On Thursday evening, Labour veteran Cllr Ayfer Orhan resigned from both the Enfield Council Labour Group and the Labour Party, making her the ninth person to ditch the beleaguered administration of Cllr Nesil Caliskan. Keir Starmer’s leadership of the party has also overseen an exodus of left-wing Labour members.
Cllr Orhan, who represents Ponders End, had been a Labour member for over four decades, a councillor in Enfield for nineteen years, and had twice served as a Labour parliamentary candidate. As a staunch socialist, she was also an avid supporter of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the party.
This further blow to Cllr Caliskan’s leadership comes only three months after Cllr Orhan was exonerated by a Labour Party investigation into her conduct that was allegedly triggered by her fellow council colleagues in 2019. Cllr Orhan has now called that investigation, which ended in February 2021, “a grotesque intimidatory exercise”.
In March 2019, Cllr Orhan posted a tweet that questioned a drilling contract in the Golan Heights, which had apparently been awarded to a private energy company. The Golan Heights, an area internationally recognised as belonging to Syria, is currently occupied by the State of Israel.
Following the publication of the tweet in 2019, Cllr Caliskan issued a public statement, carried by various media outlets, labelling the tweet “anti-Semitic”. That allegation has now been rejected by the Labour Party. Cllr Caliskan also claimed that Cllr Orhan had been “suspended” from the Labour Group.
Despite an intervention from the national Labour Party, which clarified that Cllr Orhan was merely under investigation and could continue as a Labour representative, Cllr Orhan says that the council leader’s remarks triggered an “avalanche of abuse” against her, which formed part of a “culture of bullying and harassment”.
Over the past two years, Cllr Orhan has been subject to strict confidentiality requirements, but has now revealed that she has been living with “terrible stress” and “fears for her safety” because of the investigation and the behaviour of her colleagues.
Speaking about her experiences, Cllr Orhan said:
“In response to a benign tweet I posted in 2019, right-wing Labour councillors pounced at the opportunity to attempt to push me out of Enfield politics. Cllr Caliskan also issued a public statement containing a number of falsehoods, which has still not been corrected.
“Those events triggered a needless investigation against me by the Labour Party, which I believe was a grotesque intimidatory exercise. The attacks on me by Labour councillors have led to me receiving an avalanche of abuse, both online and offline. I’ve been living with terrible stress and fears for my safety.
“Moreover, Keir Starmer’s political attacks on socialists, his abandonment of progressive policies, and his abysmal election performance earlier this month make me despair for Labour’s future. Rather than being a party that stands for social justice, Labour is becoming the very opposite. I cannot, in good conscience, remain a Labour member.”
In respect of the atmosphere in the Labour Group, the former parliamentary candidate said:
“I believe there is a clear culture of bullying and harassment within the Enfield Council Labour Group. I’m not the only one who knows about this. That’s partly why so many of us have felt compelled to resign.”
Further information:
1. After almost two years of inaction by the Labour Party, Cllr Orhan took Labour to court in February 2021, alongside four other party members, alleging that the party’s long delays in resolving their disciplinary cases was so unfair as to be unlawful. That case was supported by the Left Legal Fighting Fund, an organisation that seeks to support left-wing activists, protesters, and whistle-blowers. Just days before going to court, the Labour Party wrote to Cllr Orhan stating: “Having reviewed the evidence in relation to the allegations against you, we have determined that there are no reasonable grounds to find that your conduct is in breach of the Labour Party’s rules in respect of this investigation.”
2. Cllr Orhan’s tweet was not, as has sometimes been alleged, “anti-Semitic”. Cllr Orhan regards this claim to be defamatory and is currently taking legal advice in respect of individuals who have recently repeated this claim. Cllr Orhan merely questioned, and only ever intended to question, the apparent news that a private energy company had been given permission to drill in an unlawfully occupied area of land.
3. For further enquiries, please contact [email protected] in the first instance.
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