It was a very moving and poignant moment for all who attended the Remembrance Sunday services, which are held across the country in the last week or so. As an EU national, who has lived abroad for more than 20 years, it is quite an important month for us too as Poland celebrates re-gaining its independence on 11 November.
As I was walking back to my car, I bumped into a former Councillor, who stood down at the last elections. Although we sat at the opposite benches of the Council Chamber, I also had a lot of time for him. He was never confrontational, he always tried to put his views across well, in a constructive way, without a need to score cheap political points. When I asked him whether he misses his role as a Councillor, he said no. Some of the things that he mentioned were obvious and yet so hard to implement, even at the local level. In my experience, far too often, we have no ability to accept that our opponent or Council colleague might have equally good legislative ideas. We reject motions only because they come from the other side of the Chamber. Our former Welwyn Hatfield Councillor didn’t like this “democratic ping-pong”, which “empowers” party politics and doesn’t recognise our individual or collective contribution. Is this the fault of the system? Why is it so hard for elected members, Councillors or MP’s, to simply admit that someone might have a good point? Why is it so hard for us to listen to understand and not only listen to respond?
The experience of standing at any elections is rewarding, however it can be also very draining. The impact on your work-life balance (I still have to work full-time), attendance at a number of meetings and a high volume of case-work., means that the “me-time factor” often doesn’t exist. Is it worth it, we both wondered? Would our ability to make decisions, improve the efficiency of LA’s, reduce red-tape, if we removed party politics from the Local Government? It is true that the movement of Independent Cllrs is growing. I have recently come across, while researching something for my friend that in e.g. Saffron Walden or Uttlesford District, there is a majority of members who are not aligned with any of the major political parties. Is this trend going to continue?
This week marks my favourite campaign, which I have been supporting since 2013. Last Saturday (16 November), I had an opportunity to visit children from the Ukrainian Saturday School in Welwyn Garden City. My conclusions? It is so important to connect our younger generation, as early as possible, with the civic and democratic process. It is equally important to demonstrate that we all can influence change at local or national level. It should be our priority to empower our students and encourage them to take an active role in our society. Furthermore, understanding the benefits of democracy increases our confidence in terms of engaging with Government and Statutory Institutions. It will also improve our opportunities to improve job prospects, living conditions and health. Moreover, enhancing democratic experience can help to build a sense of ownership over our circumstances.
I often have my own doubts whether I should continue and stand again in 2 years’ time. However, overall, I still love the ability to serve the residents, raise and address their concerns and use absolutely every opportunity to make a difference, bold bridges and create moments where real meaningful dialogue can flourish.
* Michal Siewniak is a Lib Dem activist and councillor for Handside ward, Welwyn Hatfield.
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15 Comments
Some councils have a much more political culture than others. However I believe Tony Blair’s insistence that councils should embrace the cabinet approach with a group of “ins” determining policy and a group of “outs” whose role was to find fault with the way the “ins” were running the Council has done a lot to drive the situation Michal complains of. The type of party politics of which he complains also took place under the old committee system [in some councils much more than others] but there seemed to me to be more frequent occasions when a councillor would make a constructive suggestion during a committee meeting and for this to picked up and worked on by other councillors. I believe some very small councils were allowed to keep their committees. It would be interesting to see if someone has gathered data on public perceptions of small district councils to see if there is statistically meaningful diference in public perception between those who have gone down the cabinet route and those which retained the committee strucure.
In small councils prior to the major reorganisation in 1974 often had a number of non-aligned councillors. I was briefly a member of Todmorden Borough council which had a goodly number.
It was still possible to get elected in the small wards that existed at the time and the costs of campaigning were correspondingly small.
Once councils became much bigger, the sheer cost of campaigning to get elected made it increasingly difficult to get elected as an independent, unless you had a lot of money. Political Parties also have the advantage of having political programmes that they can put before the electorate and then implement if resources are available.
I reject the notion that there is no accomodation between political groups, especially if no one party is in control. In my 22 years as a district councillor I found that I was able to get things done by quiet negotiation even when the council was run by one party or another.
Anyway, if I had ever stood as an independent, everyone would have said “oh, he’s that Liberal”
From a non-councillor perspective, the advantage of political affiliation over independents is that voters can identify with certain mindsets that are defined by political affiliation. Only a few of us are fortunate to meet and know our independent candidates and can support or oppose their viewpoints. An occasional Independent leaflet is seldom sufficient .
