Gordon Birtwistle & Burnley Liberal Democrats

Councillors from the BNP, Tories and Labour parties tonight joined together to try to unseat Coun Gordon Birtwistle as leader of Burnley Council – but failed after one opposition councillor abstained.

There was tension in the chamber as the votes were counted, with the four BNP, six Tory and eleven of the twelve Labour councillors voting against Coun Birtwistle. But for the abstention of a single senior Labour councillor, the vote could have seen the Council without a leader.

A Liberal Democrat spokesman said, “This unholy alliance between the BNP, Labour and the Conservatives will be a real shock to the people of Burnley and to their members across the country. Quite how those three parties could get into bed together is beyond us. Labour are now so far to the right of the Tories, all three of these parties consider themselves politically aligned.

“We are now challenging Labour nationally to make it clear to their party in Burnley: is it acceptable to form an alliance with the BNP and the Tories to try to unseat a Liberal Democrat leader? What closed-door discussions between these parties took place?

“Fortunately, they lost the vote, and we did not get to find out who they were planning to propose instead of Gordon.”