Labour's only councillor in Oadby and Wigston resigns

The Leicester Mercury reports:

A Labour councillor has quit after being deemed not a fit and proper person to drive a taxi by his own authority. 

Gurpal Atwal has resigned as the member for the Uplands Ward on Oadby and Wigston Borough Council.

The resignation followed the failure of Atwal's court appeal against his council's own finding.

You can read the allegations made against him, all of which Atwal denies, in an earlier Mercury report.

Atwal blames a former business partner for those allegations and, in a statement issued today, blamed others for his resignation too:

"Oadby and Wigston Council officers and one or two local councillors have taken positions in this matter that impact on my ability to concentrate on working effectively as a councillor on behalf of the Uplands Ward constituents. 

"On that basis, I resign my seat as a Borough Councillor for Oadby Uplands Ward forthwith."

Intriguingly, though he doesn't give a source for it, Guido Fawkes claims:

A witness claimed in a statement that Atwal once boasted of having “Keith Vaz in my right pocket”.

Elected in 2015, Gurpal Atwal was the first Labour councillor to win a seat on the Liberal Democrat run authority for some 30 years.