Prime Minister Andy Burnham has shockingly called the Green Party antisemitic, and his party has sent an ultimatum to Councils where Greens and Labour are sharing power.
This is a statement from Cllr Fran Belbin, leader of the Labour Group.
“Following the shameful and antisemitic “Zionism is Racism” motion passed at Green Party Conference earlier this month, Sheffield Labour have been privately pressing Councillor Argenzio to offer reassurances to Sheffield’s Jewish community. Due to the inaction of Sheffield Greens, we have today written to their group leader urging them to publicly reject this motion in order for our joint administration to continue. Sheffield Labour is proud to oppose racism in all its forms, including antisemitism, and will not stand by while the Green Party undermines the right to self-determination for Palestinians and Israelis.”
Cllr Angela Argenzio replied as follows
Dear Fran,
Thank you for your letter and your interest in our recent Party Conference.
As you will know from our working relationship, I am committed to upholding human rights for everyone and do not tolerate any form of racism.
We have a shared commitment to ensuring that Sheffield is a diverse, welcoming and tolerant place. I am confident that the experience you have had working with me and my colleagues demonstrates our commitment to this and to our obligations under the Equality Act.
You know that the Green Councillors are not antisemitic. Conflating Zionism with Judaism is itself antisemitic. We stand with all Jewish residents of Sheffield: we always have and always will.
We will continue to oppose genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and illegal occupation wherever they occur, and we will continue to speak out against violations of international law and human rights.
You will appreciate the Green Party also has some reservations about working with Labour. When we decided to work together in Sheffield, we knew there were issues upon which we profoundly disagreed, for example your Party’s position on the Israeli Government’s genocidal actions in Gaza and the rights to peaceful protest. We decided that for the good of Sheffield we would work together on issues where we agreed, acting as responsible local politicians to take the challenging decisions needed for the city.
We are very clear that we are in favour of solving problems. Much as I appreciate that you and other Labour Leaders have been directed by your national Party Leader, we have to do what is best for Sheffield and set aside our political differences.
Both you and I know the consequences of destabilising Sheffield City Council: for our city, for our employees and our plans for taking the city forward. Our responsibility goes beyond the direction you are receiving from London. If Labour chooses to destabilise Sheffield City Council over this, Labour owns the consequences.
I am happy to meet with you to discuss how we move forward.
Yours sincerely,
Cllr Angela Argenzio
Leader of the Green Group
Leader of the Greens, Zack Polanski responded on Twitter, “
“Excellent from Sheffield Green Party pointing out reservations working with Labour whilst their government arms a genocide. If Labour chooses to destabilise local councils because they want to play party politics – then they can own the consequences for the city. 👏🏼”
Labour are clearly trying to divide the Greens with these bullying tactics. It is important they stand up to them, whether or not they agree entirely with the Zionism is Racism motion, which is now Party Policy and can’t be changed under the party’s rules for two years. But I must reassert that Zionism is Racism is not an antisemitic motion. It is about the political ideology of Zionism. Not all Zionists are Jews (most are American) and not all Jews are Zionists. Conflating Zionism with Judaisim is in itself a form of antisemitism, so it is Labour who are being antisemitic here.
So what happens next? Greens are waiting for a response from Fran Belbin, but it is not at all clear what could happen.
I am indebted to Ruth Hubbard, from the It’s Our City Campaign, who wrote the following on Facebook. It’s our City previously campaigned successfully, following the Tree Dispute, for an end to the discredited strong leader governance of Sheffield Council and to replace it with the Committee System.
The end of the Lab-Green ‘power-sharing’ joint administration in SCC??
Many will be following the unfolding situation in our council….long post.
if I thought all this might be about, or lead, to careful, respectful, managed, honest and open conversations between local parties (and with us) about the issue itself, and e.g. what it means locally in a range of areas and for sheff communities, that would be one thing.
But that is NOT – really really – what we are seeing here….
The 4 pics below provide: a summary of the immediate background; the public statement from Cllr Fran Belbin (council Leader) about the ultimatum she has issued to Sheffield Greens; and the open letter response from the Green Group leader in SCC (Cllr Angela Argenzio).
