Not so long ago Greens and Labour stood side by side against Tory austerity.

Whatever our differences, we were always unanimous that the core problem facing our council was a national government which has systematically stripped funding from local councils and left countless people stranded without support.

Now, Labour have changed their tune. Mentioning Tory austerity is not useful to them so they just don’t bother. In her latest column covering the city’s finances, across almost 800 words, the Labour council leader Bella Sankey attributes blame to the Tories a grand total of zero times.

When was the last time that Brighton and Hove Labour mentioned that since 2010, the Tory government has defunded our city by approximately £130 million?

Here in Brighton & Hove, it is more politically convenient for Labour to point the finger of blame at Greens than at Tories. Labour spent the election making endless promises to fix every problem the city faced. If they admitted now that years of Tory government cuts might prevent them delivering their promises, voters might rightly feel betrayed.

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Labour said what they thought people wanted to hear regardless of their ability to deliver it. That’s not leadership.

Let me be crystal clear about how budgets were agreed under the Greens. Labour’s finance team met with their Green counterparts every week for hours in the run-up to the budget, going through the proposals item by item. Labour voted for that budget at the budget council meeting at the beginning of the year. They had the votes to block the whole budget if they had wanted. And yet now, they are trying to tell us that they had no influence over it. Deflection and deception won’t solve the crises we face.

As many readers will attest, the last decade has felt like we are going to hell in a handcart, with the effects of the pandemic, lockdowns, Brexit, the gas price crisis, food inflation and catastrophic national financial decisions. The council’s expenditure has skyrocketed, with services being needed now more than ever and costs to provide them rapidly increasing. At the same time, income from national government is falling – as it carries out major budget cuts and refuses to give us the powers to raise money on our own. It is no wonder so many local councils across the country are teetering on the brink: Slough has £100 million debt, Thurrock £500 million, Woking £1.2 billion, Croydon Council £1.6 billion. And it’s no wonder Labour chose previously to walk away from running the council in 2020 and left the Greens to step up.

Here in Brighton and Hove we’ve had to face down a sea of bad options for every budget in recent years. As an authority we deliver 700 services and employ nearly 10,000 people, at a daily cost of £2.4 million. With inflation raging at 8.7 per cent today, the daily cost is increasing by hundreds of thousands. So when it is time to set the local budget, council officers prepare a list of potential savings and councillors decide which is the best of a dreadful selection. It is a truly awful place to be in.

For Labour to put the blame for our local financial pains at the foot of the Greens isn’t simply disingenuous – it’s dangerously misleading. If they want to say they inherited a £11 million overspend projection, they should also be honest that in 2020 they handed us Greens a £35 million overspend projection, which we reversed into an underspend. Even Labour’s own reports put to the finance committee this week are at odds with their public statements as they clearly state that the current challenges are a result of cost and demand pressures due to “ongoing economic conditions and persistently high inflation”.

Nationally, there are already serious questions about whether Labour can be trusted – that trend is now being reflected here in Brighton and Hove.

From our conversations on the doorstep, we know Labour voters and members are disappointed when their party points the finger at us, instead of the real culprits in government at Westminster.

Labour is fully aware that it’s the Tories who are to blame for the financial crisis we’re in. But rather than working with us to oppose a callous government hell bent on austerity, Labour opts for naked political opportunism. Either that or Labour agrees with what the Tories are doing after all.

So, a challenge to the leader of the council: instead of blaming Greens, stand with us and oppose the Tories. Highlight the problem of austerity and prove you oppose the crises caused by the national government that have hit us all so hard. Be honest with the city and prove you deserve the trust that has been placed in you.

Steve Davis is the Brighton and Hove Green Party leader