Labour criticised for 'power grab' at Hastings Borough Council

The votes, on which councillors would hold the chairman or vice-chairman positions on a number of committees as well as the council’s deputy mayorship, took place at the authority’s annual meeting on Wednesday (May 24).

Two of these votes (including the deputy mayorship) came down to a tie, resulting in the newly-elected Labour mayor Margi O’Callhan using a casting vote to break the deadlock.

These votes became tied as Labour councillors had received the support of Cllr Lucian Fernando — a former Conservative councillor who now represents Reform UK. In fact, Cllr Fernando supported all but one of Labour’s nominations that evening.

This support saw criticism levelled by both Conservative and Green Party councillors.

Green Party leader Julia Hilton said: “[Council leader Paul] Barnett talked about how all 32 councillors should be working together and yet they’ve just acted to remove all the chairs and vice-chairs and in fact to not really care about the opinions or skills of the non-Labour members of this council. So we’ve gone back to the old ways of working within your Labour cabal.

“It seems a pretty short-sighted move to abandon all committees to shared working because now you feel you can rely on the support of a councillor who sits as a member of the Reform party — with views diametrically opposed to your own — and the casting vote of the mayor.”

Conservative councillor Peter Pragnell, who is also chairman of East Sussex County Council, went further. He said: “We’ve had a perfect example this evening of a power grab by a minority, tired, discredited Labour administration, who find themselves propped up by the vote of one member of an extreme right wing racist party.”

Unsurprisingly, this intervention sparked a response from Cllr Fernando. Labour councillors did not respond to the criticism.

Cllr Fernando said: “There is no alliance or anything. I voted totally for the good of Hastings Borough.

“He is classing Reform UK as an extreme right wing party. I would raise the question, ‘which party has racism in here?’ I come from a minority ethnicity and I wouldn’t be standing up for a racist party [or be] a member of that party. Reform UK is not a racist party. Controlling immigration doesn’t mean it is a racist party.

“So there is a question, who is the racism party, because I defected from the previous party.”

Cllr Fernando’s mention of ‘defection’ saw anger from Conservative group leader Andy Patmore, who told the chamber that Cllr Fernando had been ‘expelled’ from his party. This is contested by Cllr Fernando.

Cllr Fernando says he resigned from the party after facing discrimination and unfair treatment, while Conservatives say he was expelled for using threatening language towards other group members and for breaching group confidentiality rules.

While Cllr Fernando denies his expulsion, he does acknowledge that he had been suspended from the party at the time.

Update:

Speaking after the meeting a Labour spokesman denied that there was any form of alliance agreement with Reform UK on Hastings Borough Council.

The spokesman said: “The only alliance Cllr Fernando has is his deep distrust of the Conservative Party.”