COUNCIL SHRUGS AT PETITION

CRUMBRIA: 6.3.2026

THERE was no space in West Crumbria newspaper, the Times & Starmer, for this week’s ‘heated debate’ about Cumberland becoming a Sanctuary area.

Despite promises to readers last week of 40% MORE local news, the Workington comic remains the victim of a weird Bermuda Triangle effect.

News stories that cast Labour-daft Crumberland Council in a less than complimentary light seem to have a mysterious habit of vanishing over the West Coast of Cumbria – never to be read again by voters.

Joking aside, the timing of Wednesday’s Council meeting didn’t fit the paper’s deadline.

However, there is still such a thing as “stop the press” if the story is deemed big enough, and reporters can always “live blog” meetings for the website.

The Times & Starmer did none of these things. Two days on, the website doesn’t seem to have even published the post-meeting story, which was penned by its sister paper in Carlisle.

We told you this week that the meeting would amount to a democratic fob-off.

1,800-signature petition? Noted. Goodbye!

With the mood at the meeting bristling, Labour Council leader, Cllr Mark Fryer, unwisely huffed that more residents are in favour of Sanctuary status than against.

It was an unwise aside that only sparked more disruption from the angry public gallery.

Nor was this claim supported by any evidence.

Perennial passive listener at Council meetings – the News & Shrug “newspaper” – missed an open goal to ask the supreme Labour leader about it afterwards.

Of course, the ultimate taste test of Sanctuary status for Cumberland would be a public referendum.

Trouble is, the Council’s too far down the road for that now, and Labour nationally has shown it hasn’t got a lot of time for, er, democracy.

The petition organiser had these stern words for the Council’s political leadership.

“Cumberland voters will hold you accountable at the next election.”

A kick in the ballots, perhaps.

Also rejected was an opposition Tory amendment urging the Council to do something about the community angst rather than simply shrugging its shoulders.

The Council’s blue corner called for the impacts of illegal immigration locally to go to a committee for deeper investigation, but this was lost in a show of hands.

The Tories reminded the Council that concerns had been raised in parliament “that illegal immigration, illegal working and illegal trading can contribute to the spread of dodgy high street businesses.”

This proposal also drew ire from the chamber’s left wing.

This is despite these remarks being virtually word-for-word what Carlisle Labour MP Julie Minns recently told a House of Commons debate!

Our mystified spy-on-the-wall tells us: “It wasn’t scrutiny, evidence, or organised crime on the high street that worried them — it was the language.”

Sounds like a familiar Labour Council story.

One small democratic triumph of the night is that a “named vote” was held so that the public can at least now see how their Councillor voted.