The Third Most Important Reason to Vote “NO” in the Elected Mayor Referendum This Thursday - It Won’t Have Any Impact Whatsoever on Congestion Charging
Polling stations across Bury will be open on Thursday for the Borough-wide referendum on whether or not to have an elected Mayor. I will be voting “No,” on this important question, and there are lots of reasons why. I’ll tell you my top two reasons tomorrow and Wednesday, but today it’s the reason that wins the bronze medal… I will be voting no because I oppose congestion charging, and this is vote is a distraction that will do nothing to help stop the charge.
Supporters of the bid for a Mayor claim that it will be a good way to stop the proposed C-Charge. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The facts on the C-Charge are as follows:
- Government have promised £3bn of public transport investment for Manchester. They will give us £1.5bn, and loan us the rest so long as we pay it back over thirty years by introducing a congestion charge.
- The plans will become reality if seven of the 10 Councils in Greater Manchester vote for them when the Leaders of these Councils meet later in the year.
- If less than seven vote for the C-Charge, then it won’t happen.
- Bury Council’s Leader is one of the ten who will vote. Bury Council has already rejected the idea of the charge. The Council adopted a policy objecting it after a Lib Dem proposal which I myself proposed at a Council meeting. I have led the opposition to the C-Charge and I am confident that Bury Council oppose it, and that the Leader will vote against it when it counts.
- If we vote for a Mayor, all that will happen is that the Mayor will get one vote at the meeting, rather than the Leader. Any Mayor will have no more and no less influence than the Leader has. The Mayor will have no power of veto, and cannot stop Bury having the charge if 7 out of 10 Leaders vote for it.
- Last week it was suggested that a Greater Manchester-wide referendum takes place on the charging issue. Lib Dems in Bury support this approach. It shows that the current campaign against the charge is working. Having a Mayor will have no impact on this referendum either.
Please do not be fooled by people who say that a vote for a Mayor will stop congestion charging. It just won’t. It will be a distraction from the main issue about trying to stop this charge. For the charge to be stopped, we need a strong Council, not a Council weakened by a Mayor taking powers from it.
Anyone who tells you that a Mayor can stop the charge is lying. Lots of people have been lied to already by the group behind the petition for a Mayor. People were tricked into signing a petition for a Mayor thinking that it could stop the charge. A Mayor cannot stop the charge.
All a Mayor can do is exactly the same as the Leader is doing now. And since the Leader has already said that he is against the charge many times, the only thing that might change if we elected a Mayor would be that the Mayor would be less opposed to the charge!
Electing a Mayor can never be just about one issue. And on this issue it is even more important not to vote for a Mayor, because a Mayor will have no influence on congestion charging.
Rick
2 Comments
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Isn’t this all about personalities? Sure the current leader is opposed to a congestion charge… but what about the next? and the next? and the next?
Equally a Mayor could be elected who is vehemently opposed to congestion charging to a larger extent than the current leader. I don’t see how saying that there shouldn’t be an elected mayor because that will lead to congestion charge can be classified as true…
Hi, thanks for the comment. Feel free to post more. On this occasion though, I don’t agree with you for the following reasons:
- It’s not just the Leader who is opposed to congestion charging. It’s the Council, whom he represents at the key vote. It doesn’t matter if he’s replaced (which I really can’t see happening in time for the key vote later in the year anyway), because the Council as a whole voted against the charge. The Conservatives run Bury council, and barring death or defection of a Councillor, will continue to do so until at least the next local elections in May 2010. The decision will be long in the past by then. And even if Labour get re-elected, they too don’t support the charge, and neither do we Lib Dems.
- You’re right that a Mayor could oppose the charge even more vehemently than the Leader. But he still only gets one vote. The Mayor could have “NO CHARGE” tattooed on his forehead, but he’d still only get one vote at the crucial meeting. And remember, if we vote “Yes” in the referendum and then have to vote for a Mayor, we might end up electing one who is FOR the charge! There’s no guarantee. And the Mayor will still be Mayor long after the charge issue has gone away. We’re stuck with a Mayor for years, and can’t even think about scrapping the office for ten years.
- I am not saying that voting “No” will lead to a congestion charge. The “Yes” campaign are saying that voting yes will stop the charge. But this isn’t true because the two issues really aren’t connected at all.
There are plenty of other reasons why I’ll be voting “no,” which I will be writing about as the week goes on.
Rick