STORM OVER COUNCIL VOTES
Labour “power grab”or “far-right” gift horse?
New mayor Margi O’Callaghan and deputy Heather Bishop
HUGH SULLIVAN
Hastings Borough Council leader Paul Barnett started his regular column in the Hastings Observer last Friday – “I was delighted that at this week’s Annual Council meeting, an all-female mayoral team was elected. Cllr Margi O’Callaghan is our new mayor, with Cllr Heather Bishop as her deputy”. He went on to confirm an unchanged cabinet of Labour councillors, described as “a strong and professional team to lead the Council through what promises to be a very challenging year”. He made no mention of the political drama being played out around him.
At the centre is Cllr Lucian Fernando, elected as a Conservative in 2021 to represent Silverhill ward and remaining under the Tory whip until less than three months ago but recently transferring his allegiance to the Reform UK party. He voted at the council meeting last week for Cllr Bishop as deputy mayor along with her Labour colleagues against a combination of his former party and the Greens, who favoured an alternative candidate (also female), Cllr Claire Carr. The contest was therefore tied at 15-15, and the freshly seated Labour mayor O’Callaghan was able to exercise her constitutional power within minutes of acquiring it to declare a casting vote on party lines in favour of Cllr Bishop.
Cllr O’Callaghan had been deputy to retiring mayor Cllr James Bacon over the past year, and her own election to the higher position was politically uncontroversial. All 31 remaining councillors voted unanimously to elevate her. The contest between Cllrs Bishop and Carr then ensued.
Green leader Julia Hilton wanted the mayoralty rotated
Green leader Julia Hilton told the chamber: “Given the make-up of the council now [in which Labour holds 15 seats, a minority], it’s about time we started rotating the mayoralty between the political parties, as happens in many other local councils. The leader of the council made some mention of looking at this last year, but nothing further has happened. We have supported Margi as mayor…We need to demonstrate the direction of travel that actually makes some tangible commitment to cross-party and collaborative working.”
Generous speeches were made from each side, glowing personal and community virtues being attributed to Cllr Bishop from Labour ranks, the same to Cllr Carr from Green and Conservative benches. The latter was “a true community champion” according to fellow-Green Cllr Glenn Haffenden. Then came the vote on a show of hands, followed immediately by Mayor O’Callaghan tipping the balance with her second vote.
Next on the agenda was Cllr Barnett’s announcement of unchanged cabinet portfolios, including the reappointment of Cllr Maya Evans as deputy leader, followed by votes on a slate of appointments for chair and vice-chair of council committees. In each contested case the Labour candidate was successful over Green or Conservative challengers, to the extent that Cllrs Alan Roberts, Nigel Sinden and Trevor Webb ended the evening holding eight chair or vice-chair roles between them and a total of 16 committee places. The explanation is easy to relate: Labour voted as a immoveable bloc whilst their opponents failed to (or chose not to) exercise similar resolve. In no case was the vote of Cllr Fernando decisive.
Another casting vote
However, that wasn’t the case with the final agenda item – Cllr Barnett’s proposed programme for the year, in which he has described the main challenge as tackling homelessness while achieving a balanced budget.
Here all 32 councillors again voted on party lines, Labour supporting the motion to approve the programme, Conservatives and Greens opposing in concert. Cllr Fernando again lifted his arm along with Labour. The resulting 16-16 tie was again resolved by Mayor O’Callaghan giving her casting vote to her own party.
A storm of recriminations followed from the losing side. Cllr Haffenden asked: “Is there an alliance with Reform UK that we’re not aware of?”
Conservative councillor Peter Pragnell described Labour’s behaviour in taking advantage of Cllr Fernando’s vote as a “power grab…propped up by one member of an extreme right-wing racist party”.
Cllr Fernando responded: “There is no alliance. I voted for the good of Hastings borough.” He also denied that Reform UK was a racist party. “I myself come from a minority – I would not be standing for a racist party. Controlling immigration is not racist.”
“Diametrically opposed”
Cllr Hilton addressed Cllr Barnett directly. “In your last leader’s column in the Observer you talked about how all 32 councillors are here because we care about our town, its people and economy. But your actions this evening show that you don’t really care about the opinions and skills of the non-Labour members of this council and have returned to the old ways of working within your Labour cabal. It seems a short-sighted move to abandon all commitments to shared working and rely on the support of a councillor who belongs to a party with views diametrically opposed to your own.”
She went on to ask if there was any real commitment to improving governance when meetings to reform the constitution have been repeatedly cancelled at short notice, despite unanimous support for her motion calling for improved decision-making back in December. “At the moment the only way to get information on key decisions like the future of St Mary in the Castle or what might happen to football in this town seems to be to force a motion to come to full council. This is no way to conduct decision-making.”
Beyond the chamber she was even blunter. “Even a quick glance at Reform UK’s twitter feed shows a party whose views are against policies to tackle climate change and using all the standard far-right tropes that immigration is causing the crisis in our NHS”, she said. “Hastings Council is a proud supporter of our town’s status as a Community of Sanctuary. How does that square with a Labour administration relying on the votes of a councillor sitting as a member of Reform UK whose whole belief system is anti-immigrants?”
However, Labour councillors and members seem unrepentant. They are pleased, as their leader confirmed, with the outcome. Moreover, one source indicated that while they might have been willing to support another Green party councillor such as Cllr Haffenden to become deputy mayor, they regarded the choice of Cllr Carr to be the alternative candidate as a provocation, deliberate or otherwise. It may be recalled that the latter defected from Labour to the Greens two and a half years ago, some months after she was the only councillor in the chamber to refuse to endorse the appointment of her then Labour colleague Ruby Cox as deputy mayor. There’s an irony there, bitter or sweet according to taste.
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Good article. To be clear all contested chair and vice chair positions were elected by a simple majority vote – with the exception of the vice chair of the Overview Scrutiny Committee where Cllr Sinden was elected by the casting vote of the mayor following a 16-16 draw where Reform UK voted with the Labour bloc. Reform UK voted with the Labour Bloc on all other contested committee posts with the sole exception of the vice chair environmental safety committee where Reform UK voted with the Conservatives.
I am committed to serving the people of Silverhill who elected me. My voting decisions on the contested committee posts were not driven by party politics.
My aim was to make decisions that I believed were in the best interest of Hastings Council and its constituents. Ultimately, my priority is to serve and represent the people of Silverhill, and that guided my voting choices.
The fact that Labour as a minority within the full council, decides to work as a unit in its voting is no great surprise, but are they so desperate to cling to power they must ignore the wishes of the majority? Sharing the mayoral role between parties seems a sensible, grown-up sort of thing to do. Despite proclaiming more openness and a desire for more cooperative working it seems we have reverted to another Labour cabal. How sad for the Borough!