A TOP Labour party officer has quit after a call for two high-ranking councillors to be suspended from Blackburn town hall's ruling group prompted a vote of no confidence in his position.

Coun Michael Barrett resigned as secretary of the Rossendale and Darwen Labour party after colleagues claimed he jumped the gun over the futures of councillors Mohammed Khan and Dave Hollings.

He had overseen a call for the councillors to be suspended from the majority Labour group on Blackburn with Darwen Council pending a probe into a racial equality council scandal.

Housing chairman Coun Khan was offered, and accepted, a £22,000 per year job at the REC, despite already being its chairman, by a selection panel which included his deputy council housing chairman Coun Hollings.

The pair had already resigned their chairmanships when the call for further action from the Darwen councillors was made.

Coun Barrett said: "The vote of no confidence was on a technicality. I was told the resolution should have gone to the full party not the executive committee.

"I argued that the resolution should be brought forward because of the urgency of the matter. In my eyes they are blaming the messenger for the message."

The vote of no confidence in Coun Barrett was carried after being proposed by members of the North Turton and Tockholes branch but spokesman Bernard Matthews refused to comment on the situation.

Rossendale councillor David Hancock has taken over as secretary until a replacement is appointed in September.

The Commission for Racial Equality has confirmed it is looking into the circumstances of the double resignation from the REC, and the later resignation of Roy Martin, who co-founded the organisation 35 years ago.

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