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Green councillor Ian Davison stays on as leader of Warwick District Council after a motion to remove him was defeated at an urgent full council meeting on Wednesday 11 November. The council’s summary of decisions, published the next day, records simply that “the motion to remove the Leader was defeated”.
For residents, it means the Greens carry on running the council on their own until the district elects a new council in May 2027. They hold 14 of the 44 seats, so their seven-member Cabinet can make decisions but will need other groups’ votes for big ones at full council, such as next year’s budget and the South Warwickshire Local Plan.
How the vote went
The council’s summary doesn’t give the numbers. The Local Democracy Reporting Service, through Warwick Nub News, reports that 16 councillors backed Cllr Davison: all 14 Greens and two independents. Eight voted to remove him: five Conservatives and the three Whitnash Residents Association councillors.
Another 16 abstained, it reports: all nine Liberal Democrats, the four Labour councillors present and three Warwick Independents. Three Labour councillors, including group leader Jess Melrose, weren’t there. That left Cllr Davison with the support of 40% of those in the room.
Why it was called
Conservative Cllr Andrew Day, a former leader, brought the motion after Labour’s national party told its councillors to leave the Green-Labour coalition that had run the district since May 2023. That followed the Green Party’s national policy calling Zionism racism, which Cllr Davison didn’t disavow. Our earlier story sets out who called the meeting and how the seats add up.
According to the reporting service, Labour’s Chris King said in the debate that his group would rejoin the coalition if Cllr Davison made a clear statement rejecting the motion that satisfied Labour’s national executive. Cllr Davison didn’t make one. He said the claim that anti-Zionism is automatically antisemitic was misleading, and that no alternative leader had been put forward.
The Liberal Democrats said in a statement reported by Nub News that removing the leader with no replacement lined up would have thrown the council into chaos, but that his survival was not a “ringing endorsement”.
What happens next
Cllr Davison’s smaller, all-Green Cabinet stays in place; here’s who does what. The next big test is the Local Plan: its joint committee meets on 10 December and both district councils vote on sending it to a planning inspector on 14 December. The formal minutes of Wednesday’s meeting, with the apologies and declarations, will follow on the council’s site.
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