THE leader of the Independent group on Cheshire East has tweeted that the Conservative group would be running the council with them if they had agreed to share the leadership.
Cllr Craig Browne’s surprising tweet came in response to a story done by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which quoted Conservative group leader Janet Clowes as saying she found it ‘extraordinary’ the Independents had agreed to run the council with Labour again and give residents ‘four more years of the same’.
Cheshire East has been jointly run by a Labour/Independent administration for the past four years because neither the Conservatives nor Labour secured enough seats to take overall control of the council.
The position was the same this time round, and again the Independent group opted to work with Labour – although the decision wasn’t announced until yesterday, more than a week after the local elections.
But today (Wednesday) Cllr Browne tweeted: “Had the Conservative Group been willing to share the role of Leader of the Council (2 years each as we proposed), they would now be looking forward to running the Council for the next four years; they weren’t, so they ended up with nothing.”
The tweet has since been deleted.
Cllr Browne told the LDRS this afternoon: “The issue of leadership of the council was discussed with both group leaders but both groups made it clear that was not up for negotiation.”
Labour councillor Connor Naismith, who was part of the team which negotiated the agreement with the Independents, confirmed it does not include having an Independent as leader.
The election of the council leader and deputy leader will take place at next week’s annual general meeting at Tatton Park when all councillors have a vote.
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