Liverpool’s Liberal Democrat leader has confirmed he will be stepping down.
Richard Kemp was re-elected to the council during last week’s local elections but has taken the decision after nearly half a century in Merseyside politics.
He was first appointed in 1975 and held a series of cabinet roles during the party’s time in majority control during the 1990s and into the late 2000s.
Cllr Kemp has served as the Lib Dems’ local figurehead since 2012 but will not be putting his name forward at Wednesday’s AGM for the leadership position.
Writing to the party’s local members, he said: “You will no doubt recall that I wrote to you in January telling you that I would be standing down as Group Leader after the May elections.
“I have now informed the Council Group that I intend to carry out that suggestion and will not be submitting my name to the Annual Group Meeting tomorrow.
“The past 11 years of being the Group Leader have been the most gruelling of my political area. My sole aim when I took the leadership was to stabilise the party and keep it in existence with the chamber.
“We had gone down from 60 seats to just 10 when I became leader. That became three when in 2014 we took no seat at all in the city.
“Outside the chamber we were heavily in debt and had only a handful of active members.
“The three became two in 2015 when Barbara Mace retired from the Group and the joke was that you had to be called Kemp, have a CBE, and represent Church Ward.
“But 2015 marked the start of the turn around when despite there being one hundred Labour bods in Church Ward to try and wipe out the party, we held on with an 850-vote majority and boy did we celebrate.
He added: “Our increase since then has been steady but incremental and we have played our part in exposing the many problems within the Council of corrupt practices and corrupt processes.
“We did this in the face of incompetent and hostile officers and incompetent and hostile politicians. Bullying in the Council was rampant and was largely direct at the Lib Dems.”
Carl Cashman is tipped to be installed as Cllr Kemp’s successor, with the newly elected 31-year-old previously serving as the party’s Knowsley leader.