Re-elected council leader motivated by devolution
Councillor Phil Jordan stays in charge of Isle of Wight Council following a tied vote on Wednesday.
Councillor Ed Blake, leader of the Conservative group of councillors, received the same amount of support but lost out on a casting vote.
East Cowes Councillor Karl Love was ousted as chair of the council after being replaced by Binstead and Fishbourne's councillor Ian Dore.
Mr Jordan, the head of County Hall's Alliance group, has been a keen supporter of devolution and local government reorganisation.
The changes will transfer powers and funding away from central government and allow decisions to be made locally.
Portsmouth and Southampton city councils, along with Hampshire County Council and the Isle of Wight, voted to accept the government's offer to create a combined mayoral authority earlier this year.
Mr Jordan said it was "vital" to maintain "consistency and continuity in our relationships and establish the best deal for our island in our negotiations with government".
He continued: "This is a pivotal moment for our Island, and we have less than a year to get the best outcomes, the best funding, the best transfer of powers and the key asks I have already made, such as oversight of the ferries and additional funding for the island in a fair funding settlement.
"It is not the moment for someone to be learning on the job or having doubts about the past two years of intense work.
"Our island comes first, before personal wishes or aspirations and I am confident, and best placed, that I can deliver the best outcome for the Isle of Wight."
You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X, or Instagram.
Differing views as devolution plans progress
Council mergers a 'threat', Portsmouth leader says
Island must retain own council, devolution plan says
Councils to submit joint mayor and devolution plan
Isle of Wight Council
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
7 hours ago
- Associated Press
Trump moves to use the levers of presidential power to help his party in the 2026 midterms
President Donald Trump has made clear in recent weeks that he's willing to use the vast powers of his office to prevent his party from losing control of Congress in next year's midterm elections. Some of the steps Trump has taken to intervene in the election are typical, but controversial, political maneuvers taken to his trademark extremes. That includes pushing Republican lawmakers in Texas and other conservative-controlled states to redraw their legislative maps to expand the number of U.S. House seats favorable to the GOP. Others involve the direct use of official presidential power in ways that have no modern precedent, such as ordering his Department of Justice to investigate the main liberal fundraising entity, ActBlue. The department also is demanding the detailed voter files from each state in an apparent attempt to look for ineligible voters on a vast scale. And on Monday, Trump posted a falsehood-filled rant on social media pledging to lead a 'movement' to outlaw voting machines and mail balloting, the latter of which has become a mainstay of Democratic voting since Trump pushed Republicans to avoid it in 2020 — before flipping on the issue ahead of last year's presidential election. The individual actions add up to an unprecedented attempt by a sitting president to interfere in a critical election before it's even held, moves that have raised alarms among those concerned about the future of U.S. democracy. 'Those are actions that you don't see in healthy democracies,' said Ian Bassin, executive director of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan organization that has sued the Trump administration. 'Those are actions you see in authoritarian states.' Trump has already tried to overturn an election Bassin noted that presidents routinely stump for their party in midterm elections and try to bolster incumbents by steering projects and support to their districts. But he said Trump's history is part of what's driving alarm about the midterms. He referenced Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which ended with a violent assault on the Capitol by his supporters. 'The one thing we know for certain from experience in 2020 is that this is a person who will use every measure and try every tactic to stay in power, regardless of the outcome of an election,' Bassin said. He noted that in 2020, Trump was checked by elected Republicans in Congress and statehouses who refused to bend the rules, along with members of his own administration and even military leaders who distanced themselves from the defeated incumbent. In his second term, the president has locked down near-total loyalty from the GOP and stacked the administration with loyalists. The incumbent president's party normally loses seats in Congress during midterm elections. That's what happened to Trump in 2018, when Democrats won enough seats to take back the House of Representatives, stymieing the president's agenda and eventually leading to his two impeachments. Trump has said he doesn't want a repeat. He also has argued that his actions are actually attempts to preserve democracy. Repeating baseless allegations of fraud, he said Monday during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that 'you can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots.' Earlier this month, Trump said that, because he handily won Texas in the 2024 presidential election, 'we are entitled to five more seats.' An attempt to engineer GOP control of the US House Republicans currently have a three-seat margin in the House of Representatives. Trump pushed Texas Republicans to redraw their congressional map to create up to five new winnable GOP seats and is lobbying other red states, including Indiana and Missouri, to take similar steps to pad the margin even more. The Texas Legislature is likely to vote on its map on Wednesday. There's no guarantee that Trump's gambit will work, but also no legal prohibition against fiddling with maps in those states for partisan advantage. In response, California Democrats are moving forward with their own redistricting effort as a way to counter Republicans in Texas. Mid-decade map adjustments have happened before, though usually in response to court orders rather than presidents openly hoping to manufacture more seats for their party. Larry Diamond, a political scientist at Stanford University, said there's a chance the redrawing of House districts won't succeed as Trump anticipates — but could end up motivating Democratic voters. Still, Diamond said he's concerned. 