Former Crewe and Nantwich MP Laura Smith has quit the Labour Party after being suspended by the local Cheshire East group.

Cllr Smith, who represents Crewe South on Cheshire East Council, has posted on social media to say she had been suspended from Cheshire East's Labour group because she refused to support the Labour/Independent administration's budget at full council last month.

"I have decided to resign my membership of the UK Labour Party rather than appeal my recent suspension by the local Labour group at Cheshire East Council," she said.

"I was suspended for not voting in line with the whip but, as I stated at the council meeting on February 27, I cannot support an austerity budget that places local councillors as the punching bag for a Tory government determined to destroy public services."

Cllr Smith, who was elected as Crewe and Nantwich MP in 2017 after beating incumbent Conservative Edward Timpson by just 48 votes, lost the seat two years later.

In the post today announcing her resignation from Labour, she described her time as an MP as 'an experience that I was always cherish and struggle with in equal measures'.

She said the political system had made her 'more cynical, less hopeful for a real alternative and unfortunately more worried for the future'.

Cllr Smith has vowed to continue in her role as the Crewe South member on Cheshire East Council but says she will do this as an independent socialist councillor.

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