Carol Henshaw is appalled by Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. She spoke to Socialist Worker about why she quit Labour and her excitement to join the new Corbyn-Sultana project.
Preston councillor Carol Henshaw became the fourth member of the Preston Independent group after leaving the Labour Party last week.
Carol is appalled by Keir Starmer’s Labour. She told Socialist Worker she left over “Its behaviour at home, winter fuel tax, two-child benefit cap, attacks on people on benefits and finally attacks on democracy and freedom to protest, as well as Labour’s continued complicity in Gaza.”
She said, “This is not the behaviour of the Jeremy Corbyn led party I had joined.”
Last year, she had what she believed to be a private conversation in a WhatsApp group with some colleagues about the genocide in Palestine.
These messages were then leaked, and Carol was accused of antisemitism by “a misogynist, and a bully, who is now, I believe, displaying anti-Palestinian racist behaviour”.
She said, “In March this year I had the whip removed and was suspended. The Labour Party kept me waiting until after the May elections when I was clearly not going to have my cabinet role returned to me.”
She described the last few months as “waiting in limbo”.
Carol had already decided to leave the Labour Party but said “I had hoped to wait until being cleared of these malicious allegations before resigning.
“I hate that I’ve been accused of racism. Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.”
When Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana announced Your Party last month, Carol signed up and attended a local meeting. She said “I felt it was the time to go.”
Over 800,000 people have now signed up to the Your Party mailing list. This shows that there is a huge appetite for an electoral left alternative to Labour.
A recent poll by one of the main British pollsters, Ipsos, found that 20 percent of British adults say they’re “very” or “fairly likely” to vote for a new left wing party founded by Corbyn and Sultana.
Carol told Socialist Worker, “I am incredibly excited about the new party.
“I feel hope again, which I did when three generations of my family joined Labour in 2016 because of Jeremy Corbyn.”
Unlike the Lancashire county council, which is now under the control of Reform UK, Preston city council is controlled by Labour.
Carol said they’re already well know for the Preston Model. “This is a way of retaining wealth in the community and not shareholders in London.
“They are also providing things like the real living wage, breakfast clubs, helping tackle fuel poverty, and hoping to build council houses. I had the climate change portfolio.”
She has joined with the three Preston Independents who sit on the county council, Michael Lavalette, Almas Razakazi and Yousuf Motala.
Although they sit on different councils, city and county, they say they are determined to work together “for the benefit of ordinary people in Preston”.
Michael Lavalette said that they are “delighted” to have Carol join them.
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