An independent socialist councillor in Wakefield says voters are “adamant they’re not voting Labour” in the upcoming local election. But Jakob Williamson hopes locals will give him and his colleagues a chance rather than falling for the billionaire-backed divisiveness of Reform.
Why Wakefield is crying out for change
As a former mining area, Wakefield played a key role in fuelling the Industrial Revolution. Labour has dominated Wakefield Council for decades. However, Labour has failed to counter the immense damage Margaret Thatcher caused to working-class people locally or the transfer of money and power away from ordinary people ever since.
In fact, the Thatcher era pulled Labour further into the service of economic elites. Local MPs are good examples of that because Wakefield and Rothwell MP, Simon Lightwood, has received the backing of dodgy right-wing group Labour Together, as has neighbouring Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley MP, Yvette Cooper.
Jakob Williamson is one of the independent socialists challenging Labour in Wakefield. He’s running in the Hemsworth ward as a Unity Independents candidate. Like other places around Wakefield, Hemsworth has seen a lot of deprivation since the coal mining industry ended and Labour has left it “behind for a long time”, Williamson said.
Williamson previously told the Canary that austerity, privatisation and a lack of accountability on Wakefield Council have led to big problems in areas like housing and public transport.
In the last two decades, for example, it was reported that the number of people on a housing waiting list in Wakefield has more than quadrupled. There were more than 27,000 vulnerable households waiting for accommodation as of March 2025.
While the end of mining had already caused “deep job losses and long-term economic scarring“, the 2007/8 crisis and Tory-led austerity made things much worse, hitting Wakefield harder than most other cities. With few well-paid jobs around and expensive transport, unemployment and demand for benefits rose significantly.
Around a quarter of Wakefield’s neighbourhoods suffer high levels of deprivation, contributing to poor health, both physically and mentally.
‘A lot of local people don’t see where else they can go’
Because Labour has failed the area so badly, Reform UK’s bigoted Thatcherite opportunists have been trying to capitalise on people’s disenchantment. They’ve been focusing a lot of wild energy on Wakefield and similar areas. With money from dodgy and obscenely wealthy individuals behind them, they’ve made their presence felt.
Williamson insisted that “most Reform supporters…have the same issues and concerns as anyone else”.
A lot of people are going to Reform because they don’t see where else they fit in or can go.
He and the Unity Independents want to challenge both Labour and Reform with a strong message of positive change. Williamson said:
Vote for us if you want community-minded councillors who actually care about the issues people face, who’ve experienced the issues most people face — people who aren’t going to be bought off with nice positions on the council. We’re gonna stand firm and challenge decisions and make sure the council’s genuinely working in the interests of residents.
He told us about his commitment to firmly scrutinising council wastage and attempts at gentrification. He also highlighted how important it is to ensure council housing is available to people who need it, and that young people have more opportunities.
Listening to local people and involving them much more, Williamson stressed, is a key priority.
Jake Williamson speaks to the Canary
What have you been hearing on the doorstep?
The vast majority of people I’ve spoken to are adamant they’re not voting Labour… We’re a target district for Reform, and they are gonna make serious gains…
What I’ve picked up on, though, there is a growing anti-Reform sort of mindset as well. So there’s people looking to do a bit of tactical voting to try and keep them out in certain wards. But polling for individual wards just isn’t reliable.
Why are people so adamant not to vote Labour?
It’s a mixture of things. So as a national party, I don’t think the more recent stuff about [Peter] Mandelson’s helping.
Locally in Wakefield, though, we had the announcement of a big regeneration project, where they were going to buy the Ridings shopping centre and basically demolish it, and turn it into flats, and demolish some social housing. And that’s had a serious backlash as well…
I think most people just think Labour’s not really done much at all. They don’t get any genuine representation and I think it’s all just mixing together now. It’s everything.
As independents, how have you tried to get voter support?
Basically, we’re trying to get back to what should be Labour values — traditional Labour values. We’ve been concentrating on economic issues as well, because I think that’s the biggest factor driving the growth of Reform.
For Wakefield as a whole, we’ve been pushing trying to get back to council housing because about 20 years ago, the council basically got rid of all the council housing [and] left it to a housing association, which doesn’t really do much. The waiting list’s grown to over 27,000.
We’ve had wins on schemes like the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, giving books to kids in all deprived communities.
It’s just trying to alleviate poverty, tackle housing, and then individually in wards, we’ll try to get to some sort of community representation, with people getting involved in the community.
