Joint Press Release
Hackney Independent Socialist Group and
Hackney Green Group
15 May 2025

Two of the Opposition Groups on Hackney Council mounted a joint protest at the Annual General Meeting on 14 May 2025, to call out the Labour administration’s track record of failure and its growing tendency to shut down
criticism.

The Green Group and the Hackney Independent Socialist Group (HISG) walked out of the Council’s yearly municipal showcase, accusing Hackney Labour of stifling democratic debate and pushing through harmful changes. The 5 councillors left the meeting immediately after Labour councillors and the Mayor voted to make changes to its constitution which significantly restrict the public’s and opposition councillors’ voices in the Council Chamber.

“Curtailing the length of opposition speeches, cutting the number of motions in Council meetings to just one, and obstructing the public’s ability to submit petitions, are the way Labour responds to justified worries about Labour’s
competence” said Cllr Claudia Turbet-Delof, co-leader of the HISG.

As they left, the counciilors held up signs to highlight their concerns. Cllr Alastair Binnie-Lubbock, co-leader of the Greens in Hackney said: “Our Town Hall is now a stifled and controlled environment. We agreed that signs, expressing what many people we’ve spoken to feel about the Council’s performance, was the most effective way to show we’re still fighting for residents and we’re on their side”.

The messages read:
Systematic Housing Failure
Overriding Residents’ Views
Restricting Democratic Accountability
Ignoring Genocide
‘Savings’ that really mean cuts

Green councillor for Stoke Newington, Liam Davis said, “The way the Council has ignored the growing clamour for it to divest its pension funds from companies which are helping to fund genocide in Gaza, is symptomatic of its attitude to residents’ opinions. They’ve just stopped listening!”

Constitutional rules were ignored to deny opposition groups the opportunity to question the cabinet member separately to the truncated debate where members were only given 1 minute to critique the changes to the constitution.

The new speaker Cllr Patrick was passed a statement to read by the monitoring officer, the Council’s legal chief, which overrode the council’s clear rules for scrutiny of reports of this nature.

Cllr Binnie-Lubbock said: “it’s really sad to see the Labour council break constitution rules in order to damage the constitution itself. This comes after Deputy Mayor Bramble had to vote twice in the Constitution Committee to break a tie on whether these undemocratic measures should go to full council for approval.”

Earlier in the meeting the 2 Opposition Groups had challenged the ruling Labour administration’s choice for the next Council Speaker and Deputy Speaker. Cllr Penny Wrout had proposed that her HISG co-leader should take the Speaker’s seat. She told the assembled councillors that, “Not only would Cllr Turbet-Delof chair meetingsin a fair-minded way, but as a proud migrant woman, choosing her to represent the Council would reassure many residents alarmed by heightened anti-immigrantrhetoric and would show Keir Starmer thatHackney has no truck with his ‘Island of strangers’ dangerous talk.”

Cllr Zoë Garbett, co-leader of the Greens had supported her colleague Liam Davis for Deputy Speaker. She echoed concerns about Hackney Labour’s growing tendency to ride roughshod over residents’ opinions saying, “Tonight Hackney Labour had the chance to recognise it has gone too far in censoring those who call out its shortcomings. It could have rejected the proposed constitutional changes, and sent a powerful message to the party
nationally about the valuable contribution of migrant voices. Instead, councillors chose the path of least resistance, which only makes them look out of touch with the mood in the borough.”