A former council Tory leader has been kicked off important Glasgow committees after he left one of them as his defection to Reform made news across the UK.
Councillor Thomas Kerr described his removal as “petty” while Labour leader George Redmond accused him of “defecting in the middle of a meeting” this morning.
Councillors appeared to be taken by surprise by the announcement with council leader Susan Aitken saying it had been imposed on them in a “discourteous” way describing it as an “extraordinary” situation.
Councillor Kerr was sitting in the city administration committee with SNP councillor Aitken and other senior city politicians when he left the room before business finished.
The remaining politicians then found out the well known Shettleston representative had switched to Nigel Farage’s party as it made national headlines.
Politicians then took swift action and voted to remove the East End councillor from the two committees as the situation meant the local authority was in breach of rules.
Describing the development as unprecedented, Labour leader George Redmond told the city administration committee: “Obviously there have been defections over the years but not during the middle of a meeting.”
Bringing a motion to the committee, which received backing from all, Councillor Jon Molyneux, Scottish Greens, said: “I would like to move the removal of Councillor Thomas Kerr from the City Administration Committee and the Finance and Audit Scrutiny Committee. From a good governance point of view it is the right thing to do at the earliest opportunity – i.e. now.”
Responding to the removal, councillor Kerr said afterwards: “I’ve served on committees consistently for the eight years I’ve been a councillor, sadly today SNP, Labour and Green Councillors showed they were more interested in petty party politics than experience and serving Glasgow.
“Their illiberal attitude to people who disagree with them politically is unpalatable. I look forward to being back on committees soon and I can guarantee, with a larger Reform presence in the years ahead.”
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Explaining the background to the situation, Councillor Aitken said: “Earlier in the proceedings of this meeting it suddenly came to the attention of members on the committee that one of the elected members who is a member of the committee has changed their party affiliation. That was announced publicly. It wasn’t intimated to either officers of the council or to members of the committee.”
She added: “Someone changing their party politician affiliation is in breach of that terms of reference. We are now reconvening as a committee in order to discuss whether we wish to take action in order to address that breach of the term of reference.”
She continued: “As the convenor of this committee I am more than satisfied that this is an extraordinary and urgent situation and entirely appropriate that the committee has the ability to respond to the circumstances which have been imposed on us in a manner which I think is deeply unsatisfactory and at the least discourteous to the democratic processes of this council.
“It also raises significant concerns about representation at the committee based on how local people voted at the time of the election.”
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