Hastings council meeting suspended over Gaza ceasefire motion dispute

On Wednesday (March 20), Hastings Borough Council met to hold its final full council meeting before the upcoming local elections in May.

As the meeting began a man in the public gallery — identified as local activist Gabriel Carlyle — stood to speak. Mr Carlyle had been asking why a motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, which had been jointly tabled by the council’s Green and Hastings Independent groups, was not to be discussed by councillors.

As Mr Carlyle began to speak, mayor Margi O’Callaghan (Lab) suspended the meeting and asked officers to cut the video feed of the meeting. It did not recommence.

In a statement issued the following morning, a Hastings Green Party spokesman said: “The interruption had been provoked by the council Monitoring Officer’s repeated refusal to allow councillors to discuss or bring a motion, or allow any public questions which in any way relate to Gaza, on the grounds that the matter is not relevant to Hastings. This, despite there being incidents of both antisemitism and Islamophobia within our community recently.

“We fully support the democratic right that our residents have to come and speak at our meetings. So it is regrettable that the meeting was adjourned before an amendment to our constitution was to be proposed by Hastings Independent Group which would allow motions to be brought on any matter that councillors see fit, as long as the content is not defamatory in nature and does not contain any speech that would be considered to be hate speech.

“We respect our constitution; it is there for a reason and we are bound by it. We therefore seek to work within the rules to progress the democratic process of debating motions relevant to our communities.

“There were a number of important items on the agenda including debating a motion to support the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill and a change to our constitution to embed opposition chairs and vice chairs in our scrutiny committee. These will now have to wait until the next full council in June.”

The council’s other political groups took a different view on what occurred.

Conservative group leader Andy Patmore said: “It was difficult to understand why the protestors wanted to stop local council business from taking place. The chief legal officer and the mayor made a constitutional decision not to allow their motion to be on the agenda and we arrived to make decisions on local issues.

“Sadly, a small group of people thought their voices were more important than issues facing residents of Hastings.”

Labour group leader Heather Bishop said: “We wholeheartedly recognise the right of individuals to protest — it is a vital part of our democracy. But when such protests prevent the ability of democratically-elected councillors to meet to discuss and make decisions on important issues that matter to local residents, they move beyond legitimate protest and into mob rule.

“The scenes we saw this evening in the council chamber were a disgrace.”

She added: “Hastings Labour councillors call on the leader and chief executive of Hastings council to take all necessary actions to ensure that democracy in Hastings is never again undermined, and to ensure that democratically-elected councillors can meet in a safe and peaceful setting in order to take the decisions necessary for the future of our town.”

Katy Colley, who was among those in the public gallery, disputed this characterisation, describing her group as ‘concerned local residents’ who had not been seeking to prevent the meeting from taking place.

She said her group had not been asked to vacate the chamber, but had voluntarily left the building by 6.30pm. She argued this meant the meeting should have been able to recommence.

Police, who the LDRS understands had been called by council officers, entered the council chamber following the suspension of the meeting.

A Hastings Borough Council spokesperson said: “The meeting was adjourned due to the disruption. We won't be making any further comment.”

Hastings Independents group leader Paul Barnett said: "Before becoming a councillor, I worked in local government since 1985, and have never seen a meeting abandoned like this before.

"The lifeblood of local democracy is engaging residents who we are there to represent. When I became council leader, I introduced open public questions at cabinet meetings and believe that if the public care enough to attend council meetings they should be listened to.

"What happened last night is unacceptable and Hastings Independents will campaign for changes to ensure that Hastings Council doesn’t behave like this again."