Local elections: Third councillor defects to centrist party Renew ahead of 3rd May polling day
A third councillor has defected to the nascent centrist party Renew ahead of this week’s local elections.
John Ferrett, a Labour veteran of 27 years in Portsmouth City Council, quit his party in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
It follows similar moves by Labour’s Judi Sutherland in Durham’s Barnard Castle last autumn, and former Conservative James Cousins, a councillor in the key London borough of Wandsworth, who joined the new party last month.
Ferrett said: “I urge centrists to support this new movement offering the many millions of politically homeless voters a positive alternative to the political extremes.
“Rather than looking back to an imagined golden age of empire or reheating the failed policies of the 1970s, Renew is about looking forward, striving to work in partnership, seeking consensus, and dealing with the world as it is, not as ideologues believe it should be.”
There are 16 Renew candidates contesting seats in Thursday’s local elections in London and the North Eat. The grassroots party has 4000 registered volunteers and supporters and aims to mobilise 650 candidates to campaign in elections on a platform to remain in the EU and renew Britain.