A Labour councillor has resigned from the party over national cuts to the aid budget but will continue to sit as an Independent on Brighton and Hove City Council.
Bruno De Oliveira, who represents Hollingdean and Fiveways, said in his resignation letter that his decision was nothing to do with the local Labour group. He called them decent, hard-working councillors.
Councillor De Oliveira said that he joined the party to fight inequality and poverty and in “disgust” at austerity policies.
He sent his resignation letter to Labour leader Bella Sankey and party whip Amanda Grimshaw, setting out his opposition to Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s financial policies which, he said, would extend austerity and hurt public services.
Councillor De Oliveira resigned yesterday (Tuesday 25 February) after the government said that it would cut aid budgets to fund an increase in defence spending.
He said that he was aware of the potential threat to European security, not least having spoken with a Finnish family in his ward. But he said that the cuts would have consequences.
He said: “The wake-up call to Europe is very real but taking money from people who are being bombed to make bombs is utterly inadequate and awful.
“The decision to slash its aid budget is not just an economic recalibration, it’s a humanitarian backslide with serious consequences for the health and wellbeing of people fleeing war.
“The narrative of ‘tough choices’ and ‘fiscal responsibility’ sounds reasonable until you remember that these ‘choices’ are being made over human lives, not spreadsheets.
“People fleeing war often arrive with acute healthcare needs, from physical injuries to chronic conditions worsened by displacement.
“The aid cuts mean fewer medical supplies, more children dying of preventable diseases, reduced funding for field hospitals and understaffed clinics, leaving vulnerable populations with limited access to basic healthcare.
“War trauma is profound but the loss of support services compounds the damage.”
He questioned whether the modern Labour Party was the same party of Tony Benn who said: “If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.”
Councillor De Oliveira said that he would sit as an Independent and complete his term in May 2027.
Since his election in May 2023, Councillor De Oliveira has chaired the council’s Health and Wellbeing Board and represented the council on the Sussex Health and Care Assembly.
He has also represented the council on the Combating Drugs Partnership and the Brighton Fund.
Labour’s aid budget decision is shameful, but the timing of this councillor stepping down ahead of a controversial decision on school admissions and the council’s budget tomorrow where his colleagues will pass local cuts seems like a massive coincidence.
Too simple, a chunk of the defence MOD budget is spent on UN forces and equipment, also in high demand and also expensive.
Conveniently, he can now vote against the secondary school admissions vanity project being driven through by Bella Sankey and Jacob Taylor, and actually represent families in his ward.
The councillor has obviously given a lot of thought to this and is standing up for his principles, which is laudable.
His principles of sending our tax money overseas instead of funding our armed forces? How incredibly noble of him.
As a local councillor he has been much quieter than his colleagues and hasn’t been good at replying to emails that I have sent him. It now seems he is more interested in national and international issues. Fair enough, but being a councillor is the wrong forum for him. He should resign and let others deal with the day-to-day, often non-political, work of being a councillor.
Unfortunately this labour government has betrayed decent socialist values since before being elected and has destroyed the values we held dear. Im not surprised that so many councillors have become independants.
Another Woke lefty who is more interested in putting Britain last. Winter Fuel Payments cut, heating bills put up by Milliband, jobs being cut daily and the Socialists groan about Foreign aid cuts. Never vote Liebour.
Good riddance. He is welcome to give away his money but the rest of us are struggling with our high taxes to pay for UK PLC to borrow money to give away.