'It's the overall pattern that's alarming and that the reason to do this is for pure partisan advantage,' he said of Trump's tactic. Diamond noted that in 2019 he wrote a book about a '12-step' process to turn a democracy into an autocracy, and 'the last step in the process is to rig the electoral process.' The Justice Department acts on Trump's priorities Trump has required loyalty from all levels of his administration and demanded that the Department of Justice follow his directives. One of those was to probe ActBlue, an online portal that raised hundreds of millions of dollars in small-dollar donations for Democratic candidates over two decades. The site was so successful that Republicans launched a similar venture, called WinRed. Trump, notably, did not order a federal probe into WinRed. Trump's appointees at the Department of Justice also have demanded voting data from at least 19 states, as Trump continues to insist he actually won the 2020 election and proposed a special prosecutor to investigate that year's vote tally. Much as he did before winning the 2024 election, Trump has baselessly implied that Democrats may rig upcoming vote counts against him. In at least two of those states, California and Minnesota, the DOJ followed up with election officials last week, threatening legal action if they didn't hand over their voter registration lists by this Thursday, according to letters shared with The Associated Press. Neither state — both controlled by Democrats — has responded publicly. Attempts to interfere with voting and elections Trump's threat this week to end mail voting and do away with voting machines is just his latest attempt to sway how elections are run. An executive order he signed earlier this year sought documented proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other changes, though much of it has been blocked by courts. In the days leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to reverse his 2020 loss, Trump's allies proposed having the military seize voting machines to investigate purported fraud, even though Trump's own attorney general said there was no evidence of significant wrongdoing. The Constitution says states and Congress, rather than the president, set the rules for elections, so it's unclear what Trump could do to make his promises a reality. But election officials saw them as an obvious sign of his 2026 interests. 'Let's see this for what it really is: An attempt to change voting going into the midterms because he's afraid the Republicans will lose,' wrote Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, on X. The president has very few levers to influence an election Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the idea of seizing voting machines in 2020 was a sign of how few levers the president has to influence an election, not of his power. Under the U.S. Constitution, elections are run by states and only Congress can 'alter' the procedures — and, even then, for federal races alone. 'It's a deeply decentralized system,' Muller said. There are fewer legal constraints on presidential powers, such as criminal investigations and deployment of law enforcement and military resources, Muller noted. But, he added, people usually err in forecasting election catastrophes. He noted that in 2022 and 2024, a wide range of experts braced for violence, disruption and attempts to overturn losses by Trump allies, and no serious threats materialized. 'One lesson I've learned in decades of doing this is people are often preparing for the last election rather than what actually happens in the new ones,' Muller said. ___
Fox News
7 hours ago
- Fox News
THE LAST LINE OF DEFENSE: Sen. Eric Schmitt Breaks Down The Necessity of Beating the Left's Lawfare
Senator Eric Schmitt, Republican of Missouri and author of the brand new book The Last Line of Defense: How to Beat the Left in Court (out today), joined The Guy Benson Show today to discuss why it is both good and necessary for the right to challenge the left's overreach in court. He explained why their continued grasp for control must be reined in and why true leadership requires people to stand up and fight. Schmitt also said indictments are the next step in the Russiagate collusion scandal. Finally, Sen. Schmitt stressed that Republicans must have the 'courage' to redistrict Democrats who, in his words, 'set the rules' with their gerrymandering efforts. Listen to the full interview below! Listen to the full interview below: Listen to the full podcast below:
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Poilievre's byelection win sets the table for his return to Parliament this fall
