Second Labour council chief is forced out by hard-Left zealots
A SeCOND Labour council leader has quit his post and the party with a furious blast at hard-Left activists.
Jon Clempner resigned as leader of harlow Council in essex last month. Yesterday, in a scathing blog post, he blamed an ‘active campaign’ against him by a local Momentum organiser.
he also said Momentum nationally had stopped attacking moderate Labour MPs and instead turned its ‘ ire’ on moderate councillors across the country.
They were targeting councils and council leaders who did not conform to their brand of ‘ideological purity’, he said.
Mr Clempner said he hadn’t intended to announce his reasons for quitting and wanted to retire quietly while ‘making a contribution to the town and community I love in other ways’.
But he said he was forced to explain what happened because of ‘active briefing’ against him. The ‘ misinformation’ spread included that he had health or mental health problems, he said. Yesterday, he wrote that a review of party democracy would hand power over from councillors to ‘a small group of party members’.
‘Councillors, unless formally endorsed by the privately owned company Momentum, seem to have replaced the Parliamentary Labour Party as the focus of the hard Left’s ire,’ he added.
Last week he wrote: ‘ended my membership of the Labour Party today. Sad, but the playground party politics, on all sides, is not going to solve issues of equality, fairness, and equity. It is amazing how knowing what you are doing has become such an abhorrent trait. Professionalism, pragmatism, competence, have become dirty words.’
he also suggested elements within the Labour group on the council had pushed him out earlier than he intended to go.
A Momentum source denied the claims saying: ‘At first Jon claims Momentum forced him out, and then he says it was the Labour group. The fact is, there was no Momentum campaign and Jon Clempner left of his own accord after having lost support amongst local members and his fellow councillors.’
his resignation comes just days after the moderate leader of haringey Council in North London quit after ten years in post with a furious broadside at allies of Jeremy Corbyn. Claire Kober blamed sexism, bullying and ‘outright personal attacks’ on her which left her ‘disillusioned’.
Now hard-Left bullies drive out council’s chief From Wednesday’s Mail