As a Labour councillor in Sheffield, up for re-election next year and defending a marginal seat I flipped in 2022, it is hard not to see the upcoming Deputy Leadership election as decisive – both for the party’s direction, and for whether my colleagues and I will hold our seats next May.
Because although councillors work hard, earn local recognition and support, and deliver results on the ground, we know how many people treat local elections: as a referendum on the performance of the government. And when you are the party of government, that can sometimes mean getting a kicking.
Judging by the polling, that is exactly what will happen. Labour voters drifting towards the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, and the new left party. Reform remains stubbornly present. Too many of our supporters are looking elsewhere, and unless we change course, some may never come back.
That is why I welcome Lucy Powell’s call for the party to not write off next May’s elections. Because, frankly, that is exactly what it feels like the leadership has done. Councillors are expected to hold the line, but if the ship is heading for the rocks, we need leadership prepared to turn the wheel – not one that pretends there is no storm.
READ MORE: Challenge, responsibility and speaking truth to power – LabourList interview with Lucy Powell
Powell was right: we cannot afford to lose Labour councillors and councils due to avoidable national missteps. The upcoming budget must be a turning point: to ‘draw a line under our past mistakes, and show the country whose side we are on.’
Councillors are the first line of defence in our communities. For fourteen years, we have done our best to shield people from the worst impacts of Tory austerity. We have seen youth services decimated, libraries closed, social care slashed, bin collections reduced, and council workers made redundant.
That we are still here is testament to the values we hold. But resilience cannot be an excuse for inaction from the top.
It would be the ultimate betrayal if the leadership now shrugged its shoulders and claimed there is nothing it can do. That there is no money. No room for change. That simply is not true, and it has never been. We can and must change course.
That is one of the many reasons I voted for Lucy Powell to be our next Deputy Leader. She is the only candidate who has spoken credibly about the crisis facing local authorities. In her own words: ‘No Labour council should face financial distress because of unfair funding, and local people must see real, visible improvement. There can be no continuation of the managed decline we saw under the Tories.’
That is what a Labour leadership should be saying. That is what a Labour government should be doing.
READ MORE: Unity, pride and beating Reform – LabourList interview with Bridget Phillipson
There are so many alternative paths we could be pursuing, so many options that are regularly raised by the very voices that the leadership seems determined to shut out. Louise Haigh has long sounded the alarm over our fiscal rules. Last month she rightly warned that they are a “straitjacket” which is holding back the change the government was elected to deliver. What we need instead, she tells us, is ‘an economic reset: a decisive break with the fiscal rules and institutional constraints that hold back renewal.’
That reset starts with November’s budget. It must be bold. It must be redistributive. It must deliver a decisive shift away from the logic of cuts, caution and compromise, and put wealth and power back into the hands of working-class communities.
Because unless people feel that change in their daily lives, in their wages, housing, transport, and care, then the promise of transformation will remain just that. A promise.
The budget is not just a policy event watched by lobbyists in Whitehall. It is a demonstration of the government’s values in practice. It tells the country who counts, who gets left behind, and what this government really stands for. And for many of our communities this may be the last chance they give us – and understandably so.
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It is not just the country that is overdue for transformative change. Our party is too.
We need a Deputy Leader who is both a messenger and a mobiliser. Someone who will not just reflect where the party is, but will help it become what it should be. Lucy Powell understands that. She knows what is at stake: not only next May’s elections, but the future of progressive politics in this country.
We are told that we are staring down the barrel of a Reform-majority government, that we are on track to lose Wales, as we watch Labour voters in large numbers consider abandoning us for other progressive parties. Changing course means recognising when things are going wrong – and taking action to put them right.
There is only one candidate that will do that and who can put us back on a winning course once again.
We cannot afford to wait any longer. With Lucy Powell, we have a chance to change direction – and we must take it.
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