{"id":322519,"date":"2026-02-02T08:52:05","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T08:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=322519"},"modified":"2026-02-03T07:59:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T07:59:23","slug":"council-cant-afford-elections-but-spends-30k-on-asylum-seeker-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=322519","title":{"rendered":"Council \u201cCan\u2019t Afford\u201d Elections\u2026 But Spends \u00a330k on Asylum Seeker Mental Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will Jones \u2013 The Daily Sceptic Jan 31, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n

A Labour council that cancelled its local election to cut costs spent \u00a330,000 on an \u201casylum seeker mental health and trauma project\u201d, the Telegraph <\/em>reveals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council is one of 29 local authorities granted Government permission to\u00a0halt its local election this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The cancellations have resulted in\u00a0Sir Keir Starmer\u00a0being accused of \u201crunning scared\u201d of the electorate at a time when polls show a collapse in support for Labour.<\/p>\n

Defending Blackburn\u2019s decision to ask the Government for a postponement, Phil Riley, the council\u2019s Labour leader, previously said the council would \u201crather the money went on delivering services people want than on an election which would have to be repeated just a year later and on different ward boundaries\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt costs around \u00a3200,000 to hold an election,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

However, the same local authority spent \u00a330,000 on commissioning a project that focused on the mental health of asylum seekers, the Telegraph <\/em>can reveal.<\/p>\n

A contract awarded in January 2024, when Riley and his party were in control, granted the sum to a university, noting that the council had \u201cbeen a supporter of asylum and refugee communities for many years\u201d.<\/p>\n

Setting out the purpose of the project, the document read: \u201cThe aim of this commission is to develop a project focusing on trauma within the asylum community in Blackburn with Darwen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richard Tice, Deputy Leader of Reform UK, claimed: \u201cLocal elections are being cancelled while council staff are funding mental-health projects for illegal migrants who have invaded our country. The British people are rightly furious.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Telegraph <\/em>has launched a Campaign for Democracy, calling for elections to go ahead and for the scrapping of an obscure clause in the Local Government Act 2000, which allows polls to be delayed without a full vote in Parliament.<\/p>\n

Yet while many council leaders have cited the costs associated with holding elections in their calls to postpone them, the Telegraph <\/em>has found the same local authorities have spent far more on other services, schemes and projects.<\/p>\n

Cheltenham Borough Council<\/a>, another local authority where councillors will not face the polls this year, also blamed costs for its cancelled election.<\/p>\n

While stressing that running the election would always be the Liberal Democrat-led council\u2019s \u201cpreference\u201d, leader Rowena Hay said the drain on resources because of \u201cmajor under-funding of local government\u201d had led her to the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to take a balanced and pragmatic view as to how we can continue to prioritise our residents and deliver the high-quality services they rightly expect,\u201d she said in a statement earlier this month.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Cheltenham Borough Council said the decision to postpone its election was \u201cthe right one\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, just a few months ago, it was revealed that the local authority had spent hundreds of thousands of pounds in taxpayer cash on gagging orders over two years, up to and including 2024-25.<\/p>\n

These non-disclosure agreements, signed by the council, were reportedly linked to commercial information associated with the authority\u2019s major development projects in the town, according to Gloucestershire Live<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A freedom of information response obtained by the news site last year revealed that \u00a3782,468 had been paid in association with 25 non-disclosure agreements signed by the council.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Labour-controlled Crawley borough council spent \u00a3961,176 on a \u201csolar carport project\u201d, \u00a3250,000 of which came from the council\u2019s own funds and not central government grants.<\/p>\n

Worth reading in full<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Support The Daily Sceptic with a donation<\/a>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council cancelled local elections this year, ostensibly to save money. While at the same time it spent \u00a330,000 on an \u201casylum seeker mental health and trauma project\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-european-migrant-crisis"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=322519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322520,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322519\/revisions\/322520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=322519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=322519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=322519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}