Council leader Bella Sankey criticised the Conservatives over racist remarks alleged to have been made by the party’s biggest individual donor Frank Hester.
Councillor Sankey called it disgraceful that the Tories, who have refused to return donations of up to £15 million, were being bankrolled by the businessman.
The Labour leader of Brighton and Hove City Council spoke out in light of calls by the government for public bodies to cut their spending on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) schemes.
She spoke out at a recent meeting after the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, and his fellow Conservative cabinet minister Michael Gove criticised councils for spending money on EDI schemes.
The ministers’ approach was echoed by Conservative councillor Alistair McNair when the council set its £1.1 billion annual budget last month.
The Tory group leader wanted £104,000 taken from the council’s anti-racism budget and spent instead on home to school transport, school grounds and bowls club maintenance and services tackling violence against women and girls.
Councillor Sankey made her latest criticisms when the council’s Strategy, Finance and City Regeneration Committee met at Hove Town Hall yesterday (Thursday 14 March).
She said: “It is self-evidently ludicrous to suggest that the billions missing from our communities through local government finance is due to equality, diversity and inclusion.
“But this government is now no longer just attacking EDI in principle. Something even darker has moved centre stage of our politics.
“Former Tory Prime Minister Liz Truss cosied up to Steve Bannon while he heaped praise on Tommy Robinson.
“Our Prime Minister Rishi Sunak failed to confront the Islamophobic comments of his former party chair, Lee Anderson.
“And earlier this week, it was revealed that the biggest donor to the Conservative Party is reported to have called for Diane Abbott, our first black woman MP, to be shot – and to have said that looking at her makes him hate all black women.
“Conservative ministers then fanned out across our TV screens to tell us this was not racism nor misogyny and that they would continue accepting this man’s donations.
“The utter moral failure to accept that violent anti-black racist misogyny should have no place whatsoever in our politics, let alone bankrolling the party of government … what an utter disgrace.
“I want to acknowledge that black and mixed heritage women across Brighton and Hove and across our country have been triggered, hurt and angered by these shocking and violent comments. As have so many.
“My administration utterly rejects the moral abyss that our government now represents and the ugly place it is seeking to take our society.
“We certainly won’t take lessons on equality, diversity and inclusion from a party sponsored by race-hate.
“Instead, we are expanding our EDI work. This year we launched a third ‘diverse talent’ programme, focusing on staff seeking to progress to senior grades.
“And on Monday I was pleased, along with the co-ordinator of our Black and Minority Ethnic Forum network, Helen Charles, to address our Leadership Network on a new programme to implement the other positive action section of the Equality Act, meaning we are actively and positively recruiting those from under-represented groups in tie-breaker situations.”
get the bins emptied
They’re as mad as the greens. Maybe Labour should turn down GMB money while the sabotaging of bin Lorry’s persists.
Cut councillors allowances/phones/ computers etcp
The time spent focusing on political feuding between the parties on a national level is time lost dealing with pressing local issues. Politicians who wish to spend their time debating national policies should stand as an MP and not neglect their duties in local politics.
DIE training is a massive con and a gravy train for radicals and malcontents who wish to disrupt our society and country. It does not add to productivity nor improve efficiency in an organisation that quite frankly is failing to deliver even at a basic level what its shareholders expect. Fiddling while Rome burns.
I see Labour have quickly adopted the Green pastime of weighting in on national party political issues amd debates. Didn’t they say they were going to put an end to this kind of posturing, wasteful nonsense?
Titanic and deckchairs come to mind.
Sort out the fundermentals first such as the bins, potholes and housing repairs.
For goodness sake get a grip.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad that the Labour Party are wasting money like this. You can get this training on any number of YouTube channels for free. You don’t steal money from hard working council tax payers to dole out contracts to your favourite vendors for people running £100,000 course like this. £100,000 would pay for a full time gardener in all the cities parks. This would make our outdoor spaces look wonderful and help stop anti-social behaviour in them. Instead the council says they don’t spend anything on our parks and expect residents to do the gardening.
“£100,000 would pay for a full time gardener in all the cities parks. ”
Either B&H only has three parks, or your wage estimate is stuck in the eighties.
I agree that EDI training really is wasteful foot anyone who has a moral bone in their body, but £100k wouldn’t pay for even a quarter of the parks, what are you talking about?
What a bunch of wasters of our hard earned cash. Same old story, same old labour, same old excuses.
Oh Jim, I’d be more upset with the party that caused inflation to become so bad, overnight, that created an influx of homelessness on the streets of Brighton. Hint: it’s not Labour.
Question, if anyone knows the approx answer without our having to rummage through reams of council paperwork. If Cllr McNair wanted £104k taken from the anti-racism budget for other things, how much is the whole anti-racism/equality.diversity etc budget?
Anyone would think Cllr Sankey is standing as an MP? Unfortunately the abject failure of Labour in our City is being recognised by the National Press (check out the Daily Mail today) – tomorrow it will be another news outlet.