Poilievre's byelection win sets the table for his return to Parliament this fall OTTAWA — After a summer of rodeos, dinosaurs and door-knocking, Pierre Poilievre is now officially heading back to Ottawa as a Conservative member of Parliament for Alberta. The Tory leader will represent the sprawling rural riding of Battle River—Crowfoot after winning a byelection on Monday with more than 80 per cent of the vote. "Getting to know the people in this region has been the privilege of my life," Poilievre told a crowd at a victory party in Camrose, Alta., on Monday night. "In fact, I've had a hell of a lot of fun." Pierre Poilievre spent weeks this summer meeting constituents, attending events and stopping by local businesses in his new riding. It was precisely the kind of boots-on-the-ground campaign he ran in 2004 when he became an MP for the first time in the Ontario riding of Carleton. It's also exactly the kind of local campaign he could not run in Carleton in the spring, when his leader's tour criss-crossed the country for 36 days before holding a final rally in his home riding the night before the April 28 election. Poilievre lost to Liberal MP Bruce Fanjoy, who had spent more than two years campaigning against him in the Ottawa-area riding. Poilievre's return to the House of Commons in one of the safest Conservative seats in the country was all but guaranteed, observers said. On Tuesday morning, he reposted a short statement by his wife, Anaida Poilievre, on social media that was captioned "We're back." "Politics is up and down. People do it because they believe in something," the statement began. It went on to say that politics has an ugly side. "Friendships come and go as if dictated by the polls. Just like the weather, people come and go. So remember, family is everything," Anaida Poilievre said. The Conservative leader will need to keep his friends close this fall, as he's facing a mandatory leadership review in the new year. When Parliament resumes on Sept. 15, Poilievre will square off with Prime Minister Mark Carney in the House of Commons for the first time. Carney congratulated Poilievre in a social media post on Tuesday morning. "Congratulations to Pierre Poilievre on returning to the House of Commons, and gaining the honour of representing the people of Battle River—Crowfoot in Parliament," he said. Poilievre is returning to a role he has proven to be very good at when sitting across the aisle from Justin Trudeau. "We're now in a new government. He's going to have to show that he's really good at holding their feet to the fire," said Amanda Galbraith, a Conservative strategist and partner at Oyster Group. Poilievre has already signalled some of what he plans to focus on. At a press conference on Aug. 7, he said he will introduce a bill in the House of Commons called the Canadian sovereignty law. He also said Conservatives were calling on Carney to begin construction of at least two pipeline projects, a new natural gas liquefaction project and a road to the Ring of Fire in Ontario by March 14. While many Tory faithful are eagerly awaiting the return of Poilievre's pointed partisan jabs in Parliament, Ontario Premier Doug Ford urged him to find ways to co-operate with the federal government as the country faces down the economic shockwaves of U.S. tariffs. "Let's put our political stripes aside and start working together collectively," he told reporters on Monday. With Poilievre once again leading the party in Parliament, there will be changes to the party's front bench. The Conservative leader pledged in the spring to shuffle his "shadow cabinet," a group of 74 MPs appointed to critic or leadership roles in the House of Commons, this fall. "We've seen which ministers are performing, which ministers are not, where the weaknesses lie in that government. So they'll realign," said Galbraith. Poilievre's former campaign manager, Jenni Byrne, said in a recent podcast interview that the fall House sitting is when "the real next chapter starts" for the party. Byrne, who said during the interview that she's still involved as an adviser to Poilievre and takes calls on a daily basis, also said the Conservatives will focus on issues like immigration and crime. The cost of living will likely remain a top priority for the Opposition, particularly as trade and U.S. tariffs command the government's attention. Ginny Roth, a partner at Crestview Strategy and a Conservative commentator, said Poilievre has been successful as Opposition leader in pointing out the places "where Canadians are struggling and where the government is failing." The Conservative party will hold a national convention in Calgary in late January. The party's constitution stipulates that any leader who has just lost an election will face a secret-ballot vote on their future. Running a byelection campaign all summer has meant Poilievre has not been travelling the country. The rallies that were a fixture of his leadership since 2022 have been scrapped in favour of door-knocking. And while that's likely given him a good window into the mindset of Conservative voters during the Carney government's post-election honeymoon, it's also meant he has not been in the national spotlight. "While that might feel frustrating when you come off this high-energy election, I think it was the right approach. Lie low, get back to basics," Roth said. The Tory caucus has been firm in its support for Poilievre, and it is widely expected that he will win the leadership review — not least because no one has so far publicly challenged his leadership. "There's a lot to be excited about and I think Conservative members will recognize that in the leadership review," Roth said. Galbraith said things can shift quickly, and Poilievre can't take the leadership review for granted. "For example, he was going to be prime minister until he wasn't going to be prime minister, right?" she said. This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 19, 2025. Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press
