It Seems That we were Right All Along. Can You Spot the Difference?

To be helpful, the first screen shot is from early May 2025, the second from late May 2025.

We first reported on strange goings on in Newham Labour in October 2024. Cllr Godfrey had been cleared of any wrongdoing in connection to complaints about voter intimidation but there were rumours that he had been suspended from the Labour Party.

Neither he nor the Labour Party were willing to make any public statement on this.

Months passed and we discovered that Godfrey had been removed from the canvassing leaflets of the Labour Party in his ward, Green St West.

At the time, he still appeared as a Labour and Co-op councillor on the council website.

And then on 28th May, we found this.

It seems that Cllr Godfrey now sits as an independent councillor, alongside the antisemitic Cllr Guana.

We wryly suggested that ex-Labour councillors could soon form the largest opposition group. Our tongue-in-cheek implication has come true. The Greens have three councillors, Newham Independents have three, (both have taken one defection Labour). There are now four defections/expulsions; Gulamussen, Chowdhury, Guana and Godfrey.

They won’t, of course. There is very little to unite them. But Labour has now lost four councillors to suspension/defection and has suffered seven resignations triggering byelections. None of this can be good news for the majority group that seems completely rudderless.

Breaking News (aka RUMOURS).

Gossip suggests that Labour will select its mayoral candidate in June/July, without the unwanted attentions of Labour Party members in the borough. Having chosen the candidate that they want, we hear that the party will be loosening the strings on the local CLPs in September. It could well be that the three local parties will begin operating again, just in time to canvass for the council elections in May 2026.