SNP Blast ‘ANTI-DEMOCRATIC’ Labour Councils Actions

5th February 2024

Joe Fagan standing behind a podium with his hands spread and placed on the podium. Text reads "Councillor Joe Fagan, Leader of South Lanarkshire Council"

South Lanarkshire Council met on Wednesday 31^st January to decide the allocation of committee members after the resignation of Councillor Mark Horsham (Clydesdale South) from the SNP group. Following the resignation, both the Labour and SNP groups have 25 members. At the meeting, the SNP Group proposed that the five vacant positions be allocated by negotiation between the two groups . The Labour group, however, pushed-though a decision to appoint their members to all of these committee posts. Despite the equal numbers of the two groups, the Labour motion carried with the support of Liberal Democrat and Conservative members.

A council officer explained that customarily, any odd number of committee places had been assigned to the ruling group – in this case Labour – but that circumstances were different now that the ruling group were equal in representation with the primary opposition, the SNP. SNP members disputed that any custom or precedent existed as this situation was unprecedented. Arguments were made by the SNP Group that negotiating the places would be the democratic way forward however this was brushed aside by Labour.

Councillor John Ross (Hamilton South, SNP) moved that the matter be remitted to the Council’s Standards and Procedures Advisory Committee, to allow the parties to agree an amicable, fair and democratic split of the committee positions. He explained that in the days preceding the meeting, he had agreed this very position with Labour Group Leader Cllr Joe Fagan (EK Central North) but minutes before the meeting Cllr Fagan advised Cllr Ross that he had u-turned on the deal.

Commenting on the events of the meeting, Cllr Ross said:

“With a number of contentious matters coming before the council’s committees in the coming months, Labour packing committees with their own members will allow them to effectively bypass democratic accountability.

“The administration were offered a fair and proportionate solution on this matter and they accepted it. In a reversal of this agreement, the Labour party – supported by other Unionist party members – ignored democracy and appointed themselves all remaining places. This is simply anti-democratic.”