A disillusioned former Conservative county councillor – who left the party to become an independent in February – was confirmed today as having switched to Labour. Cllr Keith Prentice was put on parade for a photo shoot by the Labour group on Cambridgeshire County Council as they announced “we are now 10.
“Welcome Cllr Keith Prentice to the Labour county group”.
Those following Cllr Prentice on his political Facebook group had picked up the expectation of his move to Labour – in March he posted a photo of Labour MP Angela Rayner.
And he followed that up with a photo of Cllr Alex Bulat, campaigning to be Labour MP for Huntingdon.
Cllr Prentice remains, of course, the county councillor for St Neots Priory Park & Little Paxton; he had listed himself on the council website as an independent but has now changed it to Labour.
Cllr Prentice is a former Huntingdonshire district councillor and at one stage was executive councillor for leisure and regulatory services. He lost his seat in 2022 along with two Conservative colleagues in St. Neots Priory Park & Little Paxton Ward to three independents.
It was a moment of change for the district council which saw the Tories lose control – for the first time since 1976.
On his X profile (formerly Twitter), Cllr Prentice lists one of his interests as that of deputy chair of Huntingdon Constituency Conservative Association – Eatons branch.
However, he has not updated his X account for seven years.
In 2021 he had a comfortable victory to win his county council seat, polling 1,237 votes, with Lib Dem candidate Geoffrey Seef a far from close second with 662 votes.
Labour polled 402 votes and the Greens 352 votes.
