Local elections will take place next year, Brighton and Hove City Council’s leader told a sceptical member of the public at a town hall meeting.
Labour council leader Bella Sankey not only faced questions from former election candidate Nigel Furness, she was also asked by Green councillor Pete West whether council leaders had been “leant upon” to delay elections.
Brighton and Hove elects all 54 councillors in one go every four years. The most recent elections were held in 2023 and the next are due in May next year.
But after Sussex, including Brighton and Hove, was selected for the government’s “devolution priority programme”, with a directly elected mayor, the mayoral election was initially planned for May this year.
In December, though, the government postponed this election for two years until May 2028. Despite the delay, work has continued on forming the Sussex and Brighton Mayoral Combined Authority to work with the mayor.
At the meeting of the full council last Thursday (29 January), Mr Furness said: “As the plans for this year’s Sussex mayoral elections have now been postponed until 2028, partly, I understand Councillor Sankey, as a result of your input, what, if any, plans have you advocated to steal our citywide elections next year?”
He went on to say that he had heard from contacts in Westminster that Councillor Sankey had plans to turn the city into a “sanctuary” from the democratic will of the electorate.
Councillor Sankey smiled as she said that she was flattered that Mr Furness considered her to have such influence over the government’s decision.
She said that was “a supporter of the supplementary vote for mayoral elections”, adding: “I’m pleased that will now be the voting system nationwide for regional mayors.
“I had no direct involvement in the decision to postpone the mayoral election for Sussex and Brighton, nor to postpone the elections for the other areas in the devolution priority programme.”
This was a reference to East Sussex County Council and West Sussex County Council which have put off their elections again. They were last held for both councils in May 2021 and were initially cancelled in May last year.
Councillor Sankey said that she was a champion of democracy who enjoyed campaigning and winning elections and looked forward to next year’s local elections.
Councillor West asked whether council leaders had been “leant upon” to delay elections to avoid Labour losing control in a “routing” by Reform UK.
The Labour deputy leader of the council Jacob Taylor said that the Labour group loved elections and campaigning.
Councillor Taylor said: “Bring on the next election because at that next election what we’ll be standing on is our proud record of improving services in this city, our proud record of making school admissions fairer, our proud record of building and buying more social housing than previous administrations, our proud record of being a responsive, efficient and successful administration in contrast to the previous Green administration.
“So bring on the election next year. We can’t wait.”
Wonder how confident Labour councillors in Brighton and Hove will feel about local elections here next year when they see the results in council holding local elections this May. If polls are right, the Labour vote has collapsed and at local and national levels they are done.
Won’t make any difference to us here. On a local level the Greens are no better than Labour. It will just be the same old wreck the city policies.
Brighton is a bubble though so it’s silly to treat this as a national poll. Greens have a terrible record in this city, which they don’t elsewhere, think KitKat and the i360… conservatives have all but disappeared. Reform may pick up some votes but I very much doubt they’ll even get a single councillor. All labour need to do is keep at it with the road replacements. But whoever wins needs to make a promise to replace the vehicle fleet at city clean, that’s dragged on far to long and is a massive own goal. You can’t blame the workers or management if 8 trucks are off the road every day.
Graffiti, specifically tagging needs dealing with in a better manner equally.
I think you’re pretty on point there Dave. Brighton is definitely unique! Election will be Labour vs Green. The city is too bohemian for Reform, if it follows the by-election, they’ll pick up the remaining conservative vote as a minor party.
I also think you’re right that bins would be a vote winner. Pressure point for a lot of people.
Yet the i360 was Labour’s pet project back in 2006, and it was a Labour council who practically gave it away to a private company last year. IMO there was poor decision making from ALL political parties at various points. Same with other issues at the council. It’s mainly been Labour run in recent years, but Tory cuts to local authority budgets since 2010 had a massive impact on ANY council being able to make much impact in the city with such reduced resources.
The difference now is that it’s a Labour government AND a Labour council, so there is no reason for this current Labour lot not to deliver the changes they promised and their manifesto commitments – yet there’s an awful lot of backtracking happening and cuts still taking place – like closing schools and libraries. That will be a MASSIVE problem for them when elections happen. People don’t forget the u-turns and broken promises. Nationally the Labour government has also been a car crash to date.
i360 was a Green project, that Labour voted against when the bloated cost of the second version came out, to be fair.
The belt tightening we’ve been seeing recently still comes from the conservative austerity measures, and not easily undone, although I do agree with you that Labour nationally could be doing more to fund councils, this year being the perfect time for them to do so having spent enough time patching things up.
