The Morecambe Bay Independents (MBIs) is a local

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

Morecambe Morecambe ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster district in Lancashire, England. It is in Morecambe Bay on the Irish Sea. Name The first use of the name was by John Whitaker in his ''History of Manchester'' (1771), w ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

. The group ran

Lancaster City Council The City of Lancaster () is a local government district of Lancashire, England, with the status of a city and non-metropolitan district. It is named after its largest settlement, Lancaster, but covers a far larger area, which includes the tow ...

from 1999 to 2003, and successfully campaigned in 2005 for the creation of Morecambe Town Council.

History

Early years (1987-1999)

After being founded in 1987, the party won 13 seats on Lancaster City Council in May 1992. They selected Mark Turner for the Morecambe and Lunesdale seat in the

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

, receiving 916 votes (2.1%). A former MBI councillor, Kathleen Egerton, was shot dead by her husband in a murder-suicide in 1995. After a by-election victory and a defection by former mayor Shirley Burns from the Conservatives in May 1998, they became the official opposition on the council.

MBIs in power (1999-2003)

They gained power on Lancaster City Council in 1999 when they more than doubled their seats to 22, sitting as a minority administration, with Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green councillors in the cabinet. The Labour Party refused to sit in cabinet. In July 2001, Cllr John Fretwell, defected to the

Conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

. The then-leader of the MBI, Cllr Tricia Heath, was leader of Lancaster City Council for four years, but in May 2003 she lost her council seat, and the MBIs' total number of seats fell from 16 to 11. Heath placed some of the blame for her loss on the District Auditor's report on " Blobbygate", a scandal over a deal the council made with Noel Edmonds in the mid-90s about a theme park in Morecambe. Another councillor, Shirley Reid, was expelled from the group in December 2003 for not attending meetings.

Morecambe Town Council (2005-present)

The MBIs won 12 of the 60 seats on Lancaster City Council in the 2007 election (behind Labour on 14 and equal to the Greens and Conservatives), but Heath failed in her bid to be re-elected. They won twenty-five of the twenty-six councillors on Morecambe Town Council in 2009 with 64% of the vote, despite facing opposition from a new group of independents called Residents First. Evelyn Archer stood down as leader of the MBI group in January 2010, being replaced by David Kerr. Archer was first elected in 1991, lost her seat in 1995, then was re-elected in 2003. In 2014, Kerr was replaced as group leader by Roger Dennison.New leader for Morecambe Bay Independents
, '' The Visitor'', 14 May 2014

Electoral performance

Lancaster City Council

Morecambe Town Council

References

{{reflist

External links

Website from 2005
on the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

Politics of Lancaster Locally based political parties in England Morecambe