Labour needs to fight against lean to the right in Lancashire
PLUS: What should happen if a councillor defects to a party his voters may not like?
Hello and welcome to The Lancashire Lead after what has, frankly, been a glorious weekend for weather. A big welcome and thank you to all those who signed up in the wake of the local election results - you’re very welcome here, particularly everyone who upgraded to a paid subscription to support our independent journalism and help us keep a watchful eye on the new Reform administration for the county.
Reform UK, who you’ll know now have overall control of Lancashire County Council, managed to stay in my feeds all weekend thanks to their vow that only the national flags would be flying over County Hall.
It wasn’t hard to imagine likely new leader Stephen Atkinson shaking his head at the own goal. But what about the county flag? The clarification, or row-back, that county flags were fine was quick to come and obviously going to happen.
But those early Reform noises - including telling some staff at authorities to look for jobs - do raise questions and so today we opened the newsletter floor to one of the successful Labour candidates from last week: Samara Barnes.
Samara is a two-hat local councillor, representing Labour on both Rossendale Council and Lancashire County Council. At Lancashire County Council, she is deputy chair of Children, Families and Skills Scrutiny Committee and in Rossendale she is chair of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee. She is also member champion for young people.
She writes about the challenge Labour now needs to meet in Lancashire - and nationally.
Elsewhere, the topic of defections has been debated after an election that saw a number of people move parties beforehand. Should a by-election be mandatory when this happens?
People voted for change in 2024 - and they punished us because they haven’t seen it yet
By Samara Barnes - Labour Lancashire County Councillor for Rossendale West
Whilst we are still coming to terms with the shocking election results last Thursday, the five remaining Labour councillors have a message for all of the hard working officers at Lancashire County Council…and that message is 'Join a Union'.
With the news that Reform controlled councils are planning on making aggressive changes to working conditions and removing any role that doesn’t fit their agenda, we want to make sure that those who work so hard every day for the people in our county have the legal protections they need it goes without saying that they have the full support or the existing five Labour councillors should they need it too. The new leader of the Lancashire Labour group, Mark Clifford, is meeting union leaders at county hall this week.
Farage's cry against those who work from home seemed somewhat ironic, given that the new Regional Director roles they have posted on their website include 'home working' as standard. (with occasional travel) So, I ask them, why is this ok for their staff but not for those at the council?
As well as being a councillor, I work for a national children's charity, and I know first-hand the huge amounts of benefits that working from home brings. It extends the talent pool, it offers a reduction in travel costs and work / life balance is improved significantly.
Why should we ask staff to commute for hours, get stuck in traffic and start their day stressed, when they could easily do their job from the kitchen table? This is performative nonsense.
This is just one of a number of announcements made by Reform since they gained swathes of seats across the country.
Instead of focusing on adult social care, or our failing SEND services, their priority appears to be stoking culture wars by insisting that there is a ban of certain flags in council buildings. The first statement put out by the party stated that only the Union flag and St. Georges Cross could be flown - but they U-Turned on this decision pretty quickly when they saw just how unpopular it was with the public. But what happens to the Armed Services flag or the Ukraine flag that flies proudly on many buildings?
We in the Lancashire Labour group have a huge job in front of us. Not only do we have to hold the new administration to account, work hard for those in our communities who voted for us (and for those who didn’t), but we also have to start rebuilding and organising now.
I believe that the losses we experienced were down to some of the decisions made by the national party since they came into office. People voted for change in 2024 and people are just not seeing it here in Lancashire. The sad thing is that it was never going to happen quickly after 14 years under the Conservative government and eight years of a Tory administration at County Hall.
We have lost some incredible, experienced councillors and have an administration who think flags are more important than climate change. We were entering a period of uncertainty with Local Government Reorganisation looming ahead of us – and now, I fear, it will be utter chaos.
The public made it very clear on May 1 that they weren’t happy. We have to go away and think about how we move forward, how we deliver for the people of Lancashire and ensure that there is no further lean to the right in our lovely county. We are a county with rich diversity and I know for a fact that there are members of our communities who are genuinely fearful of this surge in populism and right wing rhetoric.
Lancashire Labour will support our hard working officers, we will continue to support residents right across the county and work hard in the towns and villages we represent, and we will come back fighting to turn our Red Rose county red once again!
Recommended reading this week
🍔 The owners of a smash burger trailer are "gutted" after being forced to shut down by the council because it was too close to local primary schools. Co-owners Sam Carroll, 21, and Aaron Millar, 21, lost their bid for planning permission to house their smash burger takeaway trailer Smokies on the carpark of Dunkirk Hall pub in Leyland. Strong reporting from the Lancashire Post.
🚤 A new marketing campaign will encourage people to visit Kirkby Lonsdale - very much on that Lancashire, Cumbria and Yorkshire border - thanks to £25,000 from the government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund. The Lancaster Guardian has the details.
👃🏻 I’ve been reporting pretty extensively on the Jameson Road landfill in Fleetwood, which definitely stinks. But there’s been debate over whether it is causing physical health problems for residents and a lack of evidence available to point to. One expert told me this week that 14 years of cuts to Environment Agency budget means they’re just not well-equipped to protect people. Read about that on the national edition of The Lead.
Lancashire County Council’s new leader to be confirmed at the weekend
By Paul Faulkner
The Reform UK group that now controls Lancashire County Council will elect a leader this Saturday.
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