Tories Toppled From County Hall
Now it’s Deal or No Deal with Reform
HUGH SULLIVAN
Prior to the election on 7 May, the Cabinet of East Sussex County Council consisted of seven Conservative members. Their party no longer held an overall majority of the 50 council seats, their councillor numbers having been reduced from 27 to 24 by three by-election defeats during their five-year tenure since the previous election in 2021. However, their leader Cllr Keith Glazier continued to preside over a Conservative-only administration, dogged by serious budgetary shortfalls and by long-running controversies over completion of the Queensway Link road serving (or failing to serve) Hastings, while attracting universal denigration for failing to cure the plague of pot-holes up and down the roads of East Sussex.
In a tide of electoral revolt, 21 of that number have been washed away. Just three Conservative councillors were returned this month, none of them members of Cllr Glazier’s ill-fated cabinet. Cllr Paul Redstone, representing North Rother, is their new leader.
Sweeping in to replace them are 22 Reform UK councillors. Of these, only Cllr Aidan Fisher, who won a by-election in the Ashdown & Conquest division of Hastings last November, has been there before. Although Reform will now be the largest party in the council chamber, they don’t have a majority and, if they should form an administration, will require the support of other councillors, individually or collectively, to win any contested vote.
Current relations between Reform and the Conservatives at national level don’t suggest they are likely to cosy up locally. On the other hand, both Liberal Democrats and Greens have campaigned loudly on the basis of their respective antipathy to Reform on every level.
‘LOVE, NOT HATE’
Cllr Fisher, in his brief victory speech at the electoral count at Horntye on the afternoon of 8 May, referred to a Green campaign poster calling for “Love, not Hate” and declared that he was in full agreement with this sentiment, hoping apparently for good relations between Reform and other parties in future dealings at County Hall. How far that can extend to policy issues between them remains to be tested.
And, while it’s safe to imagine that Liberal Democrats (mainly from Eastbourne and the west of the county) and Greens (mainly from Hastings and Lewes) will find common ground, they only command 24 seats between them. The Independent, Stephen Shings, re-elected by Willingdon & South Downs, was himself formerly a Lib Dem. Will he be wooed back into the fold to make 25? Time will tell.
The leader of the council was due to be elected at a meeting of all 50 councillors on Thursday of this week; appointments will also be confirmed then to the various standing committees. In the run-up to this event, all parties were presumably in full deal mode – but not offering any public disclosures at the time we went to press.
Greens Take Full Control of Hastings
No such ambivalence will affect the Green party in planning their continued administration of Hastings Borough Council. They were already in effective control, holding only nine out of 32 seats before this month’s election but monopolising all cabinet posts and getting their agenda voted through because none of the other three parties – Labour, Conservatives and the Hastings Independent Group – were willing to combine in opposing them. Now, winning ten more seats, they have been given a clear overall majority – reward, as they see it, for their record over the last two years in leading the council out of near-bankruptcy, stemming a housing crisis and protecting the local environment.
Only one HIG councillor, Andy Batsford, was re-elected, in second place in St Helen’s ward. All Labour and Conservative candidates were resoundingly defeated, Reform taking six seats to become the official opposition party. To add insult to injury, even one of Labour’s councillors who wasn’t required to defend her seat, Danuta Kean, announced her resignation from the party as soon as the polls closed. She will represent Hollington ward from now on as an Independent.
Nevertheless, Cllr Julia Hilton, who was re-elected as Green county councillor for Old Hastings & Tressell as well as having a cabinet position on the borough council, spoke modestly during last week’s count about her party’s dominant position.
“Even if we win an outright majority on Hastings Borough Council,” she said, “we will still collaborate with other parties as we’ve been doing when running a minority administration, for instance over the corporate budget.
“There are many experienced councillors who are not in our party and who express concerns that we should take on board. It’s good to have people asking ‘Why have you done that?’ I believe in having a strong scrutiny function that challenges us.
“The only difference will be that council officers can have confidence that when we formulate a plan we can carry it out; and when we disagree with points made against us, we can choose to override the opposition.”
Local Government Reorganisation
The major issue that will confront the respective administrations in both County Hall and Muriel Matters House, the borough council’s HQ, is the impending local government reorganisation to which the national Labour government appears committed.
Hastings Borough Council is due to be abolished in less than two years’ time, with its functions to be taken over by the county council. The territorial sway of this new single-tier authority has yet to be fully determined, with the national Government currently conducting a further consultation as to whether four wards of Lewes should be transferred into an expanded Brighton & Hove. And it’s quite possible that the whole restructuring programme will be challenged legally.
In Essex, the incoming Reform UK leader has promised to launch a legal challenge against a similar reorganisation in that county, claiming that the proposals there were “ill-thought, expensive, purely ideological in nature, and seek to create further democratic distance between the people of Essex and their elected local politicians.” Could there be a similar attempt at revolt in East Sussex?
Line-up of parties in new East Sussex County Council:
| Reform UK | 22 |
| Liberal Democrats | 13 |
| Greens | 11 |
| Conservatives | 3 |
| Independent | 1 |
Line-up of parties in new Hastings Borough Council:
| Greens | 19 |
| Reform UK | 6 |
| Labour | 3 |
| Conservatives | 2 |
| Independents | 2 |
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