THE chair of Colchester’s Constituency Labour Party has resigned, launching a stingy attack on Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership of the party.

Richard Hill, who stood as a candidate for Castle ward in May’s elections, has left his role as chief of the town’s Labour party, also resigning his membership of the party.

Mr Hill said he had given thousands of hours of his time to the party over the past five years but had become disillusioned since Sir Keir took over in April 2020.

In a letter to Sir Keir he said: “Your pitch to members was unity, authority and integrity. You are certainly an authoritarian. Unity and integrity seem to be sadly lacking.

“I’ve never wanted one faction to control our party, I value respect, plurality, robust debate and consensus-building. These are values I’m not sure we share.”

Mr Hill described Sir Keir’s “electability” as a “meaningless notion” and had been proven incorrect.

“You are 10 points behind an incompetent government that has decimated public services over the last 11 years,” he said.

“In recent elections the Labour vote has tanked, Hartlepool, Chesham and Amersham and the loss of 300 council seats aren’t indicators of electability, quite the opposite.

“The sight of you crowing after Batley and Spen was especially distasteful after Labour scraped a win with a massively reduced majority. Your triumphalism was pure delusion, if the Greens had stood, Labour would have lost.”

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He also criticised the Labour leader for offering “no policies whatsoever” and removing the whip from predecessor Jeremy Corbyn.

“Labour is more than a party, it is a movement. You had half a million people, ready to campaign with you to undo decades of neoliberalism, rebuild our public services and build a better, more equal future.

“You’ve squandered that goodwill and with it your opportunity to become Prime Minister.”

He added: “It is with much sadness I leave Colchester CLP. The fantastic members are like all across the country demonised and seem an inconvenience to you, this goes against everything the Labour party should be.

“My comrades aren’t hard-left extremists, they’re ordinary, committed people who give energy and enthusiasm in the hope of a better country and a better world.

“They deserve better than your empty rhetoric, endless relaunches and the slide towards irrelevance you are overseeing.”