Labour may be looking at a near-wipeout on Kirklees Council, and one independent candidate told us the “demoralisation” among Labour campaigners is palpable.

Labour knows its time is up in Kirklees

Mike Forster is a longtime campaigner who’s running in the diverse and deprived Ashbrow ward as a candidate for the People’s Alliance for Change and Equality (PACE). And he has been “astounded” at the extent of voter support Labour has lost in Kirklees.

As he told us:

Local opinion polls that have been conducted in Kirklees are showing that the Labour vote has collapsed, and that they will be looking to get one or two councillors elected.

And we can tell. We’ve seen Labour people out. They’re not knocking on doors. They’re just delivering leaflets. But we can see the demoralisation in the way that they’re conducting themselves. They know that that’s the feedback of their data.

He also explained that:

What is likely to happen is that a majority of the seats will go to either the independents or the Greens. And because people this year have three votes, we are encouraging people, in Ashbrow at least, to vote for me and then for their two other votes to vote Green.

We did try to go into an electoral arrangement with the Greens, but they’d already decided to stand in every seat. But after the election, I’ll be making the call to the candidates and the sitting councillors, the call for unity to ensure we don’t have Reform in our administration.

In the face of the threat from Reform, if we don’t have a joint alliance on the council, then that would spell some danger.

And as polls suggest, Forster predicts independents will do well:

Across all of Kirklees, there’ll be over 20 independents I’m expecting to get elected, not just in North Kirklees, but also in Huddersfield. There is more of a tradition in Dewsbury and Batley of having independent councillors. But we’ll be able to get a few seats in Huddersfield this time as well.

Labour abandoned the people, so the people are returning the favour

Forster described how, on the doorstep, people have been saying:

The council has let them down, the government has let them down, and they’re looking for an alternative. And there’s been a lot of support for the idea of standing a candidate who is independent of all the other political parties…

People have been saying on the doorstep ‘I’ve been a lifelong Labour voter, but never again’.

It’s a combination of factors. They recognise that the council has badly let them down. They were aware of all of the sports centre closures, [the privatisation of] dementia care homes, but obviously the increases in council tax, the cuts in spending. And unfortunately, they’ve also put up the car park charges in town, put up the cost of school meals, rents have gone up.

It’s just a long list of grievances, and people are asking the question, ‘if we keep having to pay more council tax, what on Earth are we getting from it?’

And there’s a widespread recognition that it’s a Labour council that has done this. And there’s just been a huge shift in opinion away from Labour and towards being prepared to entertain an alternative.

An independent socialist resistance to Reform

Reform isn’t necessarily going to pick up the voters leaving Labour, though, especially in diverse wards like Ashbrow. As Forster said:

We’re aware that, among certain communities, there is some support for Reform. But no one is actually admitting to it. They’ve got a lot of posters up, which is what they do. But we’ve seen little evidence of them knocking on doors.

They were trying to hold a meeting a few weeks ago, but they cancelled it at the last minute through lack of interest…

It is a tragedy, though, that some working-class voters who’ve looked towards Labour in the past have felt abandoned and see Reform as an alternative.

In Ashbrow, however, Forster is confident that the message of opposition to cuts, war and division has spread throughout the ward:

We have canvassed the whole of the area. And what has happened is that we’ve actually picked up supporters who’ve wanted to come out with us as we’ve gone along. So three people who live in the area are now out canvassing with us, as well as, of course, PACE supporters.

We’ve knocked on every door, and there are 14,500 electors in Ashbrow. That’s just over 7,000 households, so that’s been a lot of doors.

The Canary has reported consistently on Forster and PACE’s vocal support for community campaigns against controversial council decisions. And as Forster recently insisted at a local hustings:

We need fighting councillors who put people first.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

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