Council leader survives no confidence vote

A city council's leader has survived a vote of no confidence which threatened to remove her from office after just two months in the role.

Karen Kilgour became the first female leader in Newcastle City Council’s history when she was installed in October, following Nick Kemp’s resignation.

A Liberal Democrat attempt to oust her failed on Wednesday night, as councillors voted to keep the Labour leader in power.

Councillors voted 37 to 30 to keep her in the role, with one abstention.

Mrs Kilgour's position was thrown into question after her predecessor and five other councillors quit the Labour Party to become independents last month, which left the council in 'no overall control'.

Kemp resigned as leader in September, after it emerged that he was the subject of a bullying complaint from a senior council director.

The Liberal Democrats, the authority's second largest party, tabled the motion to remove her from office.

Liberal Democrat Christine Morrissey criticised the "chaos" and "rebellion" in Labour's administration and said the leader did not have a clear mandate to govern, claiming the ruling party was not listening to residents.

In response Mrs Kilgour accused the Lib Dems of seeking to "disrupt and divide us" and suggested they had no prospect of forming a "coalition of chaos" among the various opposition parties to replace Labour.

Labour currently hold 39 of the council's 78 seats, with the rest occupied by 22 Lib Dems, 11 independents, three from the Newcastle Independents party, two Green Party councillors, and one Conservative.

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