Opinion: Why the County Council Elections Should Proceed

Published on: 27 Jan, 2025
Updated on: 27 Jan, 2025

The Reform Party, reviled in some quarters, is nonetheless riding high in the opinion polls. This week one poll put them in first place above both the Conservatives and Labour. Of course, they want to take advantage of their current position at the scheduled county council elections in May but it seems likely that they will be postponed.

Rory O’Brien, Reform UK’s Spelthorne Branch Chairman and candidate in the 2024 general election, sets out his case for the elections to proceed…

The Find Out Now poll which shows Reform UK in the lead.

By Rory O’Brien

This Labour Government’s Devolution White Paper recognizes that in the UK many have lost faith in our political system.

It states: “We face a long-term decline of trust in our politics. Too many people feel like they do not have control over the things that matter most to them, from housing to healthcare.”

So it seems counterintuitive that their first action is to cancel May’s elections and remove the connection between voters, and those serving as their representatives. (Swiftly followed with discussions on rolling back voter ID requirements, extending votes to foreign nationals and 16, and 17- year-olds).

The White Paper and Conservative SCC Leader Tim Oliver.

The fundamental principle of the British constitution is Parliamentary sovereignty. Parliament is the supreme legal authority capable of creating or ending any law.

The judiciary by convention doesn’t have the power to overturn legislation passed by Parliament, granting Parliament unparalleled authority.

However, the British constitution is a patchwork of several sources;

• Statute Law: those laws passed by Parliament
• Common Law: decisions made by the Courts and precedents that influence, and shape the application of laws
• Conventions: the unwritten practices that have evolved over time and followed out of tradition and precedent

Does this White Paper and any associated postponement of local elections in May, align with the constitution and what changes to our constitution might it bring?

There is a risk it will support the Blairite ambition to turn our regions into tiny remote EU playthings controlled by local Bolshevik-type leaders (eg Sadiq Khan, Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford), who bypass parliament and lock us further into international relationships with the EU and other global bureaucracies.

Surrey County Council debating whether it should request Surrey to be a priority for unitaryisation.

Interestingly, the government is looking to follow a previous precedent set by the last Conservative government, passing “Change to Year of Election” orders for six councils from 2021, out to May 2022.

Applying a similar argument, to that given now, these councils were going to be abolished and replaced by a unitary authority (UA).

In practice elections were held in May 2022, doubling the number of councillors in preparation
for the transfer to a UA in April 2023.

The key thing here is the Government is using change as a smoke screen for the suppression of democratic accountability and the rebuilding of larger public service bureaucracies with the inflated cash flows rescued from the ashes of district, borough and county councils, whilst centralizing assets and obfuscating any debts.

The English Devolution White Paper, is aspiration-heavy but light on details. With the assumption, details will work themselves out during the next year or so with input from local authorities.

We are already witnessing friction with the Conservative-led Surrey County Council attempting to rehash their 2020 plans for a single UA for Surrey, a proposal roundly demolished back then, by the 11 borough and district councils and one that doesn’t fit within the guidelines laid out by the Government in their White Paper.

Meanwhile, local boroughs are like children picking players for their playground football team. Arguments abound over which team has to take Woking Council and their £1.2 billion debt mountain.

The clock is ticking to complete a complex overhaul of local democracy from a White
Paper, which itself has to traverse through Parliament. It has to go through:
a. 1st reading; b. 2nd reading;  c. Committee stage; d. Report stage; e. 3rd reading f. House of Lords*
g. Royal assent.

Dangers of Delay

What are the underlying dangers with the regular acceptance of cancelling or delaying elections?

The actions of Westminster and their legislative calendars will now control the timelines of local democracy. We are left with no legally binding assurances should a delaying order be passed for Surrey Council elections, the devolution process would be complete by May 2026.

Our British Constitution will have enough historical precedents for the Government to set further delays to Surrey County Council elections out to 2027 (or beyond). With Local Borough Council elections expected in May 2027, a precedent has already been set for these to be pushed out, should devolution’s design and implementation extend this far.

The long-term dangers are: how many instances of delaying orders for local democracy, will be required to set a precedent for its application to Parliamentary elections? The current private members Elections (Proportional Representation) Bill from the Lib Dems is entering its 2nd reading.

Whilst supporting the discussions and introduction of PR, a change in the voting system will impact the composition of the House of Commons and the convention of regional representation by Members of Parliament?

Any restructuring with perceived impacts on time served by newly elected MPs could leave us open to attempts for delaying order. As the saying goes, “You can vote your way into socialism, but will have to fight your way out.”

Rather than treating ‘mistakes’ as legal precedents, we should be learning from these mistakes and hold elections before we make big changes.

We need to vote for new councillors with reorganization in mind, not leave the reorganization to councillors with an expired mandate, re-hashing their failed old plans.

In the private sector, if a company was being taken over, shareholders would be consulted to approve the deal. But the councillors are not the shareholders of our council. We are!

This is why Reform UK urged members in Surrey to email their councillors, lobbying them not to support Tim Oliver’s (Surrey County Council Leader) plan to submit a letter to Westminster and request the cancellation of elections this year.

The Reform Picket Line at Surrey County Council

We even manned a picket line at the gates of Surrey County Council on the morning of the meeting. Sadly, this Conservative majority council was “like turkeys voting for Christmas”.

Surrey is facing its greatest re-design in decades, whilst Surrey residents are being denied any input. Decisions at a local level are being made by representatives whose “people’s mandate” has expired. It’s time for them to be judged on their tenure, gather residents’ feedback and ask for a new mandate, to represent their wishes in this devolution process.

When all is said and done, democracy delayed is democracy denied.

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