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28
Nov
Ripon parish poll: Vote of no confidence or demonstration of ambivalence?
Last week her party lost a by-election; last night (November 27) Ripon's Liberal Democrat mayor Barbara Brodigan lost a public vote of confidence in her mayoralty.
Clearly it hasn't been a good week for Cllr Brodigan. But the dire turnout for yesterday's parish poll of 4.66% — just 592 of 12,696 eligible Riponians bothered to vote — meant the result could be interpreted in different ways.
Councillor Brodigan, who was at the count at Harrogate Road Methodist Church, where the result was declared shortly after 10pm, said the turnout figure reflected “ambivalence about the whole process”.
She said a lot of people queried why it was taking place and attributed the outcome to a vocal minority on Facebook:
“It has been a trial by social media. That has won the day. The silent majority don’t take part in social media and haven’t come out.”
Asked if the result of what was a non-binding poll changed anything, Cllr Brodigan replied:
No, not a thing. I don’t have the majority in terms of those who voted but I had the majority when I was elected and this is not representative of the people who voted for me.
But Cllr Brodigan acknowledged her plans to instigate change in Ripon after her group took control of the town hall from the group led by Cllr Andrew Williams in September had been undermined by last week’s by-election and Cllr Sid Hawke’s U-turn to rejoin Cllr Williams’ camp.
She now leads a group of three Lib Dems and two unaligned independents while Cllr Williams leads a group of seven members of the Independents Putting Ripon Before Party Politics group.
Cllr Brodigan said:
“We can’t carry on all the plans we had. Unfortunately, that’s the case because we don’t have the majority anymore but that doesn’t stop us wanting to try to make those changes.”
Brian McHugh
'Historic vote of no confidence'
Brian McHugh, who proposed the poll, called for Cllr Brodigan to stand down in the wake of the vote, in which 317 voted ‘no’ and 271 voted ‘yes’ to the question: ‘Do you have confidence in Councillor Barbara Brodigan?’
Mr McHugh said:
This outcome clearly reflects the strong public outrage in her behaviour, which has now caused three months of chaos in Ripon.
Twelve thousand people have now had the opportunity to have their say on the leadership of Ripon City Council and the people have voiced their strong objection and lack of confidence in the Liberal Democrat Cllr Brodigan, so we hope that she will listen and respect what the city has said and stand aside.
It is historic that a sitting Ripon Mayor has received this vote of no confidence from the public and it surely makes her role untenable. She really is a lame duck mayor now
Ripon resident Stanley Mackintosh, who supported the call for the poll, said:
“2.13% of the electorate expressed confidence, while 97.87% did not. Although advisory, the result clearly signals that Cllr Brodigan does not hold broad public confidence.”
Mr McHugh proposed the poll at a parish meeting this month.
It was triggered when 13 people — three more than the required 10 — supported it.
With the cost of the poll estimated to be between £5,000 and £7,000, each vote cost about £10.
Whether Riponians feel there is no price on democracy and that the mayor should now resign, or that the exercise was a waste of time and money, will continue to be debated.
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