Peter Landman on the post-election set up at the town hall

The newly-elected members of Newham Council met on 20 May facing an historic challenge – to build a multi-party leadership after the collapse of the Labour Party majority control.

The new Council has to create fresh arrangements for committees and political administration with no single party in overall control for the first time in Newham’s history. The new Council has 26 Labour Councillors, 24 Independents and 16 Greens.

The only certainty in the Council chamber for the foreseeable future is that the political process will be less predictable than in the past.

The first vote – to select a Council chair and deputy set the tone for a new era of interparty co-operation, with the election of Councillor Nate Higgins of the Green Party, the third largest of the Council groups, to lead as the Borough’s first citizen.

Accepting his new role, Councillor Higgins said he would do what he could to encourage working together. That may not be easy to achieve when a councillor from the Newham Independents group took the floor to attack both Labour, and the Green Party, and asserting that the independents were the real opposition.

But that did not stop a second election which reflected the new order of power in the Borough. The Labour outgoing Chair of the Council, Councillor Dr Rohit Dasgupta was elected as Deputy Chair.

This was the prelude to an introduction from the new Mayor, Councillor Forhad Hussain for Labour, who spoke of Newham roots, and his pledge to listen more intensively to local people and to encourage community activism: the key words for his administration will be Listen, Respect and Dignity.

He was gracious in victory thanking all the candidates for devoting personal time to campaigning, as an essential part of democracy.

He also congratulated all new councillors. “ Everything I am, I owe to the Borough of Newham,” he said. “Now I have the opportunity to give something back.”

The New Leadership

The Mayor introduced his first Cabinet, a four-strong team of Labour members with extensive experience:

Councillor John Gray, who will be Deputy Mayor and responsible for Housing;
Councillor Zulfiqar Ali, Labour, who will continue in his role as responsible for Finance and Resources;
Councillor Lakmini Shah, Labour, who takes on the role of Cabinet member responsible for Children’s Services, Education and Communities; and
Councillor Susan Masters who with extensive experience in the field of health takes on Cabinet responsibility for Adult Health and the Environment.

More Cabinet members will be announced in the coming weeks he said.

As a sign of the challenging work programme the Borough faces, the new Council agreed unanimously to increase the number of times they will meeting in the coming year to 12 sittings.

The meeting then went into private session as the parties set about the arduous task of allocating membership of the Council committee between the three main parties.

Despite some wrangling between Labour and the Newham Independents, that difficult work went ahead with the new chair, one of the youngest and most recent councillors to hold the post, showing maturity and composure as the meeting progressed.

No news is bad news

Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.

The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less.

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation.

Choose the news. Don’t lose the news.

Monthly direct debit

Annual direct debit

£5 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else, £10 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else and a print copy posted to them each month. £50 annual supporters get a digital copy of each month's paper before anyone else.