At Thursday’s Woking Borough Full Council meeting the Woking Liberal Democrat Group brought a motion to Council calling for Proportional Representation to be used in all elections moving forwards. Despite that power not existing at Woking Borough Council, the intention was for this to be a statement of intent, and to write to the Member of Parliament for Woking and to the Office of the Prime Minister calling for “PR” to be used in the future.
The motion passed with all Liberal Democrat, Labour and Independent members voting for the motion, with all Conservative members voting against. Cllr Ayesha Azad, Leader of the Conservative Group said “This is an administration that are clearly already out of ideas. Instead of bringing forward motions or policy that could actually improve the lives of residents of Woking, we have to spend an hour debating the pros and cons of hypothetical voting systems, that we have no power to implement even if we wanted to. This is a clear vanity issue, only of importance to Lib Dems, who have been ordered to put this motion in under the orders of their central office. A complete waste of member time, officer time and Council Tax payer money, all of which could have been put towards far better use.”
Conservative Group Whip Cllr Steve Dorsett added “This is not what I became a Councillor for. This motion, typical of Lib Dem motions of the past, had everything to do with furthering the Lib Dem cause, and nothing to do with helping residents. They have brought nothing to the table in the last 6 months. The only two positive bits of business to pass since May are the Animal Welfare policy, and the Local Homes initiative, both Conservative pledges and in our manifesto. The Lib Dems would rather play student politics on hypothetical issues such as VAT reduction of voting reform, both of which are decided in Westminster. But with 16 out of 30 Councillors (22 if you include the Labour and Independent Councillors who always vote with them), they can waste as much time as they choose. It’s a sad state of affairs for residents.”
