Two councillors who walked out of Labour are forming a progressive alliance within the district council.

And Mike Eddy and Peter Walker are inviting other members of the Dover chamber to join if they leave their own parties.

Cllr Eddy said: "If we pick up a couple of Tories we could hold the balance of power on the council for the last few months."

Cllr Eddy had been Labour group leader on the council until he abandoned the party without warning and joined the Greens on November 2.

He complained there had been "a lot of nastiness" behind the scenes at the Labour group and there had been a "constant series of bullying emails from one or two individuals."

Clr Walker had resigned from Labour after a race row.

He had mistaken let slip a racist word in a private meeting, still without racism intended, apologised immediately but was still suspended.

Cllr Eddy now said: "Progressive alliance is the working title for this new group.

" Peter and I very much respect one another in terms of what we have been able to do in the past working together when I was the leader and he was my deputy.

"Certainly Peter is very well respected amongst the Conservatives and amongst the officers so we have a good understanding of what we can get done even from opposition. I'm in discussions with the Green Party about creating the group."

Cllr Eddy said the new arrangement would mean members like him and Cllr Walker could get then onto council committees and respond to the leader's report at full meetings.

He said that would give the Green Party and anybody else in the new group the chance to put their views forward within the council more effectively.

The district and parish elections take place next May 2.

Cllr Eddy, 66, left Labour without just the day before he joined the Green Party.

At a photocall with Green members he admitted that he hadn't yet told his former colleagues.

He now explained: "It's not the kind of thing you announce in advance because that gives people the opportunity and say 'Oh no, don't do that.'

"But they they just carry on with the same insidious nonsense afterwards and you just extend the pain.

"It's not an unusual thing for people to suddenly announce that they've had enough and certainly I had had enough. If it is a demonstration of my anger then fine, perhaps people within the Labour Party will realise how angry they've made me."

Cllr Eddy had been a Labour councillor, either at county, town or district level, since 1995.

Both are part of a pair of councillors for their wards, Cllr Eddy in Deal's Mill Hill and Cllr Walker for Eythorne and Shepherswell.