Labour and Tories keep up attack on elected Mayor

ELN: Tower Hamlets Council models itself on the Mother of Parliaments.

“Hurrah!” I hear you cry, dear reader. “It’s a model of democracy, an upholder of freedom and the home of finely honed political debate, then?”

No. And nor is Tower Hamlets Council – which, if it is modelling itself on the House of Commons, has chosen to ape the petty squabbling, political point-scoring and general going-nowhere nature of Prime Minister’s Question Time. Thus it was at the Council meeting on 25th January.

Just once the bickering had to stop. Somehow councillors united and agreed to move up the agenda a motion on the conviction of (some of) the murderers of Stephen Lawrence. It was a brief debate, but councillors of all parties found some remembered moment to share with their colleagues. Cllr Rania Khan recalled demonstrating outside a previous trial when she was a teenager. She painted a picture of the men – then suspects, now known to be murders – walking in with contempt in their eyes for the young Asian protestors and walking out triumphant that they’d got away with it. Cllr Abdal Ullah reminded us of Quddus Ali: would his attackers ever be brought to justice? Cllr Peter Golds remembered Stephen Lawrence’s MP, Peter Bottomley, wandering the House of Commons just after the murder, trying to find a politician who could do something to help.

And then it was back to business as usual: name-calling, allegations, counter-allegations and squabbling.

The problem is that the Labour Group just cannot believe the electorate voted for Lutfur Rahman, the Independent candidate for Mayor, and Mayor Rahman is the Executive Mayor and runs the Council. They won’t accept the voters’ choice and deal with it.  They don’t know what to do.  They seem convinced that any day now the voters will realise they got it wrong: and until that day comes, it’s Labour’s job to frustrate the Mayor whenever possible.  Add the tiny Tory Group (who’ll have a pop at anyone rather than account for what their own Government’s up to)… and you have a reality show which makes Denise Welch look like Mother Teresa.

As Britain slides back into recession and East Enders grapple with trying to survive, Labour forgot the big picture and focused on recorded votes and virements.

At the last Council meeting, the Independent councillors had called for a lot of recorded votes (where every councillor has to say how they are voting, rather than just taking a vote on a show of hands).  Labour privately decided this was because the Independents were trying to put on record that Labour was voting with the Tories. So Labour publicly declared that recorded votes waste time and proposed a change in standing order so that you needed 20 councillors to support a call for a recorded vote (rather than ten). They argued that this would mean you wouldn’t get so many recorded votes, so less time would be wasted.  Officers warned them that this decision was not in line with national guidelines and could be open to legal challenge. The Independent councillors pointed out that only Labour would, then, be able to push through recorded votes – so it was trampling on the rights of the smaller parties. Cllr Aston (Tory) threw any putative Labour-Tory pact into sharp reverse by moving an alternative change to standing orders – to reduce the number of councillors required to obtain a recorded vote from ten to six. Labour closed the debate by uniting to vote down the assembled opposition parties and independents and remove the opposition’s right ever to make Labour put its votes on record.

Virements are not an infectious disease: they are Labour’s way of using the budget to interfere with Mayor Rahman delivering his manifesto.  At the moment, the Mayor sets the political priorities for the Council and the budget is devised so that he can deliver his promises.  The Mayor has to put his budget to the Council, which can only change the budget if two thirds of the councillors in that vote support the change. That’s the law. As the financial year goes by and circumstances change, the Mayor can move money between budget headings: those moves are “virements”. The Mayor might need to do this to deal with an emergency or with a change in demand for services, and until 25th January he could move £1 million between budget headings if necessary.

The Tory/Lib-Dem Coalition Government has cut the money Tower Hamlets receives, which hurts all our residents – but that is not the focus of Labour’s attack. Labour wanted a change so that the Mayor could only move up to £5,000 between budgets. For anything more he would have to ask permission of the Council (which only meets every three months). Officers warned that this could make it almost impossible for the Council to function. Rather than wreck the Council, Labour withdrew their proposal on the basis that there be a working party to try to find a way of doing it anyway.

Just one more thought on Stephen Lawrence. His mother, Doreen Lawrence, fought 18 years for justice. She stood up for what she believed in – not just on her own, but drawing in others who believed it too.  She secured an inquiry that changed the practice of the Met police and all mainstream political parties. She built a movement throughout society to the point where the Government changed the law so that it could deliver the convictions the nation wanted to see. She did it with dignity. She is an inspiration. The Labour Group could learn a great deal from her example about how to stand up for your principles and secure political change.

*More reports about Tower Hamlets Council meeting will appear here shortly. 

*This article replaces an earlier version in which it was incorrectly stated that the Conservative Group supported the Labour move to increase the number of councillors required to secure a recorded vote.  We apologise for our error.