Two Lancaster city councillors sacked from cabinet roles after resigning from Labour party

Coun Kevin Frea - who is deputy leader of Lancaster City Council - and Coun Alistair Sinclair, who was Cabinet Member for Communities and Social Justice, were among five councillors to announce earlier this week that they had resigned from the Labour Party to form a new political group.

Coun Frea and Sinclair, along with Faye Penny, Jack O’Dwyer-Henry and Katie Whearty said that they could no longer sit as Labour councillors due to the party’s "shift to the right" under Keir Starmer.

They highlighted several recent issues, such as Labour’s abstention on the "spycops bill" and the "watering-down of the socialist Green New Deal policies".

Lancaster City Council is currently controlled by a ‘Co-operative Alliance’ of Labour, Green and Liberal Democrat councillors.

The Eco-Socialist Independents said they wished to remain in the alliance, to work “closely and constructively” with these parties “to implement the local manifesto we were elected to deliver”.

But council leader Coun Dr Erica Lewis said today, Thursday, that their eligibility to continue on the cabinet was being voided.

It is understood that by resigning from the Labour Party, the councillors made themselves ineligible to be part of the cabinet.

The Eco-Socialist Group is not part of the agreed council alliance.