As things stand, neither Labour nor the Conservatives have a clear route to a majority for their candidate at next week’s annual meeting reports David Floyd

Hendon Town Hall with (inset left) council leader Barry Rawlings and (inset right) opposition group leader Peter Zinkin — Hendon Town Hall with (inset left) Labour council leader Barry Rawlings and (inset right) Conservative leader Peter Zinkin

Barnet Council faces being plunged into deadlock after last week’s local election results created the possibility that neither of the borough’s major parties will be able to win the majority needed to lead the council.

Thursday’s vote saw the incumbent Labour administration, led by Barry Rawlings, lose ten of its 41 seats, while Peter Zinkin’s Conservatives picked up nine. However, Charli Thompson’s win of a seat in Woodhouse ward for the Greens leaves both of the bigger parties stuck on 31 seats.

This means that the two most likely scenarios when councillors vote to elect a leader at the council’s annual meeting next Tuesday are either that Cllr Rawlings is re-elected via an obscure procedural quirk or that no leader can be elected at all.

The reason for this impasse, aside from the numbers themselves, is that Barnet Post understands neither Labour nor the Conservatives want to do a deal with the Greens in order to get their leader elected.

While the Greens’ position on Palestine is suspected to be a factor in this for both parties, the Post understands that personal grievances dating back to Thompson’s past membership of the Labour Party may also be playing a role.

However, unless Labour and the Tories are prepared to do a deal with each other, this could leave the council unable to elect a leader at all.

Keep on voting

This is because each party gets to propose their candidate to a vote of all 63 councillors.

When the Conservatives propose Cllr Zinkin it is likely that this motion will be opposed by the 31 Labour councillors and the Green councillor, and therefore be defeated by 32 votes to 31.

However, as things stand, when Labour proposes Cllr Rawlings as leader, the 31 Conservatives and the Green will deliver the same result. So, assuming that Thompson votes against both candidates, it will not be possible for a leader to be elected.

Barnet Council confirmed today that, if this happens, councillors will just have to keep voting over and over again.

A spokesperson told Barnet Post: “Election of the Leader of the Council is by majority vote by elected councillors. In the event of there being no majority in a first round of voting, councillors will need to keep voting until a Leader is elected.”

However, there is a procedural quirk which could allow Cllr Rawlings to be elected as leader without winning 32 votes.

According to the council’s constitution, if votes are tied, the mayor has a second vote to decide the result, known as a ‘casting vote’.

This means the Labour mayor would be able to deliver a casting vote for Cllr Rawlings and he would be back as leader.

Whatever gets decided over the next week, it seems likely that there will be a night of high drama at the town hall next Tuesday.

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