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Borough Council Chooses the ‘Nuclear Option’ Over Committee Appointments

Published on: 25 Jul, 2018
Updated on: 26 Jul, 2018

There were chaotic scenes at Guildford Borough Council (GBC) last night (July 24, 2018) as the full council declined to agree any of the presented options for the allocation of committee appointments.

The meeting had to be adjourned by the mayor, Mike Parsons (Con, Shalford), whilst legal council officers and others considered the ramifications of the council votes.

Cllr Tony Rooth

Allocation is normally made proportionally to each political group but an issue was caused by Cllr Tony Rooth’s resignation from the Conservative group in May.

Under the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, Independent councillors, not being part of any political group, cannot be appointed to committee membership if even a single council member dissents, giving, in effect, every councillor the right of veto.

Two options were presented. The first, “Option A” was that Rooth could continue to be a member of the Planning and the Overview & Scrutiny Committees, “Option B” was that he would instead be a member of Overview & Scrutiny and an Executive Advisory Board.

Rooth presented an amendment to Option B which was effectively an offer to forego the two memberships included in that option and instead retain his place on the Planning Committee. When it became clear that this would not be generally supported he withdrew it.

Cllr Holliday (Con, Burpham) asked what would happen if none of the options was adopted? He was told by John Armstrong, democratic services manager, said that would be the “nuclear option” leaving nothing agreed. It turned out to be a prescient question.

Clearly Rooth wanted to retain his membership of the Planning Committee but equally clearly a small number of his former colleagues, led by Council Deputy Leader Matt Furniss (Con, Christchurch), wanted to prevent that.

Cllr Matt Furniss

In fact, at an early stage, Furniss indicated that he would not vote for the Option A because he did: “…not believe a single member of no political group should have the same weighting of representation as either the Labour Party, which has two members, or the Greenbelt Group which has three…”. This meant that Option A was a non-starter from the outset.

Pointing out, what he claimed was, the iniquity of the law, Cllr Rooth referred to earlier situations where GBC had given, at different times, an Independent councillor and a single Labour member positions on committees, despite them not being part of a political group.

Perhaps with a look to the future, Cllr Angela Gunning (Lab, Stoke) asked what would the council do if there were more Independent councillors.

The debate on the first option, “Option A” to give Rooth continued membership of the Planning Committee commenced. First to speak was Executive member Cllr David Bilbé (Con, Normandy) who had crossed swords with Rooth on more than one occasion previously but he had also stood as an Independent candidate before joining the Tories.

Cllr David Bilbe

If an attack was now expected it did not come. Instead, Bilbé  supported Rooth saying: “I don’t like this situation… I am sure Cllr Rooth has thought long, hard and deep about his decision relating to the Conservative Party.

“I don’t see this necessarily as a political decision for me. This is a decision of technical competence and capability… I conclude that the biggest issue for Cllr Rooth is to remain on planning… I have found Cllr Rooth’s contribution at planning to be technically very competent…

“I don’t like to see an experienced councillor fighting for his reputation and fighting for his position on a technical basis, which is the way I will be looking at this. I will be voting purely on the basis of technical competence, not political competence.”

Further support came, less surprisingly, from among others, Jenny Wicks (Con, Horsley & Clandon), Colin Cross (Lib Dem, Lovelace) and David Reeve (GGG, Horsley & Clandon) but the full extent of the support, from Tory backbenchers too, was not apparent until the vote was taken on Option A.

Of the 37 councillors present only four voted against: Matt Furniss (Con, Christchurch); Graham Ellwood (Con, Merrow); Nigel Manning (Con, Ash Vale) and Jo Randall (Con, Ash Wharf).

Only one dissenter was required for Option A to fall but those voting against Rooth looked surprisingly isolated. Furniss’s request to have a recorded vote appeared to have backfired, making the scale of the revolt crystal clear. Even Council Leader Spooner had voted for Option A.

