Labour councillor resigns over social security cuts and Gaza

Bruce Sinclair Local Democracy Reporter

A Pembrokeshire Labour county councillor has resigned from the party, saying there is a need to build a new socialist party as Labour is failing to challenge “the forces of the far right on the march”.

Fishguard North East ward member since 2022, Cllr Jordan Ryan was one of 10 Labour Party members on the county council, before announcing his resignation yesterday, September 23.

Cllr Ryan said: “I am at a crossroads politically just like our country is at a crossroads, this next few years are about the future of this country, the forces of the far right are on the march and the current Labour party leadership in Westminster will not, and cannot, stop them; their foolishness and craven capitulation to the right on most issues and their appeasement of Trump on most foreign policy issues have destroyed the Labour party in many of its former strongholds.

“As a severely disabled person I cannot remain in a party that wants to cut social security for disabled people and won’t even do the bare minimum to help the people of Gaza, so this afternoon I left the Labour Party.”

“It’s time to go”

“I am sorry it took so long to leave the Labour party but it’s hard to leave something you’ve been a part of for over 16 years; if you are still in the Labour Party then it’s time to go, most of our remaining membership are good people trapped in an undemocratic organisation that only cares about power and governing but has no plan for power or governing, a once great party that doesn’t want to change our broken society and can’t look after the people.

“My politics have not changed, growing up attending the local chapel youth group, the local church of Wales summer club and often attending the local chapels I heard about someone called Jesus who said ‘feed the poor, heal the sick, love thy neighbour and share the wealth,’ that is my politics.

“My politics is liberty, equality, solidarity for all, democracy peace, security for all, all power to the people.

“Now that I am free, I look forward to working with socialist, progressive and democratic parties and groups to defeat the forces of the far right and toward implementing proportional representation so everyone’s vote truly matters.

“I look forward to building our new left wing political party despite its difficult beginning, up and down the country ordinary people are building the party, together working with socialists of all types we will advance the cause of the workers and peasants and downtrodden of the world.”

“Shake your chains”

He finished by quoting poet Percy Blythe Shelly’s work The Masque of Anarchy, a response to the 1810 Peterloo massacre, a brutal dispersal of a protest meeting which saw many killed: “Rise like lions after slumber, in unvanquishable number, shake your chains to earth like dew, which in sleep had fallen on you, ye are many – they are few.”

Cllr Ryan finished by telling the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “I’ll be sitting as unaffiliated councillor and critical friend of the current administration,” adding: “The people need a real alternative to the incompetent Labour government and the dangerous potential of a Reform government after the next election and our left-wing party has to be part of that alternative for it to succeed.”