A Bristol councillor has quit Labour because he said he is tired of “infighting” within the party.
Sultan Khan, who represents the Eastville ward, said it was not one issue that has caused him to leave Labour but a “number of small issues”.
Speaking to Bristol Live on Friday (March 22) Mr Khan said he still wanted to serve his ward and intended to stay on as an Independent councillor.
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To be clear that is a different independent to The Independent Group which was set up by a number of breakaway Labour MPs earlier this year.
But his decision to quit the party and stay on as an Independent has not sat well with the Labour Group at Bristol City Council who are calling on Mr Khan to “do the right thing” and resign as a councillor in order to trigger a by-election.
Leader of the Labour Group Marg Hickman said: “We’re all disappointed that Councillor Khan has decided to leave the Labour Party after Eastville residents emphatically elected a Labour MP, two Labour councillors, and a Labour mayor.
“He must now do the right thing, resign to trigger a by-election.”
Mr Khan’s bio has already been changed on Bristol City Council’s website to say Independent.
He has also lost his position as chair on the authority’s Development Control B Committee and it appears that he has been removed from the committee altogether.
Mr Khan, who has served the Eastville ward for almost 10 years, said he has taken the decision to quit the Labour Party with a "heavy heart".
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He added: "It has come to a point now that I feel like I cannot worth with certain people within the party locally anymore.
"Also I feel like the party is not in good shape nationally, it has broken into many different pieces and I am tired of the infighting."
He said that the party could have done more around the issues of anti-Semitism as well as Brexit - but said that none of the main political parties were free from fault.
Mr Khan said he wanted all political parties to be "proactive rather than reactive" when it came to dealing with issues such as anti-Semitism and Islamaphobia.
He said that while he is currently an Independent councillor he would probably be looking to join another party before next year's local elections in the city.
However he would not say which political party he was going to join.
It is believed that Mr Khan had a face-to-face meeting with Bristol mayor Marvin Rees earlier on Friday to discuss his issues with the party, but that he had not shared his plans to resign from Labour.
On the mayor Mr Khan said he "was doing pretty good considering the bad situation he inherited".
And said the main issue locally was that central government needed to do more to support local authorities.
