Birmingham Labour braces as it prepares for elections a year away
Labour's stronghold on Birmingham has been weakened by financial failure - Reform and Independents could deliver damning blow
As the new year began, Birmingham City Council’s political leadership might have thought the tide was finally turning after two years of abject misery and negative headlines. They’d have been buoyed by a promise of a financial leg-up from Whitehall, while gruff government-appointed commissioner Max Caller was beginning to make positive noises about progress and pointedly praising group leader John Cotton.
But then along came those pesky binmen.
The calamity of national and international headlines these past three months describing Birmingham as a rat infested bleep-hole have largely trampled on the roots of recovery.
Nigel Farage’s Reform and Akhmed Yakoob’s Independents are waiting in the wings to capitalise.
It’s against this backdrop that Labour’s city councillors meet later today, Saturday May 10, for their annual general meeting.
“It’s not a happy place,” one member said by way of wild understatement. But another insisted: “Look, it’s been a tough few months but we are looking ahead not back. We are more united than we have been, we are positive.”
Today’s newsletter looks at the likely outcome of today’s gathering.
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What is the plan to save our jobs and our city?
That’s the conundrum the Labour group’s 62 members will be starting to chew over as they gather in the city centre today.
For some of them, their role as councillor is their main source of income and day to day effort, and a calling and a passion. For others, it’s a side hustle.
But collectively, they know they are in the mire. The city’s financial record, repeated failures on bins, services and major projects, and on-going concerns about a lack of transparency, make Labour losses next May inevitable, no matter how many rabbits are pulled out of the hat. The only question is how many.
Today all eyes will be on leader John Cotton and deputy leader Sharon Thompson to start to deliver answers.
For the third successive year since their party coordinated the dramatic ousting of former leader Ian Ward in early 2023, members will be told that Councillors Cotton and Thompson will be at the helm for the year ahead.
The Labour party had said it was retaining a final veto option if any challengers step up that don’t meet their approval.
That’s not to say the pair would have been challenged anyway, given the baggage and pressure that comes with the roles.
There will be a few changes though - I’m told by multiple sources that Jayne Francis, representing Harborne, is stepping down from the Cabinet, though she hasn’t confirmed that. In what has been viewed as a surprise move, Jamie Tennant is being brought in to replace her, with a small reshuffle likely to see Nicky Brennan take on Francis’s challenging housing and homelessness brief.
Quietly spoken Tennant, who is also head of office for Tamworth MP Sarah Edwards, was among the new intake of Labour councillors in 2022, and is currently chair of the homes overview and scrutiny committee.
‘Bins supremo’ Majid Mahmood, who is also a solicitor, will retain his cabinet role after a fairly disastrous few months, with the feeling being that changing horses mid-strike won’t help anyone.
Members will get to select scrutiny chairs and some other executive roles will also be announced for the year ahead, with support rumoured to be strong for Carmel Corrigan, Fred Grindrod, Lee Marsham or David Barker, Jamie Scott and Shabrana Hussain to take on new roles.
Watch this space for an update over the weekend.
Whatever the outcome, the group is braced for a troubling year.
Reform took all the headlines after rousing/terrifying victories in the recent shire and mayoral local elections, depending on your viewpoint. Locally their members took control of Staffordshire County Council and became the biggest party in Worcestershire and Warwickshire, creating a stronghold around Birmingham and the Black Country - as this map in the Independent shows.
While the main losers in 2025 elections have been Conservatives, Labour members recognise it was a wake up call. Next May, Birmingham, Coventry, Walsall, Solihull and Sandwell hold all-out elections, while Dudley and Wolverhampton electors will pick representatives in a third of seats.
Paula Surridge, deputy director at UK in a Changing Europe and professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol, writing in The Guardian, describes how Reform’s victories are part of a growing political fragmentation that leaves the duopoly of Conservatives and Labour stuck in increasingly uncertain territory.
While Lewis Goodall warns that the previously scoffed at potential PM status of Nigel Farage is now a distinct possibility - unless the Labour Government and Tory opposition get their act together.
With the tide of change sweeping across the country, Birmingham looks particularly at risk.
An examination of the demographics of multiple wards in the city highlight the problem for Labour. The vast majority of the city’s wards are in the lowest deprivation deciles, and many of those areas have not enjoyed the trickledown of city council investment and economic growth.
Those disaffected voters in wards around the edges of Birmingham are prime targets for Reform. Carl Chinn, Birmingham’s social historian and voice of working class Brummies, says it’s a desperate situation, rooted in a failure to embrace working class communities and drive a genuine message of unity.
“I saw this coming 25 years ago, when we were marching to save Longbridge and saw how working class families felt betrayed by a Labour government that did not appear to back manufacturing.
“The professionalisation of political parties since, most markedly seen in Labour, means there are hardly any working class voices left in the party, with some notable exceptions like Angela Rayner. Behind the scenes they are run by middle class professionals and the voices of the working man and woman are lost.
“When they do get the chance to stand up, they seize it. We saw it with Brexit, when working class people rose up to express their fears and concerns and were maligned for it.
“Now Reform are capitalising on that same sense of alienation. The vote for Reform is a reflection of that sense of disconnection and alienation from the British political party system.
“Only in 1928 - less than a century ago - did this country’s working men and women get the right to vote. Now fewer than half, sometimes fewer than a third, exercise that right.
“This is a dangerous point in our democracy, and it is on the main parties to respond. I believe Reform will pick up a lot of votes in the outer areas of the city simply because they are listening to people.”
Chinn added: “It’s essential that we hear the Labour party and government talking about and to working people, and showing that they matter. It is no surprise that Reform is making headway in areas that were once bastions of mining and manufacturing, where working families had status and an income to match.
“If Labour in Birmingham want to show they care about working people they could start by addressing the concerns raised by working men and women involved in the bin strike.”
But it’s not just Reform that will have skin in the game in Birmingham next year. A groundswell of Independent candidates have already declared their intention to stand, with more announcements expected.
Their focus will be to combine fury over loss of services and the bins with distaste and anger over the fate of Gazans in Palestine and, potentially, Kashmiris under fire in the disputed territory where thousands of Birmingham families originate.
The controversial Akhmed Yakoob has already declared his backing for a number of candidates under an Independent banner. Community activists in parts of the city including Small Heath and Alum Rock are also gearing up to fight to represent their neighbourhoods, declaring they will do a better job than incumbents.
Add in the likely powerful challenges of a resurgent Liberal Democrats in the city, the Green vote and the appeal of an expected wave of left wing independents, and Labour could be in real trouble.
The question now is - what are they going to do about it? The countdown has begun.
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