A WOMAN who is part of Tameside’s political history believes one person is to blame for Labour’s losses in the borough.
And Ann Holland feels one person can repair the damage made by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Jeremy Corbyn.
After 37 years, she is no longer a Councillor for Droylsden West after coming in fourth in the Thursday, May 7 poll.
That stint made her the longest serving female Councillor in Greater Manchester and few had served longer around the country.
After not being selected by her now former party, she sat and stood s an Independent, but Reform UK’s Sharon Barker won by 798 votes.
Mrs Holland only came fourth after receiving 353, but even though she is outside the Labour Party, she could not hide where she felt it went wrong.
She told The Correspondent: “Labour’s lost it because of Starmer and his politics.
“When Starmer was the deputy to Jeremy Corbyn, he stood at the side of him and agreed with all his policies, which was to bring back the railways, the water, the gas, the electricity under public control.
“He’s done nothing about that.
“There were 600,000 Labour Party members when Corbyn, he raised the membership to that.
“He won’t tell us how many members we’ve got now, but I know in our ward, we’ve lost a lot of members.
“And it’s all because of the policies of this Labour government that we’ve got now. It’s so bloody right-wing, it’s unbelievable.
“The Labour support isn’t anywhere near what it was. The Labour support was always there until Starmer. It’s Starmer, they’re saying they’re not having Starmer at any price.
“Bring back Jeremy Corbyn and let’s have him as the leader again.”
After opting to stand as an Independent, Mrs Holland – who has strident views over how she was deselected as a candidate – did not have the backing of a major political party for her campaign.
Her ‘replacement’ Rebecca Callaghan came second after polling 729 votes. 11 years previously, her predecessor received 2,881.
And when she last stood under a Labour ticket, she received 1,118.
But were there any differences as she went it alone this time around? As she simply put it: “Not really, no. We campaigned as we normally do.”