INSIDE SUTTON: Labour and independent councillors form political alliance to challenge Nigel Farage’s party as official council opposition
EXCLUSIVE by CARL SHILTON
Micromanaged: Janey Gould (left) and Alison Long celebrate their election to Sutton Council – but some suggest they are being overseen by Farage party officials
Nick Mattey, the maverick independent councillor for Beddington, says that he received a threatening call to his private telephone yesterday morning in which someone claiming to represent Nigel Farage’s Reform party made threats of a legal challenge over the contested status of Sutton Council’s official opposition.
Tens of thousands of pounds of public money is at stake, as are places on the council’s various committees.
Sutton’s local elections last Thursday saw the opposition Conservatives wiped out, losing all their 20 seats as Reform Ltd undermined their votes, leaving the Liberal Democrats, who have controlled the council since 1986, to sweep to power with 51 of the borough’s 55 council seats.
The four other council seats saw Reform win their first places at Sutton Council, through Alison Long and Janey Gould in St Helier West. Labour’s last remaining Sutton councillor, Dave Tchil, managed to survive in Hackbridge, while Mattey is Sutton’s only independent.
Over the past week, Mattey and Tchil have managed to form an alliance, agreeing to create a group to be considered as Sutton’s official opposition, to counter the Reform duo.
“I’m not allowing Reform to take the spot alone,” Tchil told Inside Sutton this morning.
United front: Labour councillor Dave Tchil has joined forces on the council with independent Nick Mattey (seen in foreground)
Tchil said that “thousands of centre and left voters will be relieved” that he and Mattey are “taking a stand for them”.
Mattey and Tchil, as the “Labour Coop and Independent Group”, submitted their papers to Sutton’s monitoring officer and to the chief executive, Helen Bailey, on Thursday. They have received council confirmation that their group is “official”.
But the following morning, Mattey received a call on a private number from someone claiming to be from Reform, but refusing to give their name. They said that a barrister had been engaged to ensure that only Reform would be registered as Sutton’s official opposition.
“He was quite aggressive,” Mattey said. “He didn’t give me his name. He just ranted at me and said the council should expect a call from a Reform barrister.
“I don’t appreciate someone telling me what I can and can’t do.”
Mattey says he believes that officials at Farage’s national party HQ are trying to “micromanage” Long and Gould, who both work in the health sector and have little experience of politics and none whatsoever of serving on a council.
In common with their party colleagues in Croydon, and in a blatant effort to avoid being accountable and subject to public scrutiny, Long and Gould are refusing to speak to the press. Just a week into their term as public servants, Sutton’s Reform councillors already have a long list of serious questions to answer.
Ahead of Sutton’s annual meeting on May 26 (therefore dodging a fixture clash with Crystal Palace’s European final, unlike less well-organised Croydon), there are now two opposition groupings, a situation not covered by the council constitution.
Long service: Nick Mattey has been a councillor since 2014
Mattey says that joining forces with Tchil is “a sensible and practical” development. “Our wards are in the industrial heart of the borough, where Sutton LibDems have neglected residents and literally thrown poison at them with the incinerator.
“A lot of residents in both our wards suffer because of the Liberal Democrat council, thanks to the incinerator, the failing SDEN heat network, and plans for even more dirty and dangerous industries.
“Our petition against the incinerator and the proposed food waste hub has so far gathered over 2,500 signatures. Not a single Liberal Democrat has signed it.
“Councillor Tchil and I are the last defenders of our environment in Sutton. It makes sense that we join forces to strengthen our campaigning power.”
The arm-wrestle over the status of official opposition is important, because it comes with a special responsibility allowance for the leader of the opposition of £19,308, on top of the £13,346 councillors’ basic allowance.
Under previous LibDem administrations, rules have been bent to create allowances for two deputy leaders of the council, and extra vice-chair committee roles were also created for LibDems, boosting their allowances. So there is precedent for creating extra allowances.
Inside Sutton understands that two leader of the opposition allowances will now be paid, one for Reform, one for the Lab-Ind group. This will add £19,308 in costs to the public purse.
The situation also means that after 12 years of officials doing their utmost to exclude Mattey from the inner workings of Sutton Council, “Hapless Helen” Bailey will now have to include him in the confidential briefings which are routinely given to opposition leadership.
Changed dynamics: Sutton CEO Helen Bailey has a new set of circumstances to cope with now Reform are on the council
Mattey told Inside Sutton that council officials have asked the two groups to hold discussions to find a way through the logjam of sharing key committee appointments that are reserved for the leader of the opposition.
The council may have to allow both groups to take seats on the strategy and resources committee and the urgency committee. There will, in any case, be a built-in LibDem majority.
The main problem comes with the audit and governance committee, where a seat is assigned to the leader of the opposition, or their nominee. This role may now have to be shared.
Only 15 committee places are being offered to the four non-LibDem councillors, out of a total of 120 committee places – and extra allowances.
Such is the LibDems’ new dominance of the council, the committee system becomes a pointless rubber-stamping exercise, but one which yields a rich gravy train of special responsibility allowances for LibDem councillors – with tens of thousands of pounds of public money routinely siphoned off into their party’s election campaign coffers.
The LibDems in Sutton will have 87.5% of the committee seats based on 44.4% of the vote across the borough. They will scoop £1.077million in allowances in 2026-2027, 91% of the available funds.
Read more: Orangewash: Reform Ltd hands Sutton council to the LibDems
Read more: Sutton LibDem ‘should not be a lawmaker’ after court defeat
Read more: Now ‘Basher’ Lewis knocks out debate on polluting incinerator
Read more: Sutton budget passes with £34.5m deficits to come by 2029
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