Green Party Could Control Sheffield City Council Balance of Power Local Election 2018

By: N_Walayat

The Green party with 4 Sheffield Council seats could see their numbers rise to 5 tonight at the Nether Edge by election that could set the scene for a shock Labour loss of control of the city council at the May 2018 local elections, by handing the Green's the balance of power so that a minority Labour could continue in power.

The key driver in the surge in the Green vote is Sheffield City Council's £2 billion PFI contract with Spanish owned firm Amey, effectively outsourcing local democracy to a multinational that over the past 2 years has gone out of its way to anger and outrage Sheffield's residents most notably in its wholesale felling of thousands of Sheffield's biggest and most beautiful trees, likely for profit such as for use as bio fuel as the following video illustrates.

Of course the Green Party with just 4 councilors has little chance for the next decade at least of taking control of Sheffield City Council that requires a minimum of 43 councilors for a working majority.

Whilst Labour current stands on a very strong tally of 56 councilors against the rest on 28, a huge working majority of 26 which translates into the Labour controlled council's blind disregard for a string of disparate issues from lack of school places to the felling of thousands of Sheffield's biggest trees, where both issues have sparked tens of thousands of Sheffielders to set up protest and campaign groups across social media. For instance STAG (Sheffield Tree Action Groups) has mushroomed to more than 6,500 members. Whilst the Nether Edge Trees action group where today's byelection will be held has more than 1000 members, more than enough to influence the outcome of the by election result in favour of the Green party candidate.

Whilst there is zero change of the Greens attaining a 43+ seat working majority, nevertheless the Green party does not need to achieve power to control the balance of power and thus implement Green policies.

For instance for the past 2 decades Labour has been playing pass the parcel over control of the council with the Lib Dems, with Labour seizing control in 2011, some 7 years ago, which implies that Labour are ripe to lose many seats to the Lib Dems. The key point here is for there to be an enough critical mass of third party councilors to prevent either Labour or the Lib Dems from having an overall majority. To achieve such an election outcome then the Green party would need to increase their council seats from the present 4 to at least 7. As the 2018 local elections are likely to see Labour lose a dozen or so seats to the Lib Dems thus reducing their majority to about 44. However, if the Green's can win just 3 more seats, which would put the council into no overall control :

Thus the only workable majority would be Labour with Green party support (41+7) which would give the balance of power to the Green party who in exchange for their support of a minority Labour council would demand a greater emphasis on Green policies most notable of which would be to bring to a halt Amey's chain sawing of thousands of trees that continues to outrage tens of thousands of Sheffielders who already number more than enough for the Green party to achieve critical mass and to control the balance of power in 2018.

Here's another example of Labour / Amey's blind disregard for Sheffield that the Labour party will pay a heavy price for at the May 2018 local election:

And here is an example of how Amey is angering Sheffielders by playing a 'Cat and Mouse' game with residents and tree campaigners. For instance normally before Amey fell's trees on a street they pin notices to the trees that will be cut in for instance 'in a minimum of 2 weeks time' as were to those on Glenlit Road, Sheffield.

The notice is dated 13th of June 2017, however Amey's felling crew turned up just 2 days a later early on the 15th of June 2017.

Amey's appearance prompted a social media reaction so that residents and tree campaigners could quickly mobilise to prevent Amey felling the trees on the street.

The stand off lasted for near 2 hours with residents and campaigners preventing Amey from going ahead with the tree felling's.

Ultimately the residents and campaigners prevailed and Amey left in search of another tree elsewhere in the area to chop down.

The issue here is that Amey are NOT abiding by their own tree cutting notices, which clearly stated that the trees would be cut down "in a minimum of 2 weeks time" from the 13th of June, therefore implying 27th of June being the earliest date that Amey would appear on the scene. However, Amey turned up on the 15th of June which was clearly so as to preempt subsequent mobilisation of local residents and tree campaigners.

This illustrates Amey's attitude towards the people of Sheffield, one of disrespect, of the people just being in the way of the Amey tree cutting machines schedules, time tables and profit! However at the end of the day the real culprit of what is happening in Sheffield is the Labour controlled city council who clearly do not represent what is in the best interests of the people of Sheffield and are thus likely to pay a heavy price at the May 2018 local elections when they are held to account for both instigating and then doing nothing to bring Amey's tree cutting rampage to a halt.

Local Elections May 2018

And we will know shortly after the polls close if the Green party are one step closer towards achieving the balance power in Sheffield May 2018, and bringing Amey's chainsaws to a shuddering halt. Though how many more thousands of trees will be have been lost by then to Amey's chainsaws?

And the only way Labour can avoid near certain loss of council control in May 2018 is by permanently silencing Amey's chainsaws.

By Nadeem Walayat

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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