Calls have been made for a cabinet member to resign after he swore at a councillor in a debate over trade unions.

Cllr Andrew Stafford, cabinet member for finance called Cllr Alessandro Georgiou a c*** in full council last night, at the Civic Centre, in Enfield.

Whilst Cllr Georgiou was discussing the forthcoming trade union bill which seeks to tighten laws on industrial action, Cllr Stafford swore at him.

This resulted in all opposition councillors to walk out of the chamber mid-debate, leaving just Labour councillors to continue the debate.

“You could not believe someone would do that – it is a disgrace” said leader of the opposition Cllr Terry Neville.

The Cllr has now called for the cabinet member to step down from his role.

He added: “We are talking about a senior member, he was acting like a lout in front of younger members of our council.”

“We will be filing a formal complaint and we are calling for Councillor Andrew Stafford to step down, he should hang his head in shame.”

The meeting saw council members debate the future of the greenbelt as well as the housing crisis.

Cllr Achilleas Georgiou of the Labour group, told the Enfield Independent the incident was “regrettable”.

He said: “It was a passionate and heated debate. It is a shame the opposition left before we had finished debating.

“That does not justify the incident, it was regrettable and he apologised straight away for the unacceptable language.”

The Labour group councillor revealed they would be looking into the incident and “make a decision on the matter”.