Conservative London Assembly members left during the middle of a City Hall meeting last week, accusing the meeting’s chair of engaging in ‘woke politics’. The protest occurred after the members claimed a male Bromley Council representative had been denied the chance to sit on the meeting’s panel for fear of disrupting the gender balance.
The move happened during an environment committee meeting in City Hall on January 9 regarding the Mayor of London’s pledge to make rivers in the capital ‘swimmable’. Conservative members Thomas Turrell and Keith Prince said they would not be attending the second half of the meeting due to the committee’s chair, Zack Polanski of the Green Party, deciding to prioritise a gender balanced panel, causing a female Lewisham councillor to be invited instead of a male Bromley councillor.
Mr Turrell AM said at the meeting: “When I challenged you on this over email, I was told that Bromley Council was not invited because of the gender of the speaker that they planned to send which we think undermines the quality of the evidence we will be able to receive, to not have Bromley Council or Outer London represented because of the fact they didn’t send the gender that we wanted them to send.”
The exchange happened during a meeting discussing proposals to make the River Thames swimmable
(Image: Jason Wells 2021 via Getty)
The member said that the Conservative Group wished to see an Outer London council represented as they faced more unique challenges on managing rivers due to their rural landscapes. Lewisham Council’s cabinet member for environment, Louise Krupski, attended instead of the Bromley Council representative.. The other members of the panel included John Bryden, Head of Improving Rivers at Thames21, and Paul Powlesland of the River Roding Trust, which flows throughout Essex and Outer London.
Mr Turrell AM told MyLondon: “This is environmental governance being sacrificed on the altar of woke politics. Bromley Council, which manages more green space and waterways than any other London borough, has been silenced simply because their expert witness was male.”
Both Mr Turrell AM and Mr Prince AM claimed there was a funding disparity between London boroughs for river maintenance based on how far councils were located from the centre of the city. They claimed Outer London boroughs were struggling to maintain vital waterways as a result.
Julia Albertson, spokesperson for Zack Polanski AM, told MyLondon: “As Chair of the Environment Committee, Zack is focused on delivering the best investigations here at City Hall so that every Londoner can grow up in a cleaner, greener city.”
She added: “The majority of the meeting was spent talking about the Ravensbourne, the Lea and the Roding – three Outer London rivers with guests from Outer London boroughs. If the two Conservative Assembly Members would like to join him in that work going forward, he looks forward to seeing them back in their seats.”
A London Assembly spokesperson told MyLondon that committees aimed to ensure panels reflected a range of views and perspectives, including consideration of the diversity of guests and the mix of expertise such panel members would be able to provide. They added that residents and organisations were invited to feed into committee investigations on issues that mattered to them through other means such as public surveys, calls for evidence and stakeholder events.
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