Oldham council fails to break leadership deadlock for fourth time as chaos continues

Oldham still has no leader after another chaotic meeting saw claims Labour and Reform are ‘in cahoots’ and pleas to come together because people are ‘laughing at us’.

After more than two months with no one in charge, the local authority is still in limbo with officers continuing to use emergency powers just to keep services running. Key political decisions cannot be made and multiple meetings have been cancelled.

Despite Reform gains, the recent local elections in May left no party with a majority or even a third of seats in the council chamber. Four times councillors have met to vote on a leader but the latest meeting on July 15 saw no one break through the stalemate.

On July 2, a legal letter was sent out by the council’s top legal boss Alex Bougetaf who said the government’s advice is ‘clear’ – that the current situation does not comply with the law – adding: ‘The current position is not sustainable beyond the very short term, and councillors’ continued failure to appoint a leader and key office holders is unlawful’.

Mr Bougatef warned if no leader was elected, he would then look to prepare a Section 5 report, which is produced when a council monitoring officer believes the council has or is about to break the law.

The LDRS understands that report will likely be issued in the next two weeks following external legal advice and is considered to be a first sent out due to a political deadlock. Once issued, it would give councillors 21 days to meet and discuss the situation in public.

If at that point no agreement is reached around a leadership, officers would have to look at asking the government to intervene. Before then, all options are being explored including bringing in more external support to help with negotiations.

On July 15, bids were put forward by Labour, Reform UK, and an alliance of different parties but none of them got enough votes. The alliance put forward a number of different nominations in the hopes one of them might get through but with no luck.

The group of smaller parties also put forward the idea of forming a cabinet where all parties were represented and the role of leader would rotate between groups. That never went to a vote, with Oldham Group leader Kamran Ghafoor accusing Labour and Reform being ‘in cahoots’.

Reform leader Coun Lewis Quigg said people had not voted for ‘a hodgepodge swapping leaders swapping leaders every five minutes like some sort of game’. He argued the proposals were unfair and undemocratic and ruled out any coalitions with other parties.

The meeting on Wednesday (July 15) saw rows break out between parties and one councillor walking out. Coun Helen Bishop at one point shouted ‘please have some manners’ to colleagues.

Coun Ghafoor urged the council chamber to suspend voting rules to allow for further nominations ‘so we can get out of this mess and get a leader elected’. Independent councillor Mohammed Mohib Abu Taleb also asked that a way through be found, adding: “When we go out, people start laughing at us.”

During the meeting, political attacks came from all sides with Reform arguing no one had voted for the alliance of smaller parties. At one point, Mayor Pam Byrne called for ‘more decorum in the chamber’ after Labour leader Coun Arooj Shah was shouted over.

Coun Shah said they had been transparent and accused other parties of misleading the public. However the Liberal Democrats said they had sent ‘a detailed list of our proposals’ to the other parties and this has since been posted online.

Coun Shah later said other parties had sought to pit communities against each other, adding: “The Oldham Group and Reform in very different ways are unhelpful to Oldham’s sense of pride and togetherness. The reality is neither of those options need to succeed.”

Reform councillor Robert Barnes said: “We didn’t vote and the public didn’t vote to put the Labour Party back in. We didn’t vote for an alliance’, adding: “The Labour Party are now trying via the back door to get back into power. The answer has to be no.”

He also said the Labour Party had been the divisive ones and ‘for Coun Shah to call us divisive is an insult to the people of this town who voted Reform’.

During the meeting, tributes were paid to the firefighters currently battling the fire at Dove Stone Reservoir as well as former councillor Jack Hulme who has recently died.