Explosive division has closed off scrutiny at Northumberland County Council?

 Reform UK, slipping in popularity through the public scrutiny of Leader Farage’s antics have recently shown how split they are as a party.

A change of group leader in May let in Cowpen Ward Councillor Rick Baker whose support for Farage’s anti net zero policies has threatened jobs centred on this huge industry based around the Town and the wider river Blyth estuary. Like the wider Reform UK party, he is an outspoken critic of Net Zero policies. He views them as "unsustainable nonsense" that burdens taxpayers with unnecessary costs, instead of advocating for the protection of energy security and the local economy with locals on social media voicing the opinion of anti net zero = anti Blyth workers!

The Reform party are split into at least two factions with the now titled anti Blyth Rick Baker holding court over the larger group who are politically struggling against a team led by Blyth Mayor and former Northumberland Reform Group leader Councillor Mark Peart who has also spoken out against the Tory led County Council’s attitude towards net zero and has been critical of the port of Blyth’s tree planting spend that's designed to attempt to lower carbon dioxide levels around the estuary.

Councillor Peart's criticism of the cluster of data centres planned for Cambois is a worrying and weakening factor when scrutiny of Council decision making is undertaken  as he and his new group leader Rick Baker both have fixed views that sit outside Council policy on net zero issues yet separate factional voting has weakened their ability as the second largest group on the County Council to challenge decisions through the scrutiny process. It doesn’t help ordinary folk at all as the weakness of division shows an inability of challenge, leaving true challenge of this dysfunctional Tory led Council in the hands of the Labour Group.

At Council meetings we have regularly seen the two factions of Reform disagree with each other through their voting patterns and group loyalty seems to onlookers as being at an all time low for political parties operating at a unitary all purpose county council level.

Comments on social media over these noticeable splits grew after the Blyth Town Council (led by Reform)  held a civic awards ceremony. The public watched in disbelief when the Mayor of Blyth had to undertake a solo act in giving out 78 awards to people from Blyth’s wider community for their good works with a rush at the end of the function by other Reform members to get into the photo shoot.

Reformists need to remember that as they grow weaker through the press and media challenging their political top brass their chances of seat retention will drift quite rapidly. So factions of Reform Northumberland we codgers ask to to keep up challenging each other and  watch your votes drifting like the Lib Dems in the past and disappearing down the pan.

Is it REFORM’s Blyth twin hatters** or Northumberland’s Tories acting like Mussolini in Blyth?

 

It’s a known fact that Bennito Mussolini the fascist leader of Italy from 1922-1943 tried his level best to change the Nations history through imagery of himself as a Roman Leader, along with censoring the press, being over negative with scenario (like some reporters on breakfast television) and stopping democratic elections with his party enlisting their own into public office.

(We will stay away from his warmongering and slaughter of people In Ethiopia and Albania) as it's difficult to think that we will declare war on Cumbria or they will return the nasties of war against Northumberland folk but we can’t read the runes if right-wing division within communities grows even more unhealthily.

Sounds very much like the slip to the right from Northumberland Conservatives and the stated aims of the ‘lets make the rich richer’ at our workers expense REFORM UK.

Here in Blyth the destruction of its history has begun to race ahead through the accepted by Blyth Reformers and delivered by Northumberland Conservatives LOW-MOW policy with weeds surrounding the historic display of public art centred on the Town's past and the Twin Hatters going into denial that they have the responsibility to maintain that history and therefore its public art.

The Town's litter and weed problems have grown out of all proportion Low-Mow excludes the service cut of litter picking before grass cutting leaving litter only slashed by mowers every seven weeks or so. This winter with no cuts being paid for by the Town Council litter is expected to sit for months before being butchered into shreds and the process of filth will continue on into infinity.

As the blame game from both parties continue, both Conservative and Reform in an attempt to blind side local people, residents will lose the public art display of Mining, Shipbuilding, Exploring and Explorers who sailed from Blyth as those historical stories decay as they become even more weed covered and litter strewn.

Its time both political party entities realise they were democratically elected to look after Northumberland’s largest Town including others and they both need to get a grip of reality and deliver ‘best value’ instead of ‘best blame’ strategies and get our town shifted from a growing slum area into the pristine coastal town that broke the mould of east coast towns that Blyth Valley Borough Council had developed to give residents pride in their communities. 

What sort of pride is being delivered by the divisive policies delivered by the unthinking ultra right that local folk can see getting worse each and every day?.

NOTES:

** In local government, "twin hatters" (also commonly known as "dual-hatted" councillors) are elected representatives who serve simultaneously on two different tiers of local authorities. A very common example is a politician who serves as both a District/Borough Councillor and a County or Town/Parish Councillor.