The meeting moved on to Option B which would have given Rooth a place on Scrutiny and EAB? Rooth’s opponents seemed to be content to let him have this, perhaps unwanted, consolation prize and voted in favour or abstained. But then Cllr McShane was asked for her vote and said “Against”. It was a dramatic moment.

Cllr Julia McShane

It appeared as if the Lib Dems intended to make things as awkward as possible for the leadership and there was genuine shock on the councillor benches.

But there was still one more vote to go. This was for an option where no post was given to Rooth because of his switch of allegiance. Unfortunately, this was not a recorded vote but the proposal was supported by only 11 councillors. Clearly many Tories had voted against it or abstained including some members of the Executive. The “nuclear option” had been taken but what was it?

Council officers and the Mayor exchanged perplexed looks and an adjournment was called to allow consultation.

Council Leader Spooner consulting the leader of the opposition, Caroline Reeves during the adjournment called to consider the effect of the votes.

After ten minutes, during which one Tory councillor called the situation “carnage” the meeting reconvened.

The democratic services manager explained that as it had voted against the allocation of seats it would now revert to the default position which was the allocation as previously decided by the council in May.

He said: “The effect of this is to remove Cllr Rooth from the committees he has hitherto been a member of as his seats on those committees were allocated to members of the Conservative Group. It is now a matter for the Conservative group leader to appoint councillors to those committees in place of Cllr Rooth.”

This was effectively the same option that only 11 out of 37 councillors had supported in the previous vote.

This morning Cllr McShane explaining her vote against Option B denied any plot. She said: “It was clear to me from the wording of the amendment that Tony Rooth wanted to remain on the Planning Committee above all else. I was happy to support that and voted on each occasion in the way I felt best according to my feelings on the matter.

“I voted in favour of Option A to re-appoint Cllr Rooth to the Planning Committee and therefore felt unable to vote for option B which would have removed him from it. I had a free vote and used it as I wished.”

Cllr Rooth commented: “It is unfair, undemocratic and unacceptable that a councillor must belong to a political group. Otherwise, they can be voted off council committees by the vote of only one other councillor.

“At last night’s council meeting, I was voted off the Planning Committee partly because I am now the only Independent councillor on a 48 member council.

“Like Brexit, the council leadership is split – Cllr Spooner voted for me to remain on committees and Cllr Furniss voted for me to leave.

“The message to Guildford residents is now clear – at next year’s elections, Guildford needs a group of active Independent councillors who can fully hold the leadership to account. Otherwise, Guildford will remain a one-party council, run for the many by the very, very few.”

One councillor, who did not wish to be named, reflected this morning: “It was not a great advert for the way Local Government conducts itself.”

A webcast of the meeting can be viewed here.

See also: Council Leader: ‘I Look Forward To Working With Cllr Rooth’

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Responses to Borough Council Chooses the ‘Nuclear Option’ Over Committee Appointments

  1. Jim Allen Reply

    July 25, 2018 at 3:38 pm

    Sadly according to reports of the last Planning Committee Cllr Rooth attended, he chose to be the only one to vote (against the Burpham Neighbourhood plan) for a back garden development in Burpham. All the others on the planning committee abstained.

    Thus his last action on the Planning Committee was a detrimental action causing over-development and continued destruction of Burpham’s “Back Gardens” Perhaps after his long service he should retire gracefully. We don’t need anyone on the Planning Committee who does not respect Neighbourhood Plans.

  2. Wayne Smith Reply

    July 25, 2018 at 10:41 pm

    There’s a stench emanating from Millmead and it’s not due to the heat!

    Anyone that viewed the video of the debate on “the Village” can’t have missed the sneering animosity directed at Cllr. Rooth by Cllr. Furniss for daring to criticise the money wasted on that abject failure. Now Furniss has got his revenge.

    I want the best people to represent me on the council. People not afraid to speak their minds and to have independent thought – not just slavishly follow the party line for fear of deselection or removal from some committee or other. A good leader wouldn’t need to surround him/herself with sycophants.

