Labour is likely to lose control of Bradford Council, with contenders from the Your Bradford Independent group emerging as a key force behind this shift. The Canary spoke with independent councillor Ishtiaq Ahmed to find out why.

Labour has neglected Bradford for too long

The city of Bradford was once a global leader of the wool trade. But a long industrial decline, and more recent Conservative-led austerity, has limited job opportunities in the city and ensured high unemployment levels. This has contributed to some of the highest levels of deprivation in the country, along with violent crime.

There have long been clear signs that Labour’s hold on the city has been fading, as the party failed to meaningfully counter Bradford’s decline. And in a city with one of the youngest populations in both Britain and Europe, the future seems to be one where Labour no longer has a dominant role.

Independents have already defeated Labour in the city in recent years. And with local progressives increasingly moving away from Labour, independents have proven to be a prominent force that is only growing more popular, especially in the diverse central areas of the city.

Pinpointing the Labour Party’s strategy in Bradford, Ahmed told us:

there’s been a huge detachment from the voter base here.

Labour politicians have too often been absent from communities and given them little meaningful consultation over policies impacting them. This has meant imposing decisions from the top:

based on what’s politically right for the Labour Party, and not for the local communities.

There’s been a “lack of vision” from Labour, which has “overlooked” the talents of local people and “drowned” out their voices. In candidate selection, for example, Ahmed asserted that:

They’ve never gone for the competency or ability level.

And this has left him and others asking:

Is that the best we’ve got?

Starmer’s big shift rightwards was the final straw

On top of all of the pre-existing mismanagement locally, the moral rupture in Labour under Keir Starmer was very much the final straw. As Ahmed said:

people feel there’s been a fundamental shift.

In particular:

the genocide in Palestine was when people really woke up.

But this also combined with Starmer increasingly (and pointlessly) “pandering to that right-wing vote”.

Labour has been acting in shock, however, at the thought that Bradford could possibly reconsider decades of voting habits:

They have this thought process that, ‘we’ve always traditionally been the party that represents the ethnic minorities, and therefore, anybody else standing is actually wrong, and is divisive, and splitting the votes, etc’.

But addressing local people’s disenchantment with Labour, Ahmed stressed:

The only reason we feel that way is because we’ve not been listened to.

One key example is how local people raised concerns about city centre regeneration, pedestrianisation, and increases in parking charges being destructive for local businesses. Labour ignored them.

Amid council “vanity projects”, Ahmed said councillors with no real connection to the area essentially killed the city centre:

It just seems kind of dead now. There’s a lot of shops shut down.

This is on top of the fact that there are already big inequalities between central Bradford and areas surrounding it:

The average life-expectancy difference of somebody living in my ward compared to Guiseley, which is literally a 15-minute drive away, is about 20 years. That’s a huge gap.

The need to “bring communities together”

Ahmed described the increasing presence of vile racism, and particularly Islamophobia, in British politics and mainstream media as “disturbing”.

He explained a recent occasion where he was on the train and:

I thought I was gonna be attacked. For the first time ever, I felt unsafe. I’m 52. I’d never felt like that before ever in my life.

Some of the hatred that mainstream politicians and propagandists are stirring up in the country feeds off ignorance. And Ahmed insisted that something needs to be done about that, saying:

We’ve had a whole generation of young people [from different communities] going through the schooling system and not come in contact with each other. That’s not healthy. We need leadership willing to bring communities together and create shared spaces.

Another factor that could foster more community solidarity is an increase in democracy. And that’s something Ahmed thinks independence can help with.

Independents are not controlled, and are not at the behest of party whips and party bosses. That’s a much healthier, more democratic way of working. We can have a range of views and perspectives, but agree on the fundamentals… And that’s what people say, ‘we need more independent voices’.

Independents listening more carefully than Labour

Your Bradford Independents, he said, “have been good at visibility within the community.”

They’ve been listening to people’s concerns locally, including the “decline of local services”, difficulties getting GP appointments, “long waiting times in A&E”, fly tipping, potholes, and “late-night fireworks”. He stressed that:

those things that we get feedback on determine what kind of motions and questions we put into the full council.

Ahmed and his colleagues seem likely to win numerous wards in Bradford. Greens may also make some gains.

Ahmed told us that independents are open to working with other progressives to resist the rise of the far right. He said there will always be small disagreements and a need for compromise, but he also asserted:

We need some unity on the left.

Hopefully, efforts to coordinate a challenge to the far right in Bradford and beyond will intensify following the local elections.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

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