Local election battlegrounds: who are the runners and riders?

The UK local elections in three weeks’ time may prove to be the liveliest since 2014, when Nigel Farage’s UKIP scored above the Liberal Democrats with 17 per cent of the national vote and forced David Cameron’s Conservatives into a referendum pledge on EU membership. 

Though the Brexit hurdle has now been cleared, the Tories have plenty to worry about this year. Alongside a likely Nationalist wipe-out in Scotland and a by-election in Hartlepool, elections for seven Metro Mayor seats will decide the future of regional politics in England.

The Conservatives are holding slim majorities in four out of the seven races, from the West Midlands to Teesside. They are banking on their track record, and on vaccine-inspired optimism, to keep voters sympathetic. 

Labour, meanwhile, is nervous. May will mark the Party’s first confrontation with the electorate under Sir Keir Starmer, and internal party polling is not looking good.

These new mayoral positions go back to 2016, when theCities and Local Government Devolution Actgave local authority councils in England the power to create “combined authorities” to collectively manage transport, social care and other local issues. The idea was to give the English regions outside London a “devolution bill” of their own to match that of Scotland and Wales.

Now, who holds power in England’s regions is more important than ever. Some of the metro mayors have shown a willingness to flex their muscles not only on local policy but on the national stage. Last October, the leaders of these combined authorities were among some of the most vocal opponents of the government’s regional lockdown policy.

And it wasn’t just Labour mayors like Greater Manchester’s Andy Burnham leading the charge – Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, was critical too.

In May, these new boys on the block (and at the moment, they’re all boys) will be hoping to hold onto power. Here is a run through of the main contenders. 

Greater Manchester

Commanding an annual budget of £30m, the Mayoralty of Greater Manchester is probably the best-known regional office in England outside London. It includes the role of Policing and Crime Commissioner for the Manchester Met, usually a separate office, making it also one of the most powerful.

The incumbent, ‘King in the North’, Andy Burnham, has been a successful standard-bearer for Northern anti-Conservatism. His defiance of a Tier 3 local lockdown in October, delivered outside his offices to a pack of national journalists, was a great PR move. His recent success in placing Manchester’s bus system under public ownership – the first of its kind outside London – has further cemented Burnham’s profile in the region of 2.8 million voters.

Beating him would be a tall order for Conservative candidate Laura Evans, a former Trafford councillor, who is unlikely to provide the heavyweight charisma needed to punch through Burnham’s aura. The ‘King in the North’ is likely to remain on throne for another four years. 

West Midlands 

The government is hoping for more luck in the race for West Midlands Mayor, where Conservative incumbent Andy Street – former Managing Director of John Lewis – governs a region of nearly 3 million people and a budget of £36.5m.

Street squeezed past his Labour rival Siôn Simon in 2017, ahead by less than a third of a point in the first round. Street has tried to distance himself from the government, emphasising his “moderate, inclusive… middle-of-the-road” Conservatism focused on infrastructure and business investment in deprived inner-city areas. He has publicly objected to the government’s handling of local lockdowns, though not the principle.  

Pundits see Street’s survival in May as a bell-weather for Conservative prospects across the country. This year, he’s up against Labour star Liam Byrne, chief secretary to the Treasury under Gordon Brown, and a local MP since 2004. Expect a knife-edge contest between Street’s “urban Conservatism” and Byrne’s ambitious municipal-socialist manifesto, including a promise to create 200,000 jobs in “skilled green trade and manufacturing” for the region.

West of England 

Voters in Bristol, Bath and parts of Somerset and Gloucestershire elected Conservative Tim Bowles to lead the West of England Combined Authority in 2017, with a budget of around £27m.

With Bowles stepping down in May, however, Labour is hoping for a win in the region, according to leaked internal reports. The Conservatives gained just 27 per cent of first-round votes in 2017, narrowly beating Labour in the run-off. 

This time around, both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have pitched local MPs to compete against Conservative candidate Samuel Williams, a local business consultant with no prior experience in politics.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s promise of extra money for transport investment in the region may give Williams some tailwind in May. But local politics here could be unpredictable. Bristolians remain divided over the toppling of the Edward Colston statue last summer and the violence at the ‘Kill the Bill’ marches last month. Cultural politics, especially on race, is likely to feature strongly.

While the West of England race should not be confused with the race for Bristol Mayor – where Labour incumbent Marvin Rees is standing for re-election – the two races are closely linked. A former journalist, Rees lends the local Labour Party a middle-of-the-road image on racial issues which could help win over moderate votes in the metro election. 

The Liverpool City Region

Joe Anderson, Labour Mayor of Liverpool City local authority, stood down in ignominy last year after his arrest on corruption charges. The scandal has left Labour activists fearful of permanent reputational damage in the historic Labour stronghold, with a Liverpool Echo poll in March suggesting over two thirds of voters intend to switch parties.

Steve Rotheram, the Labour Metro Mayor for the Liverpool City Region – confusing, I know, but not the same – is hopeful that the scandal will not impact his chances for re-election in May. Commanding an annual budget of £30m, the former bricklayer and MP stormed to victory on a near-60 per cent majority in 2017, with the Conservatives trailing far behind on 20 per cent.

Analysis by the Echo suggests the most likely beneficiaries of a possible switch in Liverpool City will be to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. Conservative hopes of a resurgence may be further dampened by the bitterness left by local lockdowns across the region in the autumn.

Tees Valley  

The Tees Valley Combined Authority covers a population of 700,000, mainly in the post-industrial towns of Middlesbrough, Darlington, Redcar and Hartlepool. It receives an annual budget of £15m – a generous amount for a region of this size.

Conservative Metro Mayor Ben Houchen, 34, has tried to avoid what he calls “ideological battles” in his four years of governance. Compulsory purchase orders for vital assets like Teesside Airport and the 800-acre brownfield site abandoned by Tata Steel in 2015 are part of a pragmatic, needs-based industrial policy for one of England’s most deprived regions.

The uprooting of Treasury jobs to Darlington and the granting of freeport status to the region make a Tory vote here hard to refuse. With an improved budget of nearly £600m planned over the next decade, government money is being ploughed into the region like nowhere else. The Hartlepool MP by-election is already tipped for the Tories.

Establishment parties, however, cannot be complacent here. Turnout was 21 per cent at the inaugural elections in 2017. Independent candidates have been known to do well in the region’s local authority elections. 

Cambridgeshire-Peterborough, and West Yorkshire

We cannot forget the two metro mayorships outside the major cities. The Combined Authority of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough covers much of the west of East Anglia, with a budget of £20m per year. Conservative incumbent James Palmer will face Labour councillor Nik Johnson and Liberal Democrat Aiden van der Weyer for a second shot, having won on second-vote preferences in 2017.

Elections for the first mayor for the West Yorkshire Combined Authority will also take place in May, covering the region surrounding Leeds, Wakefield and Bradford. Labour currently holds a majority on the West Yorkshire Council, though Starmer has downplayed expectations for a mayoral win.