Labour rocked by mass defection before key poll

With 10 days to go before the Ealing Southall by-election in London, five Labour councillors said they were switching to David Cameron's party.

They include Gurcharan Singh, a long-standing party member who came within a whisker of winning the selection battle to be Labour's candidate, but lost out to fellow councillor Virendra Sharma.

The by-election, caused by the death of Piara Khabra, is an early test of Gordon Brown's premiership. Labour is defending a majority of 11,441 over the Liberal Democrats, with the Tories just behind.

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The councillors who switched sides wore blue turbans as they appeared with Conservative leader David Cameron to announce they would back his candidate Tony Lit.

In a statement, Mr Singh and his colleagues said they could no longer support "disorganised and divided" Labour. They added: "It has become increasingly obvious that Tony Lit is the best person to represent Ealing Southall as our next MP.

"He's energetic, dynamic and displays the kind of qualities that would make him ideally suited to represent the people.

"Since Conservatives took control of Ealing in May 2006 we have noticed that they have been making great strides towards trying to improve the quality of life for all our residents.

"We've reached the stage where it has become blatantly obvious that we would be doing our own voters a great disservice if we continue to dogmatically stick with a disorganised and divided Labour Party."

Labour blamed Mr Singh's defection on his disappointment at losing out to Mr Sharma. Justice Secretary Jack Straw retaliated by revealing that independent candidate Kuldeep Singh Grewal had ended his campaign and backed Labour, and claimed 100 local people had joined the party in the last week.

The Tories' constituency vice-chairman, Brij Mohan Gupta, has already switched to the Liberal Democrats in protest at the selection of Mr Lit, who quit as managing director of Asian radio station Sunrise to stand for the Tories. The five councillors who switched to the Tories are Gurcharan Singh, Manjit Singh, Maninder Kaur Keith, Jarnail Singh Jandu and Jagdish Gupta.

Speaking on the steps of Ealing Town Hall, Mr Cameron said: "I think the decision is a really important moment for Ealing Southall but also an important moment in British politics, because I think it's the clearest possible demonstration that the Conservative Party, having been changed and modernised, is now a voice for everyone in the country." Mr Cameron said that another independent candidate, Gulbash Singh, would also be backing Mr Lit.

The leader of Ealing council Labour group, Sonika Nirwal, said: "I am disappointed that Gurcharan Singh has betrayed the voters who elected him as a Labour councillor.

"He has always made clear his driving ambition was to become an MP. But I am still shocked he is willing to go to any lengths. What the community wants in their next MP is something with a unifying force. What Gurcharan Singh has done today is hugely divisive and the Tories will not gain any votes from it."

The Lib-Dem candidate is Nigel Bakhai. Sarah Teather, a Lib-Dem MP in neighbouring Brent, said: "The Labour and Conservative campaigns are now both in disarray."

Among other candidates taking part in the 19 July poll are Sarah Edwards of the Green Party, K T Rajan of the UK Independence Party and Salvinder Singh Dhillon of Respect.