Schools, the important part of the pledge that often gets missed out is “…wherever possible”, because the nuance is that with such a low birth rate, they aren’t sustainable without some consolation. That’s not an easy decision, but it is a pragmatic one.
When you actually read their manifesto pledges, Labour actually done most of them despite those challenges. Sure, more to do, as there always is, but honestly, when you compare to what Greens set out to do, it’s a night and day difference.
It’s not April Fools Day yet Benjamin.
If your response is serious, it’s just becoming painful to read your constant Labour apologist replies.
Ad hominem, Craig. Doesn’t address anything I said.
The i360 wasn’t a political pet project.
Initially it was for a planning application that went through the planning process – just like any other application
At a later date the i360 came to the council asking for a loan. Labour supported a £14m loan (as did the other parties) .
The i360 then came asking for a £36m loan. Labour rejected this and voted against it. it was the Tories and Greens that voted through the loan.
All this backed up by oublically available meeting minutes.
Supporting a planning application isn’t the same as backing a loan. Two separate issues followingtwo separate processes.
As for ‘giving it away’ what real choice did the council have? No private company was willing to take it on with the ball and chain that was the huge loan. And the council isn’t in the business of running tourist attractions. Whoever was in charge of the council would have made the same decision – even if it was through gritted teeth.
Labour has done a good job in Brighton, keep building social council housing stock and you will have my vote
Yet they haven’t ended Right to Buy and continue to sell it off?
Not something that can be done by a local council, although, rumour is that something rather interesting is in the pipeline regarding that.
Good to see Nigel is still around making our local politicians bums squeak 🤣 Interesting that Councillor West admitting that Reform will rout Labour at the next election.
It’s odd West thinks that, since Reform has had terrible performance so far. Brightonians are far too aware to be misled by Reform.
To be honest it will either be the greens or labour so the town is doomed anyway. Brighton will never vote any other party now because there are too many that support labour and the greens. So all we have to look forward to is more and more shambles and more of the town falling apart and getting less and less suitable for families.
I think there are plenty of good things to point towards that have been done so far, Kat. However, I do think the council needs to improve its communication about what it has done. For example, the amount of house building, acquisition, and reform of housing that Labour has undertaken since coming into office, compared to previous councils, has been very positive for families, especially when you consider that it is a lot more difficult nowadays.
I guess maybe that’s why I’m a bit more hopeful that Brighton is going in a good direction. Still more to do, certainly, but, getting there.
Agree 100%. I’ve made the decision to move away and its mainly because of BS and her cronies and what this city is becoming under them and if Greens take over, it will be even a bigger disaster imo.
To be fair to the Labour administration, I’ve noticed the town is cleaner than before the last local election, or at least in my area (London Road). Brighton is still, and continues to be the grubbiest place I’ve ever lived, but there was so much more litter around when Greens were in post. The onus here however should be on those in the City that cause littering, as like you say it makes the town less suitable for families, rather than choosing a political party that can only pledge to just clean up after us.
Go Nigel go ,give it to them !
My personal view is that residents are sick to death of Labour (nationally) & Greens will pick up a few seats (but won’t get a majority). Reform may pick up a few seats – especially if the number of councillors increase (devolution) & Conservatives/Independents to make some increase. I think Labour will be the largest party but lose control to ‘no overall control’.
A lot can happen between now and next year of course.
What do I know!
There won’t be any additional seats created for the 2027 B&H elections.
There was a boundary review before the 2023 election which included an assessment of how many councillors are needed and that was 54. The next scheduled review won’t until the mid 2030’s
Plus B&H isn’t really affected by the reorganisation.
It’s highly unlikely it will be up to Ms Sankey, the way things are going, both nationally and locally.
If you mean cancelling the 2027 elections they you are right as it’s a Government decision and the Government didn’t cancel all the elections it was asked to.
And one that’s complicated by the need for separation from other elections so that the Sussex & Brighton Mayor doesn’t take place in the same year as other council elections plus when will the first and then subsequent elections for the new councils in East & West Sussex fit into the cycle.
My personal view is that residents are sick to death of Labour (nationally) & Greens will pick up a few seats (but won’t get a majority). Reform may pick up a few seats – especially if the number of councillors increase (devolution) & Conservatives/Independents to make some increase. I think Labour will be the largest party but lose control to ‘no overall control’.
A lot can happen between now and next year of course.
What do I know!
It’s what the polls are saying, although bit optimistic on the Conservatives, many of them saying they’ll lose out to Reform, like in QP, and the independent vote is typically irrelevant.