Havering’s Residents Association put motion forward for next council meeting.
Havering’s Residents Association today write:
Havering’s Resident Associations’ (H.R.A) have presented a motion for Wednesday’s full Council meeting calling for a review of the borough’s constitution.
We claim that the voices of the opposition groups in the Council have been progressively eroded by ongoing changes to the Constitution and the use by the Council Leader of the Administration’s majority. The last example, of what the HRA say was an abuse of power, was the removal of various Resident Association councillors as Council representatives on outside bodies e.g. Queens Theatre, and replaced them with Administration councillors for no good reason other than the Leader could. The Leader of the official opposition, Resident Association Councillor Ray Morgon, said “For the last past two years, Havering Council has been run by Damian White in a way that can only be described as autocratic rather than democratic. Enough is enough. It is time that this Council is returned to being run in a fair and democratic way, with all elected 54 elected Councillors being equally valued and heard without being controlled by the Leader of the Council”.
The H.R.A motion is as follows:
‘A. CONSTITUTION REVIEW
Motion on behalf of the Residents’ and Upminster and Cranham Residents Associations’ Groups
Democracy, Fairness and the Rule of Law is the backbone of what makes Britain great and the envy of many countries around the world. However, in Havering, under the current Leadership, these principles have been eroded over the past two years to the detriment of this Council.
As a result, this council calls for an urgent review of the relevant parts of the Constitution such as the Council Procedure Rules, Overview and Scrutiny Committee Procedure Rules and the Committee Procedure Rules to strengthen procedures and bring forward to the Governance Committee appropriate changes to the constitution to bring back democracy, fairness, transparency and adherence to rules and the law.’The debate over the motion and other Council matters can be viewed from 7.30 via webcast by going to the Havering Council website ‘Council meeting videos”
Mr Damian White, having been democratically elected, appears to be doing his very best to run the Council in an autocratic, sorry, democratic way. So much so that he has to ‘bribe, sorry ‘pay’ people not originally elected as Conservative members to cross the floor, in an effort to prop up his faltering regime. It is amazing how conspicuous by their absence these people are in the areas they were elected to be on the Council They appear to be so busy helping themselves, sorry helping those who voted for them not that long ago, yet, we never see them out touting for Conservative votes, or preaching how wonderful the Council are doing. I wonder why? Voters have long memories Mr White, and those people who were voted on to the Council and then accepted the ‘Queen’s shilling’ to ‘cross the floor’, will hopefully be ‘one term wonders’. Do the honourable thing Mr White and return Havering to the democratic Council it once was. Use the ‘Queen’s shilling’ to support the voters of Havering, not support those who were voted on to the Council by people who believed in what they stood for, only for them to find out they were true turncoats. Turncoats for the voters unfortunately, but not for you Mr White. Shame on both counts.