SINCE the Wyre Labour Group walked out of the Council meeting on July 29, I have been asked why? I will try to explain.

The Labour Group had submitted a motion of no confidence in the Leader Cllr Vincent. It was scheduled to be debated but the Conservatives moved that the no-confidence motion be moved to the very end of the agenda. When challenged, the acting Mayor, Cllr Ramesh Ghandi, recited from his script the precise section of council standing orders that permits such a move.

The acting mayor then called for questions on item 8 the CPA report. This was clearly an attempt to restrict debate on a damning report. The Labour Group responded by moving an amendment giving the Cabinet only until the next meeting to draw up a recovery plan or tender their resignations. This was debated but lost.

The meeting then went through the business, in most cases only questions were asked for or allowed. Then we reached the No Confidence motion. It had been signed by five councillors but only I was allowed to speak before Cllr Lawrenson said that it was a personal attack on the Leader that he would not deign to answer and moved "that we move to the vote". Not the correct wording but good enough for Cllr Ghandi.

Normal practice would be to allow at least those who had signed the motion to speak but the acting mayor wanted the vote straight away.

Standing Orders require the mayor to be satisfied that the item has been sufficiently discussed before he accepts such a motion. In this case only one person had been allowed to speak and the acting mayor was behaving in such a biased manner that when the Labour members demands to debate the issue were denied, they walked out in disgust.

In 17 years on the council I have never witnessed such a blatant abuse of the democratic process. I was not surprised to learn later that members of the cabinet had admitted to extensively rehearsing Cllr Ghandi. So much for free speech in Wyre and no wonder Wyre Council was heavily criticised in the CPA report.

Cllr Geoff Horrocks, Leader of the Wyre Labour Group