Royal Borough councillor Geoff Hill has resigned from The Borough First Independents and is striking out on his own after ‘minor disagreements’ with the group.
TBfI is a collective of Independents that joined together under one banner for practical reasons.
Cllr Hill was chairman and leader of the group and resigned from these roles about a month ago. He has now resigned from the party completely, as of last week.
He will remain a councillor and a cabinet member, and stays an independent, but is no longer a member of tBfI specifically.
Cllr Hill said this was due to ‘a few minor disagreements with policy direction’.
“There were one or two disagreements that I can’t go with, so I thought it was better to cut loose and be independent,” he said.
“I can just do the job easier without the noise in the background.
“But we’re still getting on, we’re still talking – I had a long conversation with Suzanne Cross [the new tBFi leader] yesterday.
“I accept Neil Knowles as leader of the Independent Group. I’ll just be completely my own man, which will be easier for me to operate.
“My view is quite simple: that if I’m unencumbered, I’ll be able to serve the residents much more easily than I can at the moment.
“There won’t be a difference, I won’t change – I’ll carry on as I am.
“I’ll just be a little bit freer to carry on with more vigour, a bit more like old times.”
TBfI was set up as a ‘political party of convenience’ to promote the independents ‘as a brand’ and allow them to sit together in the council chamber.
National legislation can prevent independents from sitting on panels, due to political balance requirements. Local authorities must ensure that committees proportionally represent political groups within the council. This often means independents are not sitting on panels, and forming under one group was an attempt to address this.
Despite Cllr Hill striking out on his own, he is remaining on any panels and committees, he believes. I’m not expecting any changes – I’d be absolutely staggered if there were any,” he said.
He added: “I’ve been around since 2011 and it’s all happened before. When I left the Conservatives in 2018, I was an Independent. I walked across the floor and there was a bunch of us, we didn’t even have a leader, we were just independent backbenchers.
“This time, at least I’m part of something – I’m in a slightly more favourable position than when I left the Conservatives, so it’s much more comforting.”
Cllr Suzanne Cross, leader of tBfI, said: “We announce the immediate resignation of Geoff Hill from The Borough First Independents.
“We would like to thank Geoff for all his contributions over the years and we wish him well in his future endeavours.”
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