Politics Returns with End of Summer Truce
PAUL McLAUGHLIN
The relationship between council leaders and the local MP can often be a tricky one, even when they are from the same political party. When there is harmony and agreement on what they are both trying to deliver for their area, the local MP can be a powerful advocate in putting forward the council’s case to parliament and government.
The recent stance taken by Helena Dollimore, the new MP for Hastings and Rye, and Julia Hilton, the Leader of Hastings BC since May, in standing up to the right-wing protesters that threatened to inflict damage to our town projected a unity, which galvanised local people to reject hate, racism and thuggery.
The Labour MP and the Green Council Leader also won plaudits for their united front in condemning Southern Water after meeting with the privatised water bosses. In television interviews they vowed to work together to make the water company pay for polluting our rivers and seas, and for hiking up bills whilst giving themselves massive pay rises.
Unfortunately, when the leading characters are from different parties such displays of unity tend to be short-lived. It may come as no surprise therefore that the summer truce between the Greens and Labour seems to have ended after leading figures from the Green Party sent a letter last week to the local Labour MP calling on her to reject much of her party’s manifesto – the one on which she was elected in July – and to back their proposals, instead.
The letter was signed by Justin Wynne, the Chair of Hastings Green Party, Julia Hilton, the Leader of the Green group on HBC, and Becca Horn, the Green Party parliamentary candidate. It called on Helena Dollimore “to stand up to the Prime Minister” and reject austerity 2.0 and deliver the change people voted for in the election. Labour, it says, must “stop blaming the Conservatives for crashing the economy.” The letter was critical of the new government’s decision to “scrap the Winter Fuel Allowance for all but the poorest pensioners” and to retain the “heartless two-child cap on child benefit.” It said “these are political decisions taken by a Labour Party which refuses to tax those with the broadest shoulders. Inequality has rocketed over the past decade with more wealth held by fewer and fewer people, leaving the rest behind, including many people in Hastings.”
Helena Dollimore’s response to the letter pulled no punches and was equally bruising. She hit back saying “as a serious party of government, rather than merely a protest movement, the Labour government will not stick our heads in the sand and pretend we can tax our way out of this mess. We will take the tough decisions that have been ducked for too long.”
She said she was: “proud to be elected by people across Hastings and Rye with a mandate to clear up the mess left by the Conservatives and bring the change we need. During the summer I’ve been busy hiring a staff team and dealing with the most urgent cases of local residents from domestic violence to serious hardship. I’ve also met with the new Water Minister twice, the Secretary of State for Education, the CEO of Southern Housing, and many more. I am working with my colleagues in government to deliver on our manifesto promises, whilst standing up for the people of Hastings & Rye and fighting for our towns and villages every single day.”
She went on to say: “The scale of the mess left by the Tories means that difficult decisions will have to be made. We were clear about that during the election campaign. We did not promise fantasy solutions like other parties did. People can trust that we will do what we say, and that we will only promise what we can deliver. I’d urge all other local political parties to work constructively with myself as the new MP and with our new Labour government, to get the best possible result for our community, rather than starting out by issuing political attacks and public statements.”
If the return of hostilities between the two parties was to be expected, the ferocity of the attacks did come as a surprise. The tone of both the letter and the response, emphasising points of difference between them, reprised the arguments played out in the sometimes bitter and hard-fought local election campaign in May rather than the positivity of the working relationship over the summer.
It is not hard to find an explanation as to why. There are several very difficult issues facing the country and the town which will need to be addressed in the coming months and both parties are keen to pin whatever blame is to come on their opponents.
Top of the list will be discussions over the local government funding settlement for next year. The Labour government has already warned that the Budget on 30 October is likely to be very tough, especially in the light of finding an additional £22 billion ‘black hole’ in the public finances. It has warned the country that things are likely to get worse before they improve. The Greens caution against any further austerity, however, and argue that council budgets have already been “slashed to the bone by fourteen years of non-stop funding cuts.”
Another key dividing line is over housing (which we look at in detail on page 3). Helena Dollimore supports the building of more than 700 new homes in the town, largely on brownfield sites. The Green-led council thinks this figure “unrealistic”, however, arguing that this is not physically or sustainably possible.
So, has the summer truce come to an end with the return of political hostilities? Perhaps, but a more likely explanation is that it is the start of the party conference season. The Greens in Manchester and Labour in Liverpool. Both are trying to depict themselves as the party of change and to consolidate their recent electoral successes. There will, inevitably, be skirmishes ahead, but it is in the interests of both Labour and the Greens to work together, locally at least, in some degree of harmony.
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