Greens Carved Out of any Seats, But Maybe Next Year.

Councillor Vaughan (in the Chair): “I call upon Councillor Islam to move this report.” Mayor makes her feelings known. (1.04:05)

It’s all on You Tube, 1.05:30-1.09:35.

Councillor Islam moves the report on allocation of seats on committees as Chief Whip, (but as we understand it, this is to be his last year as Chief Whip, the knives are clearly out for Cllr Islam).

In his maiden speech, Cllr Higgins commented; “It is regrettable that the Labour Group has rejected every request from the Greens, no less than three offers were rejected….we won’t be dissuaded from scrutinising the work of the council…We cannot and will not endorse the exclusion of the Greens from the Audit Committee.”

He also wondered aloud whether Newham Labour Group would extend a presence on the Audit Committee to the only opposition on the council, particularly in the light of the findings of the final meeting of the 2018-2022 committee.

It seems that Cllr Islam went ‘off-script’ in his concluding reply. He noted the comments made by Cllr Higgins. And he “promised to take the concerns raised away and hopefully next term will be a better one”.

We’re pretty sure that he hadn’t ok’d that with the mayor, but it sounds very like he has intimated that next year, the Labour Group will allow an opposition member onto the Audit committee.

The Newham Labour Group have “graciously” and “diligently” carved the opposition out of any committees on which they might have found something embarrassing. In an unprecedented statement (see below) of nauseating self-congratulation, they prattle on about how wonderfully fair they have been. Just who are they trying to kid?

Meanwhile, we understand that any councillor can attend and have sight of the papers for any council committee. They won’t necessarily be called upon to speak, but they can attend, and with the agreement of the Chair they can speak. That would make the scrutiny of the Audit Committee a little more interesting. Just because you are carved out of the formal positions does not mean that you have to remain silent. Just because they want to put you in a box does not mean that you have to stay there.