SEND [Special Educational Needs and Disabilities] is a big thing, so I’ve been meeting with SEND families and they’re wanting a SEND-related forum because there’s a lot of issues families are facing which the council just won’t acknowledge, and they’re just wanting a formal mechanism to try and raise those issues and concerns…
We’ve said we’re gonna start holding residents’ assemblies and forums, and try and get residents to steer where they’d like us to go and the council to go — what they’d like to see the council spend the money on.
So it’s trying to do things a little bit differently, trying to tackle core issues, and being involved with the community and being present.
What have you promised to fight for if independents are on the council?
The big one’s housing costs. It’s a big issue, getting back to council housing. We’ve got a plan, which has been backed by someone who used to basically work in that area for the council, and then the housing association that took over. So we’re pushing that.
Another thing we’re really pushing is opportunities for children and young people, young adults. Whether that be a skate park or something like that. People are crying out for things.
The council has just basically left places like Hemsworth behind for a long time. And the bits we end up getting, which we really have to fight for, are just far lower than what other wards get.
Wakefield does get the most as the centre of the district. Castleford does get a bit of a focus too. A lot of the regeneration focus has been on there, because the last two council leaders have represented wards in that area. There’s also a connection to wards getting funding and whether they have a cabinet member in the ward as well.
Senior officers give deference to cabinet members, and vice versa. I think there’s always been that link. That’s how the machinery works, in a sense.
What key local issues have people been mentioning on the doorstep?
The Lightwaves community centre, which was recently given to a community trust, who’s been running a community centre in this building but they’ve transferred [the freehold] for £1, and there’s a Labour cabinet member sitting on the board.
The Ridings shopping centre has been mentioned across the district. The council’s bought it, but it’s looking like it’s considerably way above market value, by a ridiculous amount.
The plan is to knock that down, and it’s a big site, as well as four high-rise blocks of social flats. There are about 270 flats. They’re saying they’re only committing to replacing around 200 and we can’t get any guarantee, but there’s gonna be about 1,000 flats going on this site.
They’re saying it’s going to be mixed-use with some leisure and commercial units, but it’s basically being aimed at commuters to Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, things like that.
So apart from the extra council tax, it’s not gonna be people who are probably gonna put roots down here. It’s not gonna be people who are probably gonna spend that much time apart from sleeping in the city, so they’re gonna be working and likely spending the money elsewhere.
It’s definitely gentrification — social cleansing. Vico [Homes], the housing association, has already been trying to push people to move out of the flats now, rather than in a few years’ time when they’re supposed to be getting demolished. And they’re trying to move people around the district rather than rehousing them in the city centre.
We’ve challenged it a few times, saying, ‘You want to build a thousand flats, this is the time to really start trying to drive down that housing waiting list as well’, so we could have had a bulk of them as council flats.
This took the entire opposition working together to try and get some scrutiny on it because when it was first announced, they basically were trying to railroad it through, so it was gonna go straight to cabinet. We were trying to call in extraordinary meetings. The chief legal officer was blocking it.
We were trying to get it under scrutiny, but we were struggling. We managed to get it in with the help of a Labour councillor. But the actual scrutiny meeting that was scheduled to take place, they’d actually cancelled in the middle of all this. They were just trying to get it through before purdah started.
So it took a big effort, and there’s big question marks around the finances. They’ve got an £18 million grant from the government and they were supposed to be buying the shopping centre, demolishing it, and basically getting somewhere with working on the planning applications and stuff for the replacement flats.
Now, they’re looking at having about £57,000 left before they get to demolition. So it wasn’t even gonna cover everything they said it was going to cover. There’s basically a big implication for the revenue budget going forward…
We’re potentially looking at maybe service cuts or things like that later down the line. How much I’m not sure, but there’s a serious risk of that happening.
Why should voters back you and other Unity Independents?
Vote for us if you want community-minded councillors who actually care about the issues people face, who’ve experienced the issues most people face, people who aren’t going to be bought off with nice positions on the council. We’re gonna stand firm and challenge decisions and make sure the council’s genuinely working in the interests of residents. I think we’ve proven that over the last year.
What would you say to people considering Reform?
The message is the same. When you actually speak to most Reform supporters, they have the same issues and concerns as anyone else. A lot of people are going to Reform because they don’t see where else they fit in or can go. People definitely want change. But people want politicians they see as honest as well — politicians they see as actually doing the job and actually caring.
Have you had discussions with Greens in Wakefield?
We did have discussions with them and we were sort of in the process of setting up a pact, but we just didn’t end up completing that.
There’s one ward where both of us are seriously contesting, so we’re opponents in that ward. But they’ve basically put two candidates instead of three up in mine.
Unity Independents has received the endorsement of Your Party.
Featured image via Wakefield Express
By Ed Sykes
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