Letter: Political Groups Are Not the Same as Parties

Published on: 2 Oct, 2018
Updated on: 2 Oct, 2018

From John Perkins

In response to: Will the New Independents Form Part of the Opposition?

People might be surprised to learn that political groups are not the same as parties. Groups have status in law whereas parties do not. Being a member of a group implies no loyalty to or agreement with any other member of the group.

A feature of the way committee places are allocated means that the Labour group is vulnerable to losing a seat. The new Independent group must be allocated seats proportionally, but because of GBC’s “strict” interpretation of the law that might mean one seat is taken from Labour. No prize for guessing that would be a seat on Planning. Nothing can be done to prevent it. However, in order to allow themselves the choice of who sits on what committee the Independent group could consider joining the Labour group or vice versa.

Although their own committee seats are secure, the same applies to the Guildford Greenbelt Group and Liberal Democrat groups. They could all form one political group and agree to share the allocated seats in order to form a more effective opposition.

A spokesperson for Guildford Borough Council has responded: “We will be presenting a report to full council on 9 October on the review of the allocation of seats on committees to political groups in light of Cllr Bob McShee’s resignation from the Conservative group and the subsequent formation of the new Independent group (comprising Cllrs McShee and Rooth).

“The outcome of the review will be a numerical allocation that best meets, as far as reasonably practicable, the requirements for political balance.

“The scenarios outlined by Mr Perkins of the Labour and Independent groups merging, or all of the opposition groups merging, into one new group are theoretically possible if all the relevant councillors signed a notice to that effect confirming the name of the new group and its leader.”