Southport Labour Councillor suspended and will not stand at local elections

Southport Labour councillor Janis Blackburne has been suspended for retweeting two tweets involving Jeremy Corbyn.

She said...

Some of you will have heard and some will have not. I have been suspended from the Labour Party for 6 months. I was informed at 5pm on Friday. Handed my nomination papers in on Thursday. So wtf! They had been processed so I could have stood as a Labour candidate but not allowed to campaign and no one else would be allowed to campaign for me either. This is the state of the National party. After some consideration and lack of key support I have decided to stand down. From 5th May I willl no longer be a councillor.

She said: "On Friday at 5pm I got an email from the national party saying I've been suspended for six months. I'm not allowed to campaign, go to meetings, stand for anything or do anything.

"The day before, Thursday March 31, I'd handed in my nomination papers. I was told I could stand as a Labour candidate but I couldn't campaign and no one else could campaign for me in any form.

"The timing couldn't have been any worse and I was left in this weird limbo. I didn't know what to do at first and I thought 'I'll be awkward and I'll stand' because I've been a councillor for four years, I have a track record, I've been handing out leaflets and I've been campaigning since mid-January with groups of people.

"I was going to do that but it upset some people because it meant we might lose the seat and in Southport, it's not easy to get votes. People in Southport are not naturally Labour