THE Sidcup councillor at the centre of a deselection row has been threatened with expulsion from his party.

Councillor Graham Holland, who has represented Lamorbey ward for the Tories for 24 years, was told of the threat in a letter from OBSCA chairman Jim Crouch following a meeting of the executive of Old Bexley and Sidcup Conservative Association.

The letter states that, to avoid expulsion, Cllr Holland must not to stand against the Tory candidates in the newly created Sidcup Central ward, stop talking to the press about his situation and refrain from asking others to do so on his behalf.

Cllr Holland was selected to fight the new ward for the Tories in next year's borough elections, in October. But two days later he was deselected by the association which said he was not a fit person to be a councillor because he was behind on his council tax payments on up to 10 occasions.

Council leader Mike Slaughter, who failed to be selected for Sidcup Central at the same meeting but will now stand for Longlands, has denied the deselection had anything to do with him.

"This all started long before," he told the News Shopper. And he said he was not party to the decision to deselect Cllr Holland two days after he had been chosen to fight the new seat.

"To me, the fact I lost was just politics. And by the end of the week I had been selected for Longlands," he added.

The Sidcup Central selection committee is due to meet on January 14 to choose a third candidate to fight the seat. The ward membership will meet three days later to endorse or reject the committee's choice.

In the meantime Cllr Holland is still collecting the 50 signatures from paid up association members he needs, to requisition an extraordinary meeting of the association, to challenge his deselection.