A Labour council leader who called St George’s flag campaigners ‘criminals’ and ‘nonces’ was the subject of a formal complaint, later dismissed, alleging he made racist comments about Nigerians, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Jeremy Newmark, leader of Hertsmere Council in Hertfordshire, allegedly called Nigerians ‘crooks’ and said they ‘cannot be trusted’, according to an official standards complaint seen by this newspaper but was later cleared by a standards panel.
The complaint was made by ex-borough mayor Alpha Bird Collins, a former Labour councillor now part of a local group named Hertsmere First.
After a string of recent revelations and a by-election loss which evaporated the Labour-Liberal Democrat administration’s majority on the council, Mr Newmark and the council’s leadership face a vote of no confidence tabled by Reform UK councillors in the coming weeks.
Speaking to the Mail, Mr Collins said he had been invited to an international business conference in Liverpool organised by Nigerian entrepreneurs during his time as mayor.
According to the complaint, Mr Newmark allegedly said after being told of the mayor’s plans to attend the conference: ‘You cannot just go there like that, we have to do our due diligence because you know the Nigerians are crooks.’
Mr Collins told the Mail: ‘It’s absurd and heart-wrenching that a councillor should label and discriminate.’
The former mayor accused Mr Newmark of making ‘racist’ remarks and said he had challenged him ‘openly, publicly’ but a council standards panel dismissed the complaint.
Jeremy Newmark, the Labour leader of Hertsmere Council who called St George’s flag campaigners ‘nonces’, was cleared of a formal complaint alleged he labelled Nigerians ‘crooks’
When it considered the allegations in June, the council said Mr Collins had submitted the claim five months after the alleged remarks were made with ‘no explanation’.
The ex-mayor did not provide any evidence or produce witnesses, the council claimed.
It added the ‘only officer’ present at the meeting between Mr Collins and Mr Newmark ‘had no recollection’ of such remarks being made.
In his complaint, Mr Collins also alleged that Mr Newmark ‘fabricated’ that Liberian people ‘hated’ LGBTQ people and were ‘homophobic’.
Mr Collins, who is Liberian, had invited the country’s ambassador to the council for a photo opportunity which Mr Newmark attended.
The ex-mayor complained about Mr Newmark’s remarks afterwards, made to a council meeting, about Liberia’s sexuality laws.
Mr Newmark said there ‘wasn’t an appropriate opportunity for me to raise those issues’ during the visit but that he was aware of the ‘shocking treatment’ of LGBTQ people in Liberia.
He added the ‘conversational element’ of the ambassador’s visit had been ‘configured in a rather strange way’.
Though Mr Collins said the leader’s remarks amounted to him saying Liberians ‘hated’ LGBTQ people and were ‘homophobic’ but the council said it was ‘abundantly clear’ that Mr Newmark ‘had not made any of the remarks attributed to him’.
It added Mr Newmark’s comment on Liberia, ‘where consenting same-sex activity is criminalised’, could not have been ‘reasonably interpreted’ in the manner Mr Collins described.
The former mayor said he was dissatisfied with the way his complaint against the council leader had been handled.
‘My official complaint, I put it to him but now, after pressure, they haven’t done anything about it,’ he said.
In September last year Mr Newmark branded campaigners with Operation Raise The Colours, a movement to mount St George’s and Union flags in communities across the country, ‘nonces’ and ‘criminals‘.
He also accused the group of being ‘an organised and orchestrated attempt by a bunch of criminals, extremists, nonces to hijack our national flag’.
The local authority’s Conservative group called at the time for Mr Newmark, who later apologised for his comments, to resign.
Alpha Bird Collins, a former Labour councillor who served as the borough’s mayor, said Mr Newmark’s remarks were ‘racist’ and that he should apologise
And in March last year, Mr Newmark claimed a Tory finance spokesman had used an ‘antisemitic trope’ suggesting the Labour leader ‘orchestrates everything in this chamber’.
Abhishek Sachdev made the remark during a speech on the council’s budget for the past year.
The Labour leader said Mr Sachdev’s comments were ‘straight out of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, referring to an antisemitic publication which falsely details a Jewish plot for global domination.
Morris Bright, the Tory leader on the council, branded Mr Newmark a ‘disgrace’.
The Labour man later said he had not suggested Mr Sachdev had ‘any harmful intent’ with his words, nor did he accuse him of being an antisemite.
Mr Newmark’s Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition has been mired by scandal in recent months, with this newspaper reporting a string of revelations over planning efforts.
Chris Myers, a Labour councillor, suggested the party’s group ‘start planning sites where we can’t win seats’ and ‘take the political decision not to go near’ a planning application for 900 homes.
And another Labour member, Aaditya Kaza, was recorded seemingly admitting the party’s members were told how to vote on at least one planning application, believed to be related to an effort to build on land next to Aldenham reservoir.
Mr Kaza said his comments had been taken out of context.
Last month Mr Newmark’s administration lost its majority in Hertsmere after a by-election saw the Liberal Democrats lose to the Conservatives, dissolving the coalition’s previous one-seat advantage.
Now the council’s two Reform councillors have tabled a motion of no confidence in Mr Newmark and his administration, saying they have ‘ongoing concerns about leadership, transparency and the direction of our council’.
Mr Newmark, who has led the council since 2023, stood unsuccessfully for the Finchley and Golders Green parliamentary seat once held by Margaret Thatcher in 2017.
The following year he stood down from the Jewish Labour Movement after alleged inappropriate spending at the Jewish Leadership Council while he was chief executive.
There had previously been speculation that former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had been preparing to elevate Mr Newmark to the House of Lords.

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