Keith Cresswell raises an interesting point about independents. [or as the late Tony Greaves often said ‘bloody independents’]. Often you can’t determine their stances on anything in advance, so keen are they to be independent and free of party politics!
Sad to say quite a few Indies are closet supporters of a political party for whom the electorate would not vote. Good Indies are a valuable asset. Rejection of opposition motions because of their source is detrimental to us all.
We need STV for local elections.
To quote again from the late Tony Greaves, there are two types of independent; Condependents and Bloody independents. David Garlick’s point about supporting an unpopular political party and therefore standing as an independent is very valid.
The cabinet structure is indeed a pretentious nonsense. But before that there was already , in some councils, a pathetically negative attitude to whatever “the other lot” said. I well remember when I was on Surrey County Council that it was nigh on impossible to say anything with which the Conservatives would agree, regardless of plain common-sense.
As for Independents, as already described, there is no standard response. Our local Parish Council is very anxious to have people who are not overtly politically aligned – and the result is that we have good people who might well not want to stand on a party ticket or would not get elected if they did!
But for me the most damaging trend is the proliferation of multi-member wards. This means that specific communities are unable to elect “their” councillor as their votes are swamped by people from other areas. So that makes the task of getting elected, be one an Independent or a vocal member of a political minority, hugely more difficult – should one even think it worth trying in these adverse circumstances. That’s simply not how genuinely local democracy should be operating.
It may well be different at local government level, but at Westminster the label ‘Independent’ is indicative of an MP who is to the left of the Labour Party.
There are 5 such MPs. The same number as Reform.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Alliance_(UK)
“Often you can’t determine their stances on anything in advance, so keen are they to be independent and free of party politics!”
There’s no other legal choice.
If the candidate isn’t a member of a political party, or if the party doesn’t choose to give support, the candidate has to appear on the ballot paper as an “Independent”.
Prior to 1998 (I think) it was allowable for an independent candidate to call themselves Independent Labour, Independent Liberal etc which would give the voters some indication of where they stood politically.
It’s not allowable now.
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/how-register-your-political-party/identity-marks-ballot-papers/party-name
@Peter Martin – The current crop of independants at Westminster is unusual. Independant usually means suspended from their party for sexual or financial misbehaviour.
@PeterMartin. You don’t have to stand as an independent, there is an alternative, which is to register a political party. Admittedly it’s not very easy, but it is possible.
Describing yourself as an independent is not strictly the problem. The problem is not having any coherent ideas that voters can identify with. Some people stand on a single issue (in Cambridge it’s opposition to proposed congestion charges), but if elected have to make decisions on all sorts of issues and voters have no idea what the ‘independent’ view is or will be.
When councils were small, it was possible for candidates and voters to meet each other and for voters to have some idea what the candidate stood for. With ward sizes now as much as 30,000, that’s no longer possible.
Voting for an independent may sound superficially attractive, but the real;ity is very different.
@Tom Harney; you have made the only positive suggestion for change in council elections, i.e. PR. This discussion shows how complicated local democratic representation can be. Very often the national political situation greatly affects who gets elected to the local council, something so far not mentioned here.
@ Mick,
It may well be possible but it’s certainly not practical to start a separate political party for every person who wishes to stand as an independent. In any case, the application of a party label negates the concept of independence. There a good case for saying that terms like Independent Socialist, Independent Tory, or whatever, should be allowed to give the voters some idea of who they might be voting for.
Furthermore, there is a similar restriction on what parties can call themselves. At one time we had an Independent Labour Party. There was some discussion in left wing circles recently about resurrecting that name. I actually looked into it and discovered that the use of the word Independent is no longer allowed to be used with any registered political party.
@ Peter Davies,
I’d take it as a badge of honour to be suspended by Starmer and thus classed as an Independent. It doesn’t indicate any type of misbehaviour at all.
I sympathise about how the “party line” can be a problem in local politics where on many issues you could vote either way and still be a liberal.
However competitive elections are vital in a democracy. In many places where one party dominates you get the other problem; corruption, taking voters for granted.
What liberals need to do is work out how to involve voters more in the decision making process, particularly where decisions affect them.
The Lib Dems often struggle with party slogans. The best one so far is “Take power, vote Lib Dem”. What every Lib Dem councillor needs to be thiking about is; “How do we get local people to take part in the decisions that affect them?” By that process people become more empowered.