AN EXPERIENCED Labour Party Councillor who resigned from the Party four months ago in concern over the direction the Party was taking has now joined the Aspire Party in Tower Hamlets Council.
Cllr Sabina Akhtar, who represents Stepney Green Ward, had been concerned about Labour Leader Keir Starmer’s statements on Gaza, which did not call for a ceasefire. However, the final straw came in the General Election campaign, when Starmer appeared to call for Bangladeshi people to be deported.
Cllr Akhtar first dipped her toe in local electoral politics in May 2014, when she and Victoria Obaze, her Labour running mate in Stepney Green ward, were narrowly defeated by two candidates on the Tower Hamlets First ticket. Coincidentally, both Labour candidates won subsequent elections and both went on to serve a year as Speaker of the Council. Cllr Akhtar also beame Deputy Leader of the Labour Group.
Cllr Akhtar will encounter familiar faces in the Aspire Group. She was the Labour candidate in the Stepney Green by-election in 2015. She won that election – defeating the Independent candidate Abu Talha Chowdhury, who has since been elected to the Council as an Aspire candidate himself. Cllr Akhtar won two further scheduled elections in Stepney Green: May 2018 and May 2022. On the latter occasion, the other councillor elected in this two-seat ward was Cllr Md WahidAli, from Aspire.
Having clocked up nearly a decade representing voters of Stepney Green, Cllr Akhtar is clearly determined to speak up for the residents of her ward. Having decided that she cannot remain a member of the Labour Party, she has joined a party that concentrates on delivering for all the people of Tower Hamlets – in Stepney Green and every other ward too.
Mayor Lutfur Rahman and Deputy Mayor Cllr Maium Talukdar were joined by Cllr Kabir Ahmed, Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Inclusive Development and Housebuilding, to welcome Cllr Akhtar on her first trip into the Town Hall as an Aspire councillor.
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