Opposition forces in Liverpool have joined together to try and force the ruling Labour group to hold a public vote on the future of the mayoralty.
The Labour group and the city council have received widespread criticism over the handling of a public consultation on whether to retain the elected mayoral system that Liverpool has had in place for a decade - or whether to revert to a different governance system going forward.
Having initially pledged to hold a referendum on the topic, the council instead opted for a public consultation, but just 4% of city residents responded to have their say. And despite the option for a leader and cabinet model - the type that was in place in Liverpool before the 2012 change - coming bottom of the pile, the Labour group still intends to vote to bring this model in at a meeting next week.
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At a fractious council meeting last night, Green Party leader Tom Crone branded the Labour group as 'Trumpian' for moving to bring in the least popular option from the consultation. He added: "You to sit there with a straight face and say we should go to the leader and cabinet system, even thought it got less than a quarter support within the consultation, I just find it amazing, I can’t understand what your justification for that is.”
Cllr Pat Moloney, Liberal Democrat member for Childwall, added that he found it “bizarre that after a consultation, the Labour group are proposing to adopt the least popular choice, I don’t think that’s logical.”
There is now a move to force the council into holding a binding public vote on the matter. Under electoral rules, a referendum can be triggered if 5% of electors in an area sign a petition calling for one. This would require around 15,000 signatures in the city.
The move is being led by two former independent mayoral candidates, Liam Fogarty who was runner up in 2012 and Stephen Yip who came a close second last year. They have now agreed, under their ReSet Liverpool name, that any referendum would be a binary choice between the mayoral system and the committee system - which sees decisions made by groups of council committees.
That is the system backed by Liverpool's main opposition group the Lib Dems and their leader Cllr Richard Kemp has now formally backed the move. He said: "The Mayoral Model is the most extreme form of centralised power and control which holds power in a tight grip. The Committee System is the most decentralised way forward which gives power back to all councillors and their constituents. In addition to the petition this is the option that the Liberal Democrats will move at the Council meeting next week.”
ReSet joint founder and former Independent Mayoral candidate, Liam Fogarty explained: “We are an independent group and have no preferred model, we are simply campaigning on the principle that this is a fundamental decision and should be taken by the people of Liverpool not stitched-up by councillors with their own political agendas. To that end, we favoured a referendum that would have included all three available options on future governance, but it has been made clear that only if we offer a binary choice between two models on our petition form, will the council regard it as legally binding.”
Mr Yip added: "The elected Mayor model presents the simplest direct mechanism of accountability, whilst the committee system allows for the greatest degree of transparent decision-making. It could easily be argued that the Leader with Cabinet model fails to deliver either direct accountability to voters or clear and consistent transparency. It's frankly disgraceful that Labour is forcing through a model that was, by some margin, the least popular option in their own botched consultation."
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