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| Councillor Eamonn Keogh SACKED From the Cabinet |
... just two months after the Cabinet Member for Transport Captain Road-Chaos Councillor Eamonn Keogh had been sacked from the Cabinet, amid comments that he was proud of his record, with Keogh saying he was:
"very proud of the improvements that the transforming cities grant has brought to the city".
In a letter published in the Daily Echo in February 205, campaigner and former Southampton Independents Councillor Andrew Pope called for Keogh to be sacked from the Cabinet by the former Labour Leader of the Council Lorna Fielker. She refused to. She lacked the authority, it seemed.
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| Former Council Leader Councillor Lorna Fielker |
Keogh was allowed to go ahead with the scheme by Fielker, despite the huge outcry against it. So the call for his removal was necessary.
Shortly after Pope's call in February 2025 for the sacking of Keogh, suddenly and shockingly, the previously weak Conservative Council opposition developed a backbone and called for Keogh to resign. This did not happen, either.
It took another failed Labour Leader of the Council to go (Fielker), before it was finally confirmed by the Daily Echo this week that the Portswood Bus Gate "would not return". Previously, the Council had only announced that the "trial" had been "suspended". Keogh had tried to cling onto his Cabinet role, amid the suspension.
This is a victory for local residents, for Southampton Independents and for Andrew Pope, who joined residents and businesses in the campaign against the Portswood scheme in 2022 and encouraged people to sign the petition against the proposals in 2023.
Fresh from his twelve-year campaign victory getting a Park and Ride for Southampton, and seven-year win on safe standing at St Mary's Stadium, Andrew says:
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| Andrew Pope victorious in the Safe Standing campaign Park and Ride and now the Portswood Bus Gate |
"I always said that this Portswood Broadway was a stupid idea that should never have been done.
Eamonn Keogh claimed to have listened to residents and businesses. He did not and carried on regardless.
We had to work together to make him listen. He simply had to go if he did not.
Working with residents, and having contacted the residents groups, I spent my own time, campaign know-how and money on printing letters as a volunteer campaigner and carefully listening to Portswood residents and businesses.
The Daily Echo reported on my work, and the work of other campaigners. Thanks to all of them, we've won!
I put out a lot of letters and spent a lot of time on people's doorsteps as a volunteer in our City. Why?
Because the vast majority of local people did not want this. The consequences of the scheme were clear, yet Southampton Labour councillors went ahead with it anyway.
It should not have taken THREE YEARS to stop this. Labour should never have done it in the first place.
Now there are lots of other stupid transport ideas that Eamonn Keogh carried out in our City, that Labour have to undo if they are to keep their Council seats at next year's local elections. Road chaos has to stop.
Labour is already very unpopular in the national Government. The Prime Minister Keir Starmer is spending more and more time on foreign policy, which is what failing leaders have done throughout history.
What matters is delivery for Southampton residents, and Labour have failed us - nationally in Government and locally in the Council.
Now, even Labour's own councillors are leaving the sinking Southampton Labour ship and running away to other Westminster parties.
Do any of the current Southampton City councillors have the talent or conscience to be Independent councillors who represent Southampton residents instead of their failing Labour Party? We will see. Southampton people need proper independent representation for each ward of our City.
Like I said when I left Labour over ten years ago, it's time for Labour to be removed from power at Southampton City Council, because they lack the vision and leadership that our City needs. The evidence of that is impossible to ignore. They've had their chance, over ten years of power, and they've blown it."
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| Former Southampton Independents Councillor Andrew Pope |
