Strange goings on at Barnet Council

Perhaps the oddest thing I've ever seen in my years covering Barnet Council is the arrangement  between the Labour Party and the Tories to carve up the council between them, following the results in the May elections. Both parties finished up with 31 councillors and the Green party ended up with 1. This technically meant that the Greens held the balance of power. Only it didn't mean that at all. To my surprise, Labour and the Tories united to freeze the Greens out. There are more details, with comments from Barnets Labour and Conservative leaders, as well as from Charli Thompson, the Green councillor in this London Daily article.

One may wonder why a Green councillor, who until relatively recently was a member of the Labour party has effectively been shut out and disenfranchised. A friendly Tory councillor, who does not wish to be named told me "The Green councillor is a Corbynite with strongly anti Israel views and both the Labour party and ourselves felt that for the good of Barnet's voters, an arrangement between sensible grown up individuals was preferable to having such a person effectively having the casting vote over every council decision".

I am fascinated to see how these 'arrangements' will work. I know that Peter Zinkin, leader of the Conservatives is above all a pragmatist. Most of what London's councils do is statuatory. Under the Tories 20 years from 2002-2022, all manner of ideologically driven schemes were introduced, most of which failed miserably. Councillor Zinkin privately admitted to me that the One Barnet outsourcing programme was managed badly. Labour have spent much of their term trying to untangle the mess, with limited success. I can't really see the Tories having much apetite in the near future to go down that road again. 

I suspect that both parties see the attraction in saying that a vote for the Greens (or Reform for that matter) is a wasted vote. Should the arrangements endure until the next election, no doubt the Tories will claim that everything good was down to their scrutiny and Labour will claim that they need a mandate to do anything, if they are perceived as doing a bad job. 

I am amazed at the general silence surrounding all of this and the lack of comment. The artists formally known as 'The Barnet Bloggers' have said nothing on their blogs. It tells us a few rather interesting things. The first is that on the political spectrum, Labour and the Tories are far closer together than Labour and the Greens. The second is that the political establishment at the council does not want to make it easy for entryist parties. The third is that people who are openly critical of the Israel are not going to easily be granted access to any sort of power in the London Borough of Barnet.

My gut feeling is that the biggest winners of all this are the paid executive directors at Barnet Council. I suspect that Labour are not going to try and push anything through that is in anyway controversial and the Tories are not going to make life too difficult for them. As for our Lone Ranger Green Councillor, I suspect that they will find that being in a minority of one, in a room where 62 other people think you are bonkers will not be much fun. If I was in her position, I would look for some obvious quick wins, that are eminently sensible and start shouting about them very loudly. As she doesn't appear to have an X account, this may be hard for her. I would also suggest concentrating on the job in hand, getting the best services for the residents of Barnet, rather than using the post as a soapbox. But hey, what do I know, whenever I tried to get elected I failed miserably.