Labour - representing nothing more than themselves

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 2nd Jul 2004

Each year representatives of the political parties get together as a Membership Committee to resolve any problems before the Borough Council's AGM. There job, amongst other things, is to decide what the size of Committees will be and how many seats on them will be from each of the political parties. This year's meeting was held on 23 June and, as always, was open to the Public and Press. It has the one big benefit that it ensures all discussions are open and above board and no decisions are made in "smoke filled room".

The discussions and arguments took place and decisions were made. The recommendations went to the Borough Council's AGM on 2 July with the full support of all three Political Parties.

This year, instead of the Membership Committee's recommendation being accepted (bar minor changes) by all the Councillors, Labour members decided not to support it.

This means that not all the main Committees of the Council now have representatives on them from all the Political Parties.

Instead what we now have is a classic case of Labour arrogance in thinking that they know best. As Lib Dem Councillor Gordon Seekings put it, "The Labour party may have the majority of seats in Crawley but they don't have the majority of votes. Anyone with any sense would have learnt the lessons of the ballot box and acted accordingly. Individual Labour members may be fine and upstanding people but collectively they have shown nothing but contempt for the wishes of the people of Crawley."