{"id":636386,"date":"2026-06-13T09:04:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T09:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/636386\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T09:04:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T09:04:26","slug":"long-serving-birmingham-councillor-resigns-from-labour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/636386\/","title":{"rendered":"Long-serving Birmingham councillor resigns from Labour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a lengthy resignation statement, Mahmood said: &#8220;I joined and supported Labour for the best part of my life because I believed in a political movement rooted in working people, strong local democracy, equality, genuine internal pluralism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I no longer believe it reflects those principles.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The councillor also criticised <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/clyplryyrevo\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Birmingham Labour&#8217;s leadership<\/a>, claiming there was a &#8220;consistent culture of avoidance and opacity&#8221; and that questions from members were often ignored.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He added: &#8220;In my view, the current local leadership lacks the experience, judgement, and political competence required to effectively manage a group in a city as complex and demanding as Birmingham.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Among other reasons for leaving, Mahmood raised concerns about Labour&#8217;s immigration policy and the party&#8217;s handling of the conflict in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He also said expectations were placed on councillors to support the appointment of Reform UK members into influential committee positions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a lengthy resignation statement, Mahmood said: &#8220;I joined and supported Labour for the best part of my&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-636386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}