A couple of points about the situation in local governance terms and our council constitution (what might happen now).
(Not about ‘the motion’, Zionism, anti-Semitism, Judaism, Islam etc – that’s not for here, and any such posts will be removed, likewise partisan/party political posts too – please read the first paragraph of ‘about this group’ to remind yourself!.)
About 15-18 councils are directly affected by the national Lab Party ‘intervention’ in local democratically agreed arrangements where Lab and Greens are in ‘power-sharing arrangements’. This ‘requires’ relevant local Labour groups to issue the ultimatums to their Green ‘partners’ amd under threat of ending ‘power-sharing arrangements’.
Sheffield is the biggest council involved and, uniquely, has a committee system, as well as being in No Overall Control.
The political balance is as follows:
Labour 26
Lib Dems 22
Greens 19
Reform 11
Sheff Community Cllrs 2
New Chartist Reform Gp 2
Independent 1
Our committee system (and our council constitution regulating this) changes the mechanics of what might happen now – compared to the top-down ‘strong leader’ Leader and Cabinet system we rejected.
As I understand it….(and others may know and understand more)
If local Labour now carry out their threat of ending the political agreement they have with the Greens in a ‘joint administration’ running the council (and I can’t imagine they won’t)….
Collapsing the ‘agreement’ does not, in itself, dissolve the current council administration in a constitutional sense, remove the committee chairs, or trigger a fresh election for the Leader and Deputy Leader. That is, Lab can ‘end the agreement’ but other things then would have to happen in order for that to be given any practical effect.
And, when we say our council is run by a joint Lab-Green administration, in practical terms it really only means that Lab and Green ‘carved up’ the Leader, deputy Leader, and policy committee chairs and deputy roles between themselves, and voted together to get this through the last Annual Meeting of full council.
The Lib Dems chose not to be part of this joint administration (primarily over the Local Plan debacle it seems) and wanted to go into ‘opposition’. Reform and other small groupings were never potentially part of a joint administration, taking up the policy committee chair/deputy roles.
BUT, crucially in our committee system, all elected councillors (of whatever party) do have the power to sit on decision-making committees, very largely in proportion to the size of their group. So all councillors do actually or potentially have a decision-making voice on behalf of their voters somewhere (it’s not just the chosen few in a Cabinet doing it all). It’s just that when it comes down to voting, Lab and Greens may pretty much vote together (and together have a majority, so can outvote the others).
Tho you would be surprised just how often everyone is pretty much in agreement in all the policy committees. But the obvious case in point is that in the recent Local Plan votes, Green and Lab have been voting together for the Plan and Lib Dems and Reform have been voting against.
Back to what might happen if/when Lab say they are ending the political agreement….
I’m sure all groups will, in fact, be ‘gaming’ different scenarios and working out what the best position they might now adopt. But here are a few possibilities….
1. Lab end the power-sharing joint administration with the Greens…..and no one does anything else, at least in the first instance. Lab could declare the joint administration simply over and the Greens would no longer be their formal political partners. But the leader/deputy and committee chairs/deputies would not automatically lose their posts just cos the party agreement had ended.
So could Lab end the agreement, but nothing more changes?
In theory, yes. And maybe initially even in practice.
The council would still have to make its decisions through its existing committees and constitutional arrangements. No overall control does not mean that the council must somehow or necessarily form a new ‘coalition’, decisions would go through committees and council as normal, different political groupings would decide decision by decision how they were going to vote on these. They could still have their (metaphorical) punch-ups in full council on their party political motions….
A couple of things about this….it would likely be bumpy and a bit disruptive – behind closed doors meetings DO take place whether this is in committee pre-briefings or, I imagine, in regular meetings between lab and greens – to plan and prioritise stuff they want to take through. I’m assuming those latter meetings would now not take place any more. But the reality is, there’s been not much more than a fag paper in most instances between lab and green voting records in committees anyway and, as I say, there’s often wider agreement than this. Where it would, or might, matter more is where decisions are controversial – yes I’m thinking Local Plan for example. So things might become more unpredictable, less managed overall behind the scenes, less ‘choreographed’ in advance, and it would likely put officers under a bit more pressure too. We also don’t know whether, and how much, animosity from the ‘break-up’ might be generated, bringing more friction.
