The largest opposition party at Hampshire County Council has called on the government to reject a request to postpone this May’s local elections – for democracy’s sake.
The prospect of county council elections being held this spring is looking increasingly unlikely with Hampshire joining Surrey in calling for their postponement to allow a devolution bid to be formalised.
But the result has “snuffed out the candle of democracy” in the county according to the Liberal Democrats with the party’s parliamentary spokesperson for East Hampshire, Dominic Martin, and David Podger, candidate for Petersfield Butser division, decrying the move in a joint statement.
They write: “In a sad day for democracy, Conservative and Labour councillors voted to postpone this May’s Council elections in Hampshire.
“Postponing elections is something that should happen only in the most extreme circumstances. The only times county council elections have been postponed in Hampshire were during the two World Wars.
“Astonishingly, despite the absence of any comparable national emergency, Conservative and Labour county councillors in Hampshire joined together at a council meeting on 9 January to ask the government to postpone county council elections for 12 months.
“The justification? This step was necessary, they claimed, to prepare for the devolution and local government reorganisation proposals of the Labour government in Westminster.
“In other words, democracy should be suspended in the interests of administrative convenience.
“After a three-hour debate, this strange alliance voted down an amendment proposed by the Liberal Democrat councillors to limit the postponement to a much shorter period so that elections could take place this year as mandated.”
“In his address to the council, Liberal Democrat leader Keith House said the postponement to elections risked snuffing out the fragile candle of democracy.
The statement continues: “It now remains in the hands of ministers in Westminster to decide whether Hampshire should be fast-tracked as an early adopter of a new mayoral authority for the county.
“If this is the case, then elections will almost certainly be postponed. The decision has profound implications for local government at all levels in Hampshire, with the future of district councils across the county now up in the air.
“And yet these proposals have been rushed through without any consultation of voters, who may now even be denied the chance to choose their elected representatives in May - the very representatives who will be responsible for discussing these changes with government.
“Unbelievably, councillors on East Hampshire District Council, which now faces possible abolition and covers communities , have had no say themselves.
“Everyone knows that both Labour and the Conservatives are deeply unpopular and that both parties stand to lose seats in May’s elections. So maybe the vote is not that surprising.
“But the implication of the decision is that Hampshire’s future may now be in the hands of councillors last elected in 2021 and whose original mandate will have long expired.
“Let hope for democracy’s sake, that Westminster recognises the strength of feeling in Hampshire and rejects this self-serving proposal to postpone elections for another year.”