OUTRAGED independent councillors have vowed to start a petition demanding a by-election after a colleague defected to the Conservatives days after being elected.

It has emerged that Throop and Muscliff councillor Derek Borthwick was enquiring about switching from the Independents to the Conservative party soon after the final results of last week’s election were announced.

Independent councillors Ron Whittaker and Anne Rey say they will run a campaign calling for their ward colleague to step down.

“He’s betrayed us all. Stand in a by-election, stand as a Tory and let’s see what the electors say,” said Cllr Whittaker.

He said he and Cllr Rey would include a form in their next newsletter for residents to call for a by-election.

“We’ll be asking the residents to keep this campaign going over the coming months,” said Cllr Whittaker.

He said Cllr Borthwick had been to London recently to have his picture taken with Martin Bell promoting the independent cause.

In a statement on their website, peoplebeforepolitics.info, Cllrs Rey and Whittaker said: “We as Independents stood on Martin Bell’s principles, which include integrity and honesty.”

The council’s Conservative deputy leader, Cllr John Beesley, dismissed suggestions that Cllr Borthwick was to be offered a committee chairmanship or the mayoralty as “speculation based on nothing at all”.

“Cllr Borthwick approached me by email explaining the possibility of joining the Conservative group,” he said.

“I discussed it with the leader of the council and the ball was left firmly in Cllr Borthwick’s court where it remained until he confirmed on Tuesday morning that he wanted to join the Conservative group.”

In a statement, Cllr Borthwick said he wanted to set the record straight.

“In the days prior to the election, my Independent colleagues in Throop & Muscliff, Cllrs Rey & Whitaker, told the residents of Redhill & Northbourne and Kinson North Wards that they were supporting the Lib Dems in their election leaflets, ignoring the fact that the Independents had a candidate standing in each of those wards.

“When Anne Rey stated on local radio on election night that ‘she was a Liberal Democrat at heart’, that was the last straw for me,” he said.

Cllr Rey said her comments had been about general elections. She said it was her father, Alderman Philip Whitelegg, who had endorsed Lib Dem candidates in the Redhill ward which he used to represent.

Cllr Whittaker has said he endorsed the Lib Dem candidates in Kinson North because he lived there and they were effective ward councillors. In other wards, he might have backed candidates from other parties.

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