Six Green councillors quit after election, leaving councils facing by-election costs

[Twiglets1]

A sixth newly elected London Green Party councillor has quit, leaving taxpayers to foot a £120,000 bill.

Green representatives in Camden, Haringey, Ealing, Lambeth and Hackney councils have immediately stood down meaning by-elections will have to be held.

Each poll is expected to cost the cash-strapped town halls between £20,000 and £25,000 each to run.

Joanna Eaves, who was elected in Clapham Park at the local elections on May 7, has become the latest to resign. She cited health reasons.

It follows Saiqa Ali, who was also elected as one of 29 Green councillors in Lambeth, stepping down following her arrest in the lead up to the polls over allegations she had made a series of antisemitic social media posts.

Simon Anthony, who won in North Acton, Ealing, quit on Monday. He was the only Green candidate to win in the ward, with the other two seats being taken by Labour.

James Tilden was elected to represent Hackney Central ward, but failed to realise his job as a primary school teacher meant he was ineligible to be a councillor because he works for the local authority.

Muhammed Naser, who was elected in the Regent's Park ward of Camden council, has also had to stand down for the same reason.

Jayon Henriques was elected to represent Northumberland Park ward in Haringey but it has since been revealed he was also ineligible to be a councillor. The party has not revealed why he cannot serve in the town hall.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/green-party-councillors-quit-election-costs-b1282285.html

Maybe so … you would hope potential candidates would be smart enough to interpret the rules but it appears not.

Wow 😮

That was an account linked to Kenyon who made that obnoxious comment about English women not Polanski (to avoid confusion on the thread).

Robert Kenyon, the Reform UK candidate for the Makerfield by-election I believe? What a charmer.

An account linked to Robert Kenyon - who is running against Andy Burnham in the crucial vote - wrote that women can’t “ref, drive or give directions” and declared: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am.” Posts made on an online rugby fan forum in the 2010s objectified European women’s bodies while saying English women “don’t care” and “just walk around with their fat bellies and odd shapes pushing a pram at 16 in their PJ’s”.

The user also said in an RLFans forum: “European women…all have really good figures and are good looking”, and responded to a post with links to images of women saying: “Wouldn’t get me off any of those with a bazooka.”

In 2019, responding to a discussion over women presenting matches on Sky, they wrote: “The women on the panel’s aren’t up to the job and only there to tick a box” and said women’s super league players are “no where near the standard” to be commentating on games.

The remarks were made by an account under the username ‘post’, which says in other comments that their Twitter handle is @robkenyon1 and promotes Mr Kenyon’s book, The Blood Waltz.

In a now deleted post on X in 2019, the user also suggested he would “rank higher” than a female presenter and former player because he had “won the Champions League with Accrington Stanley on FIFA Career Mode”. The comments come days after other offensive X posts were highlighted by campaign group Hope Not Hate.

A spokesperson for Reform UK did not dispute the latest resurfaced comments but instead dismissed them as “locker room banter”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-uk-robert-kenyon-comments-misogynistic-b2983146.html

Yes, sorry, I should have made that clear

The Greens candidate for Makerfield is Sarah Wakefield, who is a councillor on Manchester city council.

She would have to resign from that role if elected.

I think the Green party are at risk of ruining their reputation with their push towards populism. I've never voted Green, but always felt that it was good that they had some voices in parliament and on local councils and would have been happy to give them my vote as a tactical vote if necessary. The antisemitism that's creeping in with some of their candidates is very worrying and I'd be fuming if I'd voted for them only to discover they were a paper candidate who had no intention of standing.

The scale of Reform's selection of odious and incompetent candidates is staggering, but I really don't understand what their voters are looking for. Maybe racist misogynist bigots are a lure rather than deterrent to some voters.