The “People’s Petition”
As a candidate, Fiaz committed to holding a referendum to end the mayoral model of local government by May 2021 at the latest.
However, no sooner had she got her feet under the table when the job began to look more attractive, and maybe, she thought, maybe she should do two terms at £80k pa.
Unfortunately for her, that was not what her council colleagues thought. In a coup, the rebellious councillors voted to hold a referendum, between June 2020 and May 2021, against the wishes of the mayor and her diminishing band of supporters on the council.
Fiaz attempted a rear-guard action, seeking to delay the implementation of the referendum, only to be outflanked by her former allies who wanted rid of the mayoralty and rid of her.
East Ham CLP General Committee voted for a petition and a new group, Democracy Newham, coincidentally headed by the Chair of East Ham CLP, one Tahir Mirza, was set up to raise a petition to force a referendum on the mayor.
Having raised and submitted over 12,000 signatures in September 2020, the Monitoring Officer at Newham Council ruled that the petition was invalid.
A great advert for democracy.
This photo and caption came from Newham WTF, but it was too good to ignore. Posted in September 2019 they didn’t know how true it would be.
Democracy Newham and several councillors threatened legal action based on legal advice to Croydon Council in similar circumstances. Bowing to the inevitable, Fiaz has become a supporter of the idea of a referendum. Again. This time she chose to announce her change of heart, not to her cabinet; not to her colleagues on the Labour Group; not to the full council, but on a community radio station and to both of their listeners.
The referendum will be held in May 2021. This is good because it will ensure a larger turnout when Newham voters will be asked by Labour to both vote YES to abolish the mayoralty and vote YES for Sadiq Khan as Mayor. No room for confusion there then.