Labour ploughing money into failed pet projects, while residents rage over potholes, overflowing bins & drug-fuelled homelessness. Banning weedkiller & the futile Low Traffic Neighbourhood scheme have wasted massive sums. Meanwhile the City has the 4th highest rate of homelessness in the UK. Graffiti is rampant, rubbish mounting & the Labour Administration imposes the maximum council tax increase. Embarrassing u-turns by Labour on glysophate weedkiller & shelving the LTN scheme, rowing back on toilet closures recently as well.
No wonder Sankey is trying to deflect from local issues …
Sankey would have to change parties to run as an MP as it’s unlikely former bestie Starmer would let her run under the Labour banner now.
Potholes and homelessness is indisputably the fault of the national conservatives government, not local councils. This is evident by the large amount of both issues in councils of all parties. If councils were funded adequately they could fill the pot holes and if the conservatives hasn’t introduced the right to buy there would be more houses….
Daily Mail says an absolutely ton of incorrect rubbish; one just has to pull up the list of things that is thinks we should avoid to avoid cancers. Fun examples include (being male, being female, drinking water, breathing air.)
Using that as an example is extremely weak, councillor. If you want to be an effective opposition, you’re going to have to do a bit better than that.
Your party is causing council tax to rise due to financial mismanagement resulting in the most councils having to default since records began. People in glass houses, councillor.
Just treat everyone equally and there is no need for this money-wasting bs.
Honestly Barry, I kind of agree with you. I think EDI is such a money grab at the best of times. Singing to the choir, right?
Politicians…… If there’s a bandwagon they be whipping its horses….
Cancel VG3 – save £6m of local taxpayer’s money. (The grant only covers half the cost of this pointless project)
Sack all the dogma driven wasters in the Transport department
Maybe we would all be better off if Sankey stayed in bed eating dognuts whilst watching homes under the hammer. Leaving the hard work to those who have experience and understand how to manage the budget effectively, delivering the best possible outcomes for the people of Brighton and Hove.
DON’T WASTE OUR MONEY ON YOUR NONSENSE VANITY PROJECTS.
FIX THE ROTTING HOUSING, FIX THE POTHOLES, SORT OUT THE BINS, CLEAN THE STREETS, OF RUBBISH AND GRAFFITI AND HELP THE HOMELESS, AND SORT OUT THE TRAFFIC MESS ….DO YOU GET THE PICTURE?
But I bet you support wasting millions on the terraces – the absolute definition of a vanity project.
Vote a different party into power at the next general election if you want councils to be funded adequately to do these things
Good thing the budget is mostly done by someone else with experience in this then, isn’t it? If you’re going to recycle someone else’s words, you’d do well to make sure they are accurate at least.
Closing well-regarded primary schools, neglecting vital services yet wasting money on divisive virtue signalling projects like this.
I would never go on an equality, diversity and inclusion training session. The most racist people in this country are the anti-racist extremists who have nothing better to do, and these are the people running these courses. Enough said.
Whenever people say enough said they usually don’t say enough and leave a thought unfinished. Today, you have proven that correct, yet again.
You supercilious little twerp. Enough said.
Ad hominems are the tools of someone who doesn’t have a good answer to what’s been said and a sign of conversational inferiority. Thank you for proving this correct, yet again.
Just ignore Boring Benjy
Look, people, instead of slinging political and personal mud around, and trying to apportion blame for the parlous state of the country and everything else, may we please stay on point. I have just waded through the agenda papers for the budget council meeting in February and, whilst there is copious mention of diversity, anti-racism, equality etc, I still cannot get to the bottom of what the total budgeted cost actually is. However, there is plenty of mention that this is a non-statutory service and there does seem to be general agreement on this thread that EDI training is a waste of money.
The question is simple, so can someone please help to find the answer. Is the total budgeted cost the figure of £104k as reported in the article or is it more than that? Or is more of it buried invisibly in other budgets?
Bella weighs in on national issues instead of local matters. As many have said It’s the Greens all over again being too concerned on national issues instead of fixing our city. Bella, soon there will be a Labour national government so what are you going to do? Who are you going to blame for everything? How are you going to divert our attention from Labour’s failures in the city. Almost a year since you were given that honour and already we have 2 expulsions, things don’t change do they? Who are you going to blame for the Leicester 2?
Incidentally, whilst Cllr Lyons is on this forum might he or one of his councillor colleagues enquire why the promised consultation ‘from 15 March to 19 April’ on the cabinet proposal hasn’t appeared as a consultation on the council website as of today (19th) and suddenly there’s an announcement that this form of consultation will become obsolete and something called ‘Your Voice’ will become the only form of consultation/engagement forum from 3 April 2004. In other words, is the consultation on cabinet actually going to happen at all and, if so, what is the timetable for it under the new procedure.
I believe a report will be presented to councillors on the strategy, finance and city regeneration committee for consideration on March 14, before being put before full council on March 28 for approval.
A provisional start date for the new system, subject to approval, is set for May 16, roughly one year after Labour secured majority control of the city council.
We have our doubts that a cabinet system will work as opposition and backbench councillors will feel excluded.
10 Labour Councillors will effectively be running the City & will be limiting the opportunity for opposition councillors to scrutinise decision making. I believe that the vast majority of Councils that have gone bankrupt are Labour ones that have adopted this model.
This is a sad day for democracy