Why I voted for a Labour amendment

Last night at the end of the Council meeting I spoke up for and voted for a Labour amendment - the only Conservative Councillor to do so. “Why?” you may well ask, so I’ll do my best to explain.

The last item on the Council’s agenda last night was about the future governance of Birmingham City Council. New legislation has been brought in that meant the Council needed to consider whether to adopt an ‘Elected Mayor with Cabinet’ or a ‘Leader and Cabinet’ system (we currently have a Leader and Cabinet system however we would change to appointing the Leader for a four year term rather than electing them annually as present) and to consult the public on the issue. The motion put forward was to keep the ‘Leader’ system and proposed the bare minimum of public consultation. The Labour amendment was that the issue should be put to a referendum of the people of Birmingham.

I gave a short speech (I’ll paraphrase it below) and the reaction ranged from stunned silence from my colleagues surrounding me, looks of incredulity on the Lib Dem benches and a warm round of applause from the Labour Councillors.

My speech went something like,

“Thank you Lord Mayor,

I rise to speak briefly in favour of this amendment for two reasons.

The first is simply trust, trust in democracy and trust in the people of Birmingham. We represent the people but are not better than them and I believe they deserve to cast judgment on this issue.

The second is that in 8 months there will be a new government and a new Prime Minister who has promised that referendum. In reality the choice before us is whether we have the referendum this year or next?

So we have a chance, here and now, to be first, for Birmingham to lead and for others to follow. However we vote tonight the people of Birmingham will get their referendum, so why wait?

If you believe in democracy, believe in the people of Birmingham and their wisdom and their judgement you have nothing to fear. Support the amendment.

Thank you Lord Mayor”

It is indeed Conservative policy to hold referendums in the twelve largest cities on the issue of Elected Mayors, so why was I the only one to support that policy? It is well known in Birmingham that current Leader, Cllr Mike Whitby (Con), is opposed to the introduction of an Elected Mayor and so it is often perceived that that is the view of the Conservative group as a whole. It is not. But it is up to other councillors to speak for themselves.

So I voted in favour of a Labour amendment that was putting forward Conservative Policy. Politics is sometimes a very strange world to inhabit.