Newcastle city council’s leader, Nick Forbes, who is a close ally of Keir Starmer and sits in the shadow cabinet, has been deselected from standing in May’s local elections, putting his political future in jeopardy.
Forbes has run the city’s council for more than a decade and also sits on Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC), but he will be unable to remain in his post if he cannot stand for re-election as a councillor.
