How a Labour mayor could transform the West Midlands if we can beat Street

Alongside the seemingly never-ending round of parliamentary selections for the Labour Party and as we head into local elections, the selection process for Labour’s next candidate for West Midlands metro mayor is coming to its conclusion. With ballots due to close at 12 noon on Friday 14 April, whoever wins this selection will be Labour’s candidate in May 2024.

With just shy of three million residents, the West Midlands, after Greater London, is the second most populous region of the UK. The current Tory mayor Andy Street has been in post since May 2017. Although large parts of the West Midlands metropolitan area are represented by Labour-run councils and Labour MPs, the 2024 mayoral race represents an opportunity for Labour to take power across this key region and bring transformative change.

Here are three tasks that need to be at the top of the Labour’s candidate’s to do list:

A campaign that inspires and connects

I was born and grew up in the West Midlands, but left to study in Manchester and later lived in London for work, so I’ve become used to, if a little wearied by, preconceptions about my home region. I would love this mayoral campaign to inspire a sense of renewed pride and excitement about what we can achieve here. This has been the home of innovation for centuries but the post-industrial era has hit us hard.

Many of our high streets feel neglected and tired, yet, as our work and shopping habits change, there is a huge opportunity to revitalise local areas, increase neighbourhood policing, and work with our local councillors and businesses to invest in the retail and entertainment sectors. We need to ensure that every part of our economy feels part of post-pandemic recovery. Whether you tackle education, employment, health, transport, tackling crime, everything should be seen as interconnected and the mayoralty has a key role to play in bringing together the different moving parts, working together for success.

A campaign that rebuilds trust

Gordon Brown’s Commission on the UK’s Future found that more than 50% of voters are unable to distinguish between political parties. Most respondents to their polling felt invisible to their political leaders. This is what people tell me too. “You’re all the same” voters say time and again. This is true whether I’m in Dudley, Sandwell, or Coventry and leads to voter turnout hovering around 30% for local elections and not much more for the last West Midlands mayoral election in 2021.

Brown recommends passing more power to local hands, not only because the complexity of the issues that communities face means that locally devised solutions are far more likely to work, but also to rebuild trust. Occasionally on the doorstep you meet someone living with issues that are so difficult and long-standing that they require a multi-agency approach. Poverty, poor housing, and ill health leave people with few options but often people don’t think of contacting their local authority for help. I see local politicians, be they councillors, members of parliament or mayors as playing a key connecting role for people.

Policies that resonate and deliver

But, bringing power closer to people can’t address lack of trust on its own. Technical language about devolution will not inspire voters. We need to show people what Labour in power will do for the West Midlands. Labour metro mayors in other regions have made a huge difference and give us positive examples to look at. Tracy Brabin in West Yorkshire has secured funding for insulating and installing secondary glazing across social housing stock. Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester is in the process of bringing buses back into public ownership. Sadiq Khan has promised free school meals for all of London’s primary school children.

It would be great to see a Labour metro mayor bring any or all of these policies to the West Midlands but we also need to involve our communities in developing policy. I’m glad to see that both shortlisted candidates are Co-operative Party members. So many of the solutions to the issues we face can be found in community collaboration. There is a vibrant co-operative movement here and it will be really good to see region-wide policy with these values at its heart. Trust will only be rebuilt if it’s accompanied by transparency and scrutiny. We need to find ways to do politics differently, to do politics with people, not to people.

Whoever is successful on Friday, I’m excited about the prospect of campaigning for the West Midlands’ first Labour mayor and even more excited about what they will be able to achieve when they win.