Cllr Roxanne Mashari (Labour Welsh Harp) has announced that she will stand against Muhammed Butt for leadership of Brent Council at the Labour Group’s AGM on Saturday.
Mashari told the Kilburn Times LINK:
It’s a strictly positive campaign. I’m standing to try and be a unity candidate, build on the progress we’ve made since 2010 and take the council and the borough to the next level.Kishan Parshotam, who co-chaired Brent Youth parliament with Cllr Mashari said:
The scale of the challenges we face, we are going to have to be more transformative in our approach.
There are huge levels of destitution and poverty in the borough which are already too high, consistent in areas like South Kilburn, Stonebridge and Harlesden for decades. We have to change the story of this borough in fundamental areas.
I’m not talking about tinkering around the edges – I’m talking about a real shift in terms of how we operate and how we focus.
This is not about disparaging anyone. It’s not to say we haven’t made progress or Cllr Butt hasn’t done good things. We are in a critical point in time for Brent with service savings to make, the universal credit roll-out, and foodbanks at capacity – now it’s time to take things up a step and be transformative. I want to see Brent be a flagship Labour council in the UK and that’s where I want to take us.
Roxanne has always been a champion for equal rights. She was a fantastic Co-Chair of BYP and helped it go from strength to strength. She would be an admirable, and tenacious, leader of the Council during the next difficult chapter for our borough.
Previous leadership bids by Cllr Nerva and Cllr Pavey have failed to remove Cllr Butt but there is increased disquiet now over his leadership particularly regarding the issues outlined in the article below and decisions such as that regarding the Wembley Stadium steps and meetings with developers.