Following years of protest by Dudley's UKIP group of councillors, with regards to the Combined Authority and the powers of the Mayor it has come to light their warnings were correct.
Finally, local councillors are seeing what we have been warning about for years. An imposed Mayor with sweeping powers is not devolution but the centralisation of power.
Everything we predicted is coming to fruition and now other councillors are starting to see it. I wish they would have listened in 2014 when we first highlighted this.
The WMCA's constitution was very clear about the role of the Mayor. When we highlighted this we were laughed at and told it wouldn't happen. A few years later we are having a mayoral election, despite Birmingham residents voting against this.
No doubt we will start to see the other things we predicted such as raising business rates to pay for HS2 and more anti business measures.
Sadly, in this scenario it's disheartening to be proven right. I really wish the other parties had listened and read the detail like we did.
Councillor Paul Brothwood
UKIP Group Leader in Dudley
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