Birmingham Labour councillor resigns after abusing his position to bully school

Birmingham Labour councillor, Waseem Zaffar, has resigned as cabinet member for Transparency, Openness & Equality due to media attention over his misconduct.

Cllr Zaffar bullied teachers at St Clare's Catholic School into allowing a 4 year old girl to wear a hijab despite it being against the school's dress code. He publicly criticised the school on social media and admitted to telling the head teacher at the school that their uniform policy breached the Equalities Act despite that claim being false.

Despite his cabinet brief, Cllr Zaffar was anything but transparent or open, failing to mention that the 4 year old was one of his relatives.

The council has been criticised by Dame Casey who is heading up the British government's report on community cohesion and integration who said it has echoes of the Trojan Horse scandal where Islamist teachers and parents were discovered trying to take over and Islamise schools in the city. She has written to the leader of the council asking him why Cllr Zaffar thought bullying the school over their uniform policy was appropriate.

St Clare's has a strict uniform policy and as a faith school is exempt from regulations requiring accommodation of religious clothing.