But yes, in theory, the political agreement could end, and everyone could in fact remain in their roles as leader/deputy and in chair and deputy roles….
One thing about this scenario is whether Labour interfering overlords would say ending the agreement but doing nothing else to (try and) change those in formal eg committee chair roles was enough – I don’t necessarily think so. It would be like they’d formally ‘ended the agreement’ but, in fact, in practice there was little difference – e.g. no one had been ‘removed’ at all. (That would make what they’ve done look like a meaningless political ‘stunt’.)
And we haven’t actually seen Fran’s letter to the Greens – only her rather blunt/un-nuanced public post on fb. I did hear somewhere that Lab were, in fact, demanding the removal of particular Green councillors from particular committee chair posts – though I can’t verify that.
The other thing is that the other groups in the council – Lib Dems, reform etc might well not be happy with the status quo of committee chair/deputy positions continuing as it is, and given the circumstances – and also given a national party interfering in Sheffield (again) – lots of people are really pretty annoyed at that authoritarian streak in national Labour ordering their council political groupings what to do (riding roughshod over local democracy again) , especially given their claimed commitment to ‘devolution’, ha. (Though their ‘devolution’ was never a ‘democratic’ project.)
2. So, it may be more likely that some group does make a move to try and oust people from various formal positions, though I really don’t know. There may be a few gaps in the constitution on the specifics here, so it would be likely the Monitoring Officer would have to make a ruling, aligned with what is already in there. For example, any five councillors can call an Extraordinary Council meeting for a specific purpose, at any time. But bringing a motion eg to remove a chair, or even the Leader, say, is not the same as having the votes to win that motion. But there are many, many scenarios here – including any political grouping working with other group/s to try to ‘topple’ or change various formal roles.
3. There could be discussions to try and form a new power-sharing ‘joint administration’. Lab and LDs would have a majority, for example. Greens and LDs would not quite get over the line but might manage it with one of the small groups/indeoendent. Who knows? There are some big dividing lines here – there’s not a lot of love lost (it seems) between the LibDems and both Green and Lab – tho some councils have regular eg lab/ld joint administrations. And the Local Plan divide here is pretty crucial here maybe (though personally I ve been hoping that positions have been slightly shifting here anyway). And I can’t see any of Lab, ld, or greens wanting to go anywhere near reform in terms of inclusion in an administration.
4. Without any ‘administration’ there could be a tacit agreement (then via a motion) somehow that committee chairs and deputies have now to move to a proportionate allocation between parties – which might actually be a standard response if there is no agreement between any groups to be a joint administration. One potential block to this is that I think with Reform’s numbers they may well be ‘entitled’ to one chair role (and a deputy maybe) – none of the other main parties will want to countenance that at all. But there also is, potentially, a challenge to the council leadership/deputy here too, if perhaps people are annoyed enough about Labour’s interference in our local ‘democratic’ politics.
Any thoughts out there on the mechanics of all this welcome. In the comments I’ve also put a summary/informal background note on how our council runs now, and as I understand it.
As Labour tries to deflect from the core issue — their complicity in the Genocide in Gaza, it is vital that we continue to listen to the voice of the Palestinians. Lubna Speitan, proposer of the motion, made this speech at a recent press conference, which was shamefully ignored by most of the mass media.
And Zack Polanski appeared on BBC1 on Laura Kunnesberg, having this to say.
This is great from the Green Mayor of Lewisham.
Kernow Damo has done a roundup of how Labour’s ultimatum is affecting councils around the country.
Greta Thunberg explains why Zionism is Racism very succinctly.
Finally, I have to pose the question: how do people justify the statement “Zionism is not Racism”?
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I really really think you should start being ashamed of yourself over this issue. Your support for the motion was terrible.
You used to think, not any longer apparently.
Please stick to telling the truth , not befogged opinion.
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