ABSTRACT
The political party group is the most important place in which councillors consider and debate local issues, decide political tactics and, in the majority group, make political decisions. Group processes are private. Moreover, party groups demand, and receive, members’ loyalty over and above even the wishes of the councillor’s own electorate. This paper considers councillors’ group loyalty and its impact on the democratic renewal project. It examines how groups could react to maintain influence under new political management, and argues that whilst the democratic renewal debate has so far largely ignored the party group, it represents a barrier to that project. Moreover, new models of political management generate pressures that, far from opening up local political processes, will drive them further into the privacy of the group.
