The council doesn’t have a dedicated DEI budget to begin with
The leader of Shropshire Council’s opposition group, Reform councillor Dawn Husemann has said the right-wing party will look to cut council spending on diversity initiatives.
Reform won 15 seats on the council, making it the second largest party, but still a long way behind the Lib Dems, who won 42 seats in May.
Husemann told the BBC she believes the council’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training is “fundamentally discriminatory” and that Reform will immediately be looking at reducing the council’s DEI spend.
But there’s one major flaw in the plan, according to Lib Dems, who run the council. The council doesn’t have a dedicated DEI budget in the first place.
Alex Wagner, deputy leader of the ruling party the Lib Dems, said: “The suggestion that our financial problems are caused [or even impacted] by DEI training is obviously nonsense – it has no dedicated budget at all.”
He added: “Having made the largest spending reductions in England last year, Shropshire Council is looking to do the same again this year whilst facing enormous pressures from several factors, most notably the growing demand for social care.”
Husemann admitted she did not know how much Shropshire Council spends on diversity training.
She claimed that diversity training meant that minorities “are being prioritised over and above the majority of the population”.
Husemann also said that as the opposition group, Reform would try to cut spending on net zero, but again, she did not know how much the council spends on this.
She told the BBC: “It’s not that we’re not pro looking after the planet, we’re not pro this net-zero agenda that is bankrupting individual citizens, it’s destroying British industry and it’s really undermining the country as a whole.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
Left Foot Forward doesn’t have the backing of big business or billionaires. We rely on the kind and generous support of ordinary people like you.
You can support hard-hitting journalism that holds the right to account, provides a forum for debate among progressives, and covers the stories the rest of the media ignore. Donate today.
