An ex-Labour councillor who recently defected to the Liberal Democrats has warned the party to play nice during the upcoming election because she “know[s] where the bodies are buried”.
East Acton councillor Kate Crawford, left the Labour Party for the Ealing Liberal Democrats this week after 28 years as a Labour councillor. She was blocked from standing as a Labour candidate at the upcoming local elections.
She believes she was given the boot for publicly challenging the administration’s decisions.
“We have had some sensitive issues and I just do as I always do, I try, I question, in order to fill in any gaps, to give officers the opportunity and the Cabinet members to fill in the gaps and make reports robust.”
After Cllr Crawford was to be deselected as a Labour candidate, she appealed the decision in the hope that the party’s national committee would allow her to stand.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service asked her why she chose to appeal instead of immediately defecting, leaving it until weeks before the election.
She responded: “I wasn’t deselected. I was told I could not stand as a Labour councillor in the ward that I have served for 28 years. But I could in future years.”
When asked if she had a message for the Ealing Labour Group, she added: “I wish them well, but obviously I’m ambitious and I want to win my ward - that’s the job of a politician and I’m going to do it. I hope we can do it in a fair and reasonable way, but if people want to be difficult, I know where the bodies are buried.”
The LDRS asked Councillor Gary Malcolm, Leader of Ealing Liberal Democrats, if he would accept a Lib Dem councillor publicly questioning policy if he led the council. He said: “I would say the Labour council here has not trusted scrutiny, it hides away from difficult questions.
“So when a councillor occasionally does that, they don’t like it, they don’t expect it. But actually, we should have all scrutiny committees, whoever runs them to, when someone raises a problem, treat it as something you fix and not get embarrassed by it.”
A spokesperson for the Ealing Labour Group told the LDRS: “The Labour Party has thorough selection procedures and sets high standards and expectations of probity and personal integrity for all its elected members and candidates for elections. These processes are undertaken according to the Labour Party’s rules.
“It does not comment on the outcome of these procedures.”
When standing as a Labour candidate in 2022, Cllr Crawford won with 2,065 votes - more than 1,700 votes clear of the Liberal Democrat candidate. The Lib Dems came fourth in the ward behind the Green Party and the Conservatives.
Cllr Crawford says she is confident that she can win the ward for her new party in May. “Yeah, I’m in it to win it and do my best. I’m well known, my residents know me and I’m a hard worker,” she said.
