EXCLUSIVE
A VETERAN Tameside councillor says he has quit the Labour Party after almost 50 years of membership.
And Barrie Holland has aimed verbal blasts at both Droylsden’s MP Angela Rayner and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
After representing the party in Droylsden West for 34 years, Cllr Holland says he has had enough and handed in his resignation.
He insists he will serve the rest of his term, two-and-a-half years, on the Independent benches, while wife Ann will stand as an Independent in 2026’s local elections after not being selected by the group she has been part of since 1989.
But he told Ms Rayner and Sir Keir his feelings about them in no uncertain terms – he also described Ashton-under-Lyne’s canopy that is being built over its marketplace as an ‘iron tent.’
He said: “I’m seeing more of Lord Lucan here than I am of Angela Rayner.
“She’s brought absolutely nothing brought nothing into the town – it’s like a war zone.
“The amount of people in Droylsden who’ve said to me, ‘We voted for you, but it isn’t what we voted for.’ It’s not the Labour Party.
“That’s people I’ve known here for 50 years, loyal Labour Party supporters.
“It’s disappointing. She was a deputy leader of the Labour Party, but you look at the town centre and she’s not brought one atom into it.
“75 per cent of the units are boarded up. There’s no excuse because the tram goes right through it. It’s got first class transport links.
“Look at it, with the amount of money that’s being spent on an ‘iron tent’ in Ashton and what’s being spent in Stalybridge. It just doesn’t filter down to us.
“I’ve been a member for nearly 50 years but I’ve resigned forthwith. I’ve had enough of it.”
Sir Keir and the way he runs Labour, along with some of its policies, also did not escape Cllr Holland’s wrath as he added: “It’s almost as if Starmer’s sanitised the politics out of the Labour Party.
“When I joined, it was the party of Harold Wilson. People like Michael Foot. I don’t know what it is now, honestly.”
Cllr Holland says another factor in his decision is the way the Labour Party’s national executive formed and implemented a campaign improvement board that resulted in a change of leader and cabinet.
And the way several of his now former colleagues have been allowed back in after a investigation into the ‘vile’ Trigger Me Timbers WhatsApp group – over which Gorton and Denton MP Andrew Gwynne remains suspended – brought criticism.
He continued: “I’ve not come to terms with the fact that not one single person in the Labour group has been elected to their position.
“They’re all appointed. An appointed leader, an appointed deputy leader, an appointed cabinet. In another country, they’d call that an autocracy.
“And they’ve welcomed back into the fold a group of people who were in a vile WhatsApp group – but Ann, with 30-odd years membership, they didn’t want her.”
The Correspondent understands Cllr Holland was in fact suspended from the Labour Party on Wednesday, November 19 amid allegations he delivered campaign leaflets on behalf of his wife.