Labour's Britain compared to 'North Korea' over delays to local elections: 'Absolute lunacy!'

Criticising Labour, Mr Banks told host Nana Akua: "I think it's just obvious this Government are so scared of what's actually coming up next year in the May elections.

"And they're doing everything they can to ramp up the barrier and prevent it wherever they can, and it's just an indication of how despotic this Government is."

Comparing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's reign to North Korea, he added: "I actually get a feeling that by stopping it, we're living in like a kind of North Korean state now, where we're actually having Government now prevent elections.

"Elections which give people their democratic right and say, and it's being prevented. And I just hold my hands up, I think it's appalling."

As Nana argued that the Government want to postpone due to creating more "unitary bodies" within local councils, Mr Banks disagreed.

He said: "Well, it's been going on okay for the last 80 years. It's fine if they want to redraw the boundary, but you don't hold everything up waiting for an election.

"Because they could still have the elections, then redraw the boundaries subsequently, and that would be an efficient way of doing it, and we've been doing that for years."

Weighing in on the delays, Climate Party leader Ed Gemmell took aim at the "ridiculous" decision, expressing sympathy for voters' local councillors who want to stand at the next elections.

He said: "I think it's ridiculous. I'm a councillor in a unitary authority, originally the district and county elections happened, we ended up with a lot of councillors elected, they were brought together then into a unitary authority without an election because they were already elected.

"And then the next time the election came along, it was thinned out. So I'm totally against what they're doing."

He added: "I think it's wrong for the point of view of voters, who will think 'I let you in for four years, I want you for four years. I don't want you for five or six or seven unless I want to put you back, and then I'll put you back'.

"There's ways of organising it so that people can go to the elections, they can vote for the right people they want, and if it has to come back again a year or two years later on, that's the way of the world, that's the way to do it.

"I also feel for all of the councillors and would-be councillors in exactly the same way. They should know it's coming in four years. They get ready for it, they prepare for it and then they go for it and they win or they lose."

Highlighting the Government's decision to ask council leaders if they would like to postpone their elections, Mr Banks said: "The other thing I think is absolute lunacy is that they're now saying to those councils, would you like to hang on?

"I didn't realise how much the chief executive of a local council gets us a salary. It's like anything between £150,000 and £420,000 a year. No wonder they want to hang on to the job."

Noting the success of Reform UK, Mr Banks claimed Labour is "running scared" of Nigel Farage's party.

He asked Mr Gemmell: "Do you think the reason at the bottom of it is because they're so scared about how Reform are actually going to do in those local elections?"

Mr Gemmell responded: "It wouldn't surprise me. I think there is going to be a big change - you've got the Green Party, you've got Reform, you've got a surge for pretty much everybody except the two main parties.

"So I think they will be scared stiff of anything that's going to happen next year, both of them, Labour and Conservatives."

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