    So, if Independents won’t be allowed on GBC Committees, then the electorate need to seriously consider tactical voting next May in order to shake up Cllr Spooner and his cabal and get a council worth having!

    • S Tokunaga (Mrs) Reply

      July 26, 2018 at 10:24 am

      I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Smith. This Conservative council has been proven to be exceptionally petty minded. Roll on the next local election.

  3. Bernard Parke Reply

    July 26, 2018 at 10:47 am

    This is all rather sad for Cllr Rooth with his many years of valuable experience, both in the council and in his chosen profession. He has much to offer in these difficult times.

    Frankly, there is no substitute for experience.

  4. Brian Creese Reply

    July 26, 2018 at 11:28 am

    I know we should probably leave the Tories to their private grief, but this sort of nasty, backstabbing in-fighting is often the result of a party being in power for too long.

    Guildford Tories expect to be in power, they feel entitled to be in power and actually having to earn the support of the voters is hardly a thought – for many of them at least.

    The current ruling group are only interested in furthering their own ambitions and are little interested in their constituents – or apparently their party colleagues!

    The answer is to bring to a close the endless Tory hegemony which has existed for decades. Let’s put some Labour councillors in at the next election and make the Tories have to work to stay in power.

    Guildford deserves better than this shambolic, self-centred, self-serving Tory leadership.

    Brian Creese is a spokesperson for Guildford Labour

    • John Perkins Reply

      July 26, 2018 at 5:15 pm

      I completely agree, except I’d prefer “other” to “Labour” in the penultimate paragraph.

  5. Frederick Smith Reply

    July 26, 2018 at 5:00 pm

    I was under the impression that councillors were voted onto the council by their constituents for whichever party they represented. I am surprised to hear that any individual can be a councillor even if they have not been elected as such by anyone.

    Can I then be a councillor for a party I can invent even if I am the only member of it? If that is the case there will be a long line of citizens who wish to be councillors at next year’s elections. Should not all the parties, have a councillor representative on all the Committees.

    It seems all we hear and read is, Conservatives are on this and that, never mind if none of the other councillors from the other parties is represented on them or not. Is that democracy? I think Not.

    No wonder the “Pop-up Village” was such a glorious cock-up at the ratepayers’ expense.

    Shops are going out of fashion read because of people buying items directly from the web, so in my opinion, the Pop-up Village site should now be considered as a brownfield site for “affordable”, whatever that means houses or flats.

    When Cllr Rooth stood down as a Conservative to become an Independent were those who were his constituents supportive of that, bearing in mind that they as Conservatives had voted him as their Councillor to represent their Conservative views? Should there not have been a re-election held in Pilgrims ward to reflect their feelings as to whether they wanted their councillor to continue to be a Conservative or not?

    If what has happened is considered to be representative of this Country’s democratic political system, at the local level no wonder we are in such a mess with Brexit.

    Anyone has the right to stand for election as an Independent candidate for a council or for Parliament without affiliation to any political party.

    Political parties cannot be created on a whim. They have to comply with the appropriate rules administered by the Electoral Commission with whom they need to register.

    Any councillor (or MP) may switch their political allegiance without triggering a by-election on the basis that an individual person has been elected, not a party. However, some do believe by-elections should be called in these circumstances and there are examples of this being done. Ed

  6. Jim Allen Reply

    July 27, 2018 at 9:42 am

    I think that some of these politicians have very limited comprehension. They may have received the majority of votes but they are duty bound after the election process to represent each and every person within their voting area – not just those of a particular colour.

    It appears some have forgotten the colour they were elected under, the principles they were elected under, and the expectations of such a position they have been elected to represent.

  7. Jules Cranwell Reply

    July 27, 2018 at 3:39 pm

    I say it is time for a ‘anyone but the Tories’ campaign.

    Anyone would do better than this lot and their ruinous Local Plan, which is only for the benefit of their chums in the development lobby.

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