultimately, they don’t care about them, so long as they can cling to power. It’s vital that they are removed from power as soon as possible.
“However, wanting the Tories out of power isn’t in itself a reason to defend and support the Labour Party. I’ve decided today that the long list of reasons to separate myself from Labour has reached a tipping point and I’d like the chance to explain why, especially to those that elected me to represent them at Thanet District Council in 2019.
“Appalling events in Knowsley this week demonstrate the mess that our society is in right now. The justifiable anger and frustration of ordinary working people is being twisted and displaced onto scapegoats that aren’t the real cause of our social and economic problems at all.
“Self-serving, right-wing politicians and the right-wing press want our anger directed at asylum seekers fleeing war and persecution. They push this to deflect our attention and anger from those who’ve massively increased inequality and unnecessarily destroyed our public services for ideological reasons. I expect all of this from the Tory party. But for me, if the Labour party doesn’t fight this divisive rhetoric, it stands for nothing at all. “The current Labour leader has signalled his support for tagging asylum seekers. I don’t think he believes this is a sensible policy that will help anyone.
“I think he just believes this is the best triangulation strategy to help win votes and to draw an unnecessary ideological dividing line between himself and anything he perceives as in any way left wing.
”I don’t think he cares what the real world consequences are. It is a pointless, vindictive policy and it was depressing to see Angela Rayner squirm and then admit that she supports this policy on national TV today. The Labour leadership, then, seem prepared to go along with the hateful distortions of the right wing instead of calling out the real causes of our problems.
“ For me, political leadership and responsibility is about speaking plainly, from the heart and from a position of principle. I joined the Labour party because there was a chance to build a party politics based on honesty, integrity and member-lead democracy: something I had never seen before in my adult life in British political life.
“I am a socialist. You can agree or disagree with me about that but we should at least all speak from the heart about what we want in our politics. I might just about prefer a Starmer led government to the chaos of this Tory government, but I’m not prepared to give my name as a district councillor or a party member to a politics free from basic decency.
“Today’s announcements from Labour are just the latest additions to an ever increasing list of political positions that I fundamentally disagree with. Not least of which is Wes Streeting’s recent announcement (with Stamer’s approval) that a Labour government would seek to extend the privatisation of our National Health Service.
“The public have been fed a lie that austerity is necessary and that the country’s “credit card has been maxed out”. This lie is only brought out when it comes to paying working people better and funding our health and education services, but never when it comes to tax cuts for the rich contracts for government minister’s best mates or funnelling more money into defence budgets.
“The reality is that cutting public spending, increasing poverty and inequality all serve only to bring society to a halt and stack up all kinds of future social and economic costs. Even on the Tories’ terms – where economic growth is the only marker of success – this government has been an unmitigated disaster.
“Labour after 2015 helped dismantle the myth that austerity was necessary and showed it up as the ideological attack on anything that is publicly owned for the good of ordinary working people that it really was. It did this by speaking plainly and honestly from a position of principle. But Starmer’s recent statement that Labour won’t “turn on the spending taps” – as sensible sounding as ever – is part of this same deception and leaves me having no faith that a Labour government will bring about the changes we desperately need.
“I hope I am wrong. I hope Starmer will lead a government that can start to address the multiple crises we face. But I have lost faith in this and I am not prepared to put my name to the project that is the current Labour party.”
Cllr Hopkinson has not confirmed whether he will fight to retain his council seat at the upcoming local elections in May.
