00:00Knives out in Sevenoaks as darkness descended on the District Council
00:05where inside the Conservative leader faced a vote of no confidence
00:10that could determine his political future.
00:13The extraordinary meeting was brought forward by the West Kent Independents
00:18who had previously left the ruling Tory group as a minority in power
00:24when they split over the summer.
00:27It's not something we wish to do. There was so much division within the group
00:31and the wrong decisions were being made by the leader at that stage.
00:35We're not proud to be here. We've done what we felt we had to do
00:39in order to progress things with the limited time that we've got left on Sevenoaks District Council
00:43in order to deliver the legacy projects that we need to do for our residents
00:47and we're very much standing in this independent group for our residents and our communities.
00:51So yeah, it didn't bring us any joy at all. We are very pleased with the result that's come through
00:55but as you can see, there's no joy in our faces.
00:58The Conservative leader says he tried negotiating with the wikis
01:02but despite a last-minute deal being offered, the vote went ahead
01:07with the Liberal Democrats helping carry the motion 24 votes to 15.
01:14We've had no stake in the personal and very bitter personal rivalries which we saw played out tonight in public.
01:21They've been going on in private for a long time, clearly, and that has done immense damage to the council.
01:26I think what we've said tonight is that needs to stop. We need to get beyond that.
01:31The poison of the past needs to be replaced by some sort of progress for the future
01:36and we will play our part in that to the extent that we possibly can after tonight's events.
01:41All eyes will now be on Roddy Hogarth. After all, how long can he really go on as leader
01:48after losing the confidence of the council?
01:52I'll certainly be considering my position as a responsible leader would but to be honest,
01:58this was a party political set of votes which if the numbers are here this evening,
02:06regrettably there were quite a few people who were unable to be here due to serious illness
02:11and prior arrangements because of the short notice of this.
02:15So actually I don't take the overall result to be particularly serious.
02:20But with the district council set to be abolished in the coming years,
02:25there was also a general feeling in the room that their evenings could be better spent
02:31helping residents rather than on party politics.
02:35Olly Leader in Sevenoaks.
