Hastings has joined the growing roll of councils where politics is still alive. We’ve just developed a rebel indie group.
My former socialist Labour colleagues have all been screaming at our remaining socialist councillors to step up and help the growing support for #Ceasefire in Gaza … well — I don’t know how many took the direct route, but I’ve been screaming at them – and then trying to scream carefully when we saw councillors attempting the impossible juggling act you need to do when trying to be honourable within the vindictive and severely dysfunctional remnant of the Labour Party.
Financial storms
I also know I’m far from being the only one who’s been watching the approach of financial D-Day in Hastings. Local political social media sites have been overflowing with howling accusations of stupidity and malpractice and, whilst I know our council doesn’t have a brilliant record, and there have been a string of catastrophic events in town, I know there are councillors there, including leader Paul Barnett, with considerable public service and financial experience, councillors who used to be honest socialists, and did turn out on the picket lines for the nurses, for the railway workers, for the emergency services.
Whatever the gossips are saying, I doubt the disasters were down to either stupidity or corruption on their part.
Global anti-genocide movement
(Please excuse me starting this paragraph on a personal note) This week, a month and a half into the apocalyptic meltdown in Israel / Palestine, with the heart-breaking toll of dead children approaching 5000, I attempted to put politics away for a few hours and go see a Christmas show, satisfaction guaranteed because it had family members in it. It worked. It was a fantastic show and for me, the clouds lifted. Amazingly, just to prove there are days when magical beings smile on you, I got home to find social media alive with the news – a group of no less than six, including our Council Leader Paul Barnett and Deputy Leader Maya Evans, had cut up their Party cards and although only two of them have put out detailed statements so far, both of them include the Labour Party’s unconscionable attitude to the deaths in Gaza as a factor, and the photo at the header of this blog shows three of them at the rally for Gaza in Hastings today.
Now I don’t think those are six perfect councillors and there are one or two issues where they are annoyingly distant from what I personally think are vital policy positions but heck, you’d go a long way to find six perfect councillors, and this lot are pro NHS, pro people’s needs, anti-austerity and anti-genocide. That bodes really well.
Numbers
There are 32 council seats on Hastings Borough Council. Currently, 10 Tories, 9 Labour, 5 Green and 1 UK Reform, plus now 7 independents. (One is a former Tory). There are rumours heating up around the town that others may soon join the Independent Party.
It’s still very volatile. The Tories have lost two councillors since the last election, with the most far-right among them, Lucian Fernando, moving to the UK Reform Party and, from the less mad end of the Tory party John Rankin, who left when in his opinion (and mine – in fact most people’s) the local Tory Party became both too far right and too downright abusive.
I can think of one or two of the remaining Labour councillors who might be tempted. I also seem to remember John Rankin as the most humane of the Tories. I remember him standing with our former lefty council leader Peter Chowney at times, such as when they were trying to prevent the last of our local schools being sucked into the clutches of a very unappealing academy chain company. I doubt he’d want to join a pro-union, pro-NHS anti-austerity group, though.
I do wonder about the Greens. The first Green councillor we got, Julia Hilton, jumped in when a Labour saboteur accused most of her fellow councillors (mainly Jewish socialists) of anti-Semitism then resigned. Hilton does not seem to me to be any kind of socialist. It is going to be hard to forgive the way she went on to get her second Green councillor, basically by aiding and abetting the sabotage of Ruby Cox, a Labour councillor who apparently had “wrong” views about the biology of women (ie, that it exists), and then by eagerly taking on another former Labour councillor who, it seems to me, jumped ship to avoid a Labour disciplinary for her part in that horrible affair.
BUT
The three Green councillors we’ve gained since then don’t show signs of being either Tories-on-bikes or gender-cultists. They are doing useful things in their communities, and seem to be gaining a following.
Before the current shenanigans, when we looked at the line-up from the last council elections, leader Paul Barnett put a lot of effort into building a working relationship with the Greens, including inviting Green councillors into cabinet. Sadly, this was a high-risk strategy because amongst the Labour Party’s current failings is its inability to accept coalition working in councils.
The six members of our brand new Hastings Independent Party have stated that they aren’t going to discuss anything further for a couple of weeks and as the next two weeks are mostly Christmas, I guess that’s no harder than having to wait to see what’s under the Christmas Tree. Suddenly, it looks as through 2024 is going to produce some very interesting politics in Hastings.
… and even as I was typing this, news has arrived of another Labour Councillor joining the indies…
… will they have a majority by New Year? Politics has got exciting again!
********************
Dear Reader,
Times are hard, and so the articles on this site are freely available but if you are able to support my work by making a donation, I am very grateful.
Cheers,
Kay
********************
Kay Green 