CROYDON IN CRISIS: After more than four years, the two men who presided over what at the time was the biggest financial collapse in the history of local authorities in England have been allowed back into their political party. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Happy days: Tony Newman (right) pictured with MP Steve Reed OBE before his suspension
The Labour Party has ended its suspension of Tony Newman, the controversial and discredited former leader of Croydon Council.
Inside Croydon also understands that the similar “administrative suspension” that has been in place since February 2021 on Simon Hall, the councillor for Fieldway ward and Newman’s cabinet member for finance in the six years leading to Croydon’s financial collapse in 2020, has also been removed.
According to sources close to the Labour Party, “You can’t keep someone suspended forever.”
When approached to deny that Newman and Hall’s suspensions had been lifted, a Labour Party spokesperson said: “We are unable to comment on individual membership or disciplinary matters.”
The disciplinary process had dragged on for more than four years, much of that period being while David Evans was General Secretary of the Labour Party. Evans, Newman and Hall had been close campaign colleagues, with Tony Bliar’s former aide – now Lord Evans of Penge – having overseen Croydon Labour’s 2014 local election campaign that placed Newman and Hall in charge of the Town Hall finances. Ten years later, Evans was helping Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves win power at Westminster.
Old mate: David Evans presided as General Secretary while his friends were suspended
Today, Labour sources suggested that the decision to end the suspensions was taken by a panel of Labour’s all-powerful National Executive Committee. The decision was conveyed to Newman and Hall last week.
Labour is likely to come in for criticism for its handling of the Newman and Hall disciplinary cases, from within and outside the party, both for the length of time it took, and for the timing of the end of the suspensions.
“They’ve shown all the comic timing of a very unfunny comedian,” one party source in Croydon said today.
“This could have been done at any time since 2023, really. But oh no… Labour decides to drop the suspensions just as the party in Croydon has selected its ‘fresh break’ candidate, Rowenna Davis, to be their candidate for Mayor in 2026.”
The fates of Newman and Hall seemed inevitable 18 months ago once Croydon Council, under Tory Mayor Jason Perry, admitted that there were no options for legal recourse against the duo, and when the Met Police decided almost a year ago to abandon its investigations into the events that led to what was, at the time, the biggest financial collapse in the history of local authorities in England.
The council, and the people of Croydon, have continued to suffer the consequences of the financial death-spiral that occurred when Newman, Hall and Negrini were in charge, with hundreds of staff being laid off and a range of services to residents axed, while Council Tax has soared to record levels.
Gone, but not forgotten: ex-CEO Jo Negrini got a £437,000 pay-off
Newman had long been a controversial figure, in Labour and broader Town Hall circles.
A series of independent investigations and Reports In The Public Interest confirmed how he had presided over a dysfunctional council, with wide-ranging complaints of bullying and racism.
And that was before considering the calamities of Brick by Brick, the Fairfield Halls fiasco and the dodgy purchase of the Croydon Park Hotel, together with Newman’s opting to preside over the meeting that handed a £437,000 “golden farewell” to his chief exec, Jo Negrini, because of an breakdown in their working relationship.
The party suspensions came five months after Newman and Hall resigned as council leader and cabinet member. Newman had been a Croydon councillor from 1994 to 2021, and leader of the Labour group at the Town Hall for 15 years until his resignation in October 2020. Newman is understood still to be resident in Woodside, his partner, Louise Szpera, a long-standing member of MP Steve Reed OBE’s Westminster staff.
Hall, an accountant by profession, moved some time ago with his family to north-east England, where his partner, Rob Elliott, is understood to be seeking selection to stand as a Labour local election candidate.
In October 2020, at the time of his resignation as a cabinet member, Hall said that he was “proud” of his achievements.
Back in the fold: former New Addington councillor Simon Hall
Hall and Newman resigned just days before the council auditors, Grant Thornton, published a Report In The Public Interest which was hugely critical of the way in which the council, and its finances, had been managed while the pair had been in charge.
Newman was found to have authorised £100million-worth of council borrowing, towards the purchase of the Croydon Park Hotel and other commercial properties, without going through the proper Town Hall processes.
Another report, a rapid review commissioned by the government, identified Newman and “… an inner circle of a small number of cabinet members who have been very controlling in their management of the council and its finances”.
The rapid review found that “council officials were instructed by members of Newman’s cabinet to rewrite some of their reports, in effect to disguise the council’s mounting financial problems”.
Despite such findings, and the long withheld recommendations of the council-commissioned Penn Report, first published by this website, in 2022, in a statement issued through a flashy West End PR firm, Newman and Hall maintained that they were the wronged parties in all of this: “Decisions made by the council were made in good faith and were made collectively by the entire cabinet. No evidence of wrongdoing on our part has been found, because no such evidence exists.”
It was an odd kind of denial from Newman that relied on his assertion that there was “no evidence” of wrong-doing.
“We acted at all times with integrity and honesty,” Newman said at the time.
A poll of Inside Croydon readers found 97% disagreed with Newman’s claim.
Newman preferred to cast himself as a massive incompetent, rather than a crook: “Things can go wrong without there being any wrongdoing,” he said.
Newman’s Numpties: only five of Newman and Hall’s colleagues from 2018 remain as Croydon councillors, but the reputational damage caused by that administration still lingers
And the lifting of Newman and Hall’s suspension handed a massive political stick with which local Tories could use against Croydon Labour’s new hope, Rowenna Davis.
On hearing the news, Jason Cummings, the council’s present cabinet member for finance, told Inside Croydon: “That Labour would allow Tony Newman and Simon Hall back into membership just gives the lie to Croydon Labour being ‘under new management’ – their group leader is a Newman cabinet member and their Mayoral candidate a Newman campaigner and supporter.
“Croydon Labour haven’t changed at all.”
The 2026 local election campaign is well underway.
Read more: Men who led council to bankruptcy say they did nothing wrong
Read more: Perry admits he can’t take action against council’s bankrupters
Read more: Negrini pay-off arranged after ‘breakdown’ with leader Newman
Read more: #PennReport: Croydon has been let down by political leaders
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