When is a Councillor not a Councillor?

When is a Councillor not a Councillor? This is the question Derbyshire County Council Leader Cllr Alan Graves is asking himself this week after a Parish and District Council Meeting.

The backdrop to this story is on Wednesday 27th August, when local residents erected Union flags across the Swadlincote area of South Derbyshire. 

Posting on social media, local organisers described the event as “raising our colours high with pride, we are not racist we stand united no matter what our backgrounds because this flag belongs to us all. It represents sacrifice, strength and the spirit of the people who came before us. We’ll always protect it, honour it and carry it forward.”

By the following day a group of people began to take some of these flags down.  They were identified locally as a Councillor who serves both the Woodville Parish Council and South Derbyshire District Council and some employed staff of Woodville Parish Council.

At the Woodville Parish Council meeting on Tuesday 9th September, some Parish Councillors demanded to know on whos authority the Councillor in question, was acting under in taking down the flags and in using Parish council staff to aid them.  Several angry Parish Councils claimed the Councillor was acting against the interests of local people who had voiced their support for the flying of the flags.

Senior members of the Parish Council defended the actions of The Councillor, claiming they were the actions of a private individual not that of a Parish Councillor, ignoring of course the use of Council staff to help with the taking down of the flags.

Then on Thursday 11th September at the Full Council meeting of South Derbyshire District Council, a question was raised by a member of the public on how involved the District Council had been in the taking down of the flags.

The Labour Council Leader of South Derbyshire District Council Cllr Robert Pearson was categoric is his reply that absolutely no one at the Council had anything to do with the flag removals but he was aware that one of his councillors who also serves on Woodville Parish Council may have acted in a private capacity to take some flags down.

On obtaining feedback from the two council meetings Cllr Graves who is the leader for Derbyshire County Council stated: “It is quite unbelievable that the Labour Party and their councillors think they can fool the public by saying they support their actions and then behind their backs take down the flags that they have raised.

"Then, when they are found out their defence is that the individual concerned was acting as a private individual not a Labour Councillor. They are trying to play the public for fools and the public will see right through them.  How can someone be acting as a private individual when they are engaged in a politic act and they are using council staff to help them?”

“As the Leader of Derbyshire County Council it is our council and only our council who have responsibility for highways matters.”

Cllr Charlotte Hill, the cabinet member for Highways and local councillor for the area where the flags were taken down added: “In regards to the flying of flags on our lampposts we have been very clear that we use a risk based approach to assessing the danger from the flags. Only when they pose a serious risk to safety would we remove them and its very likely in most instances this will not be the case”.

Cllr Graves also added: “The District Council meeting on Thursday was also quite remarkable for other reasons. At the beginning of the meeting and knowing that the question regarding the flag removal was the next agenda item, the Labour Council Leader took the opportunity to tell the council about some racist graffiti that had been found in Swadlincote at around the same time as the raising of the flags.

"This typical Labour Party clumsy attempt to link the raising of flags to racism was even more clumsy than usual when the Council Leader gave the wrong dates for the graffiti appearing, which he described as October not August.

"Then after the debacle of describing the flag removal as – by a private individual not a councillor – the next agenda item was to vote through an increase in Councillor allowances of over £13,000 per year.”

Cllr Graves summarised the events surrounding the council meetings as “The Public quite rightly want to hold their elected officials to account and if they are acting against their interests it’s absolutely ridiculous for Councillors and their parties to defend them by saying they are acting as private individuals when it is so obvious they are not.

The consistent undercurrent from the Labour Party is that anyone who shows any signs of patriotism or support for the flying of the flag must be painted as a racist.

"If they are ashamed to fly our nations flag then they certainly do seem to be ashamed to point the fingers at those of us who are proud to fly the flag and they are certainly not ashamed to vote through increases in council allowances which the public will have to pay for through their council taxes.”

“Whilst we know the identity of the Cllr who took down the flags we will not be identifying him as we do not believe it is our position to do so, We would hope that the Labour Party reflect on their decision to support their colleague who is hiding behind a political cloak of acting as a private individual , when in reality his actions were highly political”.