MOLE VIEW OF MOTION MELTDOWN

CRUMBRIA: 30/04/2025

Writing exclusively for the Chronic, our “Civic Centre Mole” gives a true-blue view of Labour’s “motion meltdown” yesterday and a behind-the-scenes look at the “battle of the buffet” which erupted at the Civic Centre in Carlisle yesterday.

Buffet Bust-Ups and Political Back Flips: Cumberland Council’s Grooming Gangs Motion Meltdown

By Civic Centre Mole

By Tuesday lunchtime, as Cumberland Council’s meeting creaked toward its final stretch, the penultimate motion on the agenda managed to steal the entire show.

It should have been a serious and straightforward debate: a call for the Labour Government to launch a national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs — an issue that’s devastated lives across the country and still hasn’t had the full attention it deserves.

Instead, what followed was a glorious mess of political theatre, procedural ambushes, and — eventually — a buffet argument so dramatic that it deserves its own line in the minutes.

The Motion itself, seconded by Independents, was clear. It praised the work already done by the previous Conservative Government’s Grooming Gangs Taskforce — over 550 arrests, 4,000 victims supported — but argued that more was needed.

The national picture was still incomplete, and only a statutory inquiry could do it justice.

But before the debate could get going, the Labour Group dropped an amendment — or rather, a complete rewrite.

Deputy Leader Cllr Emma Williamson introduced it for the Labour Group with great confidence, assuring the room it was all perfectly in order.

Gone was the call for a national inquiry. In its place? A sunny endorsement of what the Government was already doing: Five local reviews, some funding, and a hearty “well done” to the Home Office!

It was less an amendment and more a well-crafted press release.

Then the bleeding obvious was pointed out.

Labour’s hurried amendment didn’t just tweak the Motion before Councillors, it completely negated it!

The call for a National Inquiry had vanished from the Labour amendment.

Cue a slightly awkward pause while the Council Solicitor frantically flicked through the rulebook. After a few minutes of chin-stroking, she too agreed: the Labour amendment was out of order.

Strike one.

Cllr Williamson immediately tried to submit a verbal and revised version of the amendment, hurriedly adding a line in support of a national inquiry.

This made it a slightly blurrier version of the original motion!

With calls made for the verbal “amended amendment” to be printed and handed out, as required by the council’s constitution, this triggered several glorious minutes of council farce.

Williamson furiously typing into her phone, vanishing into the bowels of the building in search of a working printer, failing to return with anything useful, and finally coming back to withdraw the whole thing.

With the strategy in tatters, some Labour councillors started to unravel. One executive member blamed child sexual exploitation on “young white boys” and recommended everyone go home and watch Adolescence on Netflix.

That happened. It’s in the record now.

Just when it couldn’t get any stranger — the vote loomed. To force a recorded vote (where every councillors name and vote is entered into the official record), 12 backers are required. The opposition only had 11.

And then, in a flourish of possibly misjudged bravado, the Council leader Cllr Mark Fryer himself stood up and said he too wanted a recorded vote.

And that was that. Locked in. Names down. Every councillors name on the record — whether they liked it or not!

And then — after all that — came the final showdown of the day.

At the buffet table.

An Independent councillor got into a blazing row over whether or not he was about to push into the queue for food.

He hadn’t technically done it — yet — but let’s just say that he gave the appearance he was thinking about it.)

The row lasted 10 extraordinary minutes and threatened to overshadow everything that came before it.

Meanwhile, a Liberal Democrat councillor, apparently not content with just a verbal disagreement, delivered a bold two-fingered salute across the chamber toward the Council Leader!

And with that, the curtain closed.

What started as a solemn motion about a national inquiry ended in a flurry of last-minute amendments, Netflix recommendations, buffet-based brinkmanship, and parliamentary gestures more at home in a Sixth Form common room.

Only in Cumberland!