Hull and East Yorkshire mayor election: Labour candidate spars with Reform’s boxing star in UK’s most disillusioned city

With just a few weeks to go until electing their first ever combined mayor, many residents of Hull and East Yorkshire seem blissfully unaware of the campaign raging around them.

Once nicknamed the UK’s “most disillusioned city” when it comes to voting, it’s clear that above even policy, politicians are fighting a battle for attention.

In the 2019 general election, three of the four constituencies with the lowest turnout were in Hull, and in 2024 the area remained towards the bottom of the table.

Speaking to LabourList, Diana Johnson, the MP for Kingston Upon Hull and Cottingham, said getting people out to vote was the “biggest threat” to Labour in the mayoral election.

“That’s the issue, because we haven’t got any other elections in Hull and East Riding, so it’s persuading people that going out to vote is really important.

“I think getting people out to vote is the big threat for this, that’s probably my biggest concern.”

‘We’re working against a different backdrop’

Despite those concerns, Labour’s candidate Margaret Pinder seemed relaxed, and genuinely optimistic about the campaign, when I met her on a warm Spring afternoon at Bob Carver’s fish and chip shop in Hull.

Pinder has been here before. She ran at the general election, narrowly losing out at a seat in Beverley and Holderness – by just 124 votes. Combine that with Labour’s strong showing in Hull, where they won all three seats, and you could be forgiven for thinking the election would be a walkover.

READ MORE: Labour candidate Karen Shore on Reform, the NHS, and closing asylum hotels

But Pinder recognises the national picture has changed in the last nine months.

“If it was the same profile as the general election, where as you know I was so close, it would be a slam dunk for Labour. We’re working against a different backdrop.”

That backdrop is “why Labour is having to make some of the decisions it’s having to make.”

“You’re out of power and everyone hates the Conservatives, and the minute you’re in it’s ‘why haven’t you fixed everything’?”

She quoted Tony Blair: “When I was in opposition every morning I worried about what I was going to say, and when I was in power every morning I worried about what I was going to do.”

However, unlike Blair in 1997, she said Starmer had inherited “an absolute wasteland”.

That said, she’s found people on the doorstep “are more sympathetic and more understanding of that situation than I thought they would be”.

An exclusive LabourList-Survation poll of Labour members among our readership recently found they anticipate a close contest. Some 46% expect a Reform win and 44% predict Labour will win the new mayoral position. But some 43% of the total were unsure.

‘If we don’t get a Labour mayor we’re going to feel left off the end’

One issue for Pinder’s campaign is whether voters will treat Hull as a local or national election.

“Given the mayor has a level of distance, my argument, when people are complaining that they’re not happy about the Labour party, is Westminster will do what Westminster will do…

“Do you want a mayor who will actually be listened to – won’t necessarily change national policy – but certainly in terms of this region, do you want a mayor who actually can get behind the door and give a bit of pushback and say actually, for this region, that these are our concerns, this is what’s important here. A Labour mayor can do that.”

She said a Labour mayor in Hull would also mean there would be Labour mayors “from coast to coast”, who can do some “joined up thinking” – particularly in transport.

“The links to London are fine, that’s not our problem. Our problem is getting across the country. The danger if we don’t get a Labour mayor here is we’re going to end up feeling left off of the end, because you don’t come here unless you’re coming here.”

It’s an area Pinder knows well. She spent her early years in Hull, before attending Wolfreton comprehensive school in East Riding.

A bright student, she won a place at King’s College Cambridge, where she studied languages. From there she qualified as a solicitor and moved to the US, teaching for a while at Harvard University. She returned to East Riding in the late 90s, working as a consultant on civil infrastructure projects.

She decided to get into politics after watching Gordon Brown’s speech to party members following Labour’s 2010 election defeat. In his speech, Brown quoted Labour’s Clause IV: “By the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone.”

Despite Pinder’s positive case, it doesn’t help that a lot of local people seem unaware about what the new role is, and what its powers are.

Local boy done good?

It’s an issue which may even benefit her seemingly biggest rival for Hull’s traditional Labour voters, Reform’s candidate Luke Campbell.

Campbell is a former professional boxer, fighting incidentally to win an area that includes the constituency of another star high-profile figure known partly for what he could do with his fists – the late former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.

Campbell’s campaign was launched by Nigel Farage at a glitzy event at the Connexin Live in Hull, and the 37-year-old has real star power, as well as status as a local hero.

On the doorstep, potential voters have told Pinder that Campbell will be alright because the role is “just ceremonial”.

“The other problem we’ve had on the doorstep, and all of the other candidates will find this, is half the people don’t know it’s happening, and the ones who do don’t really get what it is,” she said.

“One chap said, oh (Campbell) will be fine, it’s just ceremonial. So we’re trying to get through that it’s not that kind of mayor.”

Campbell’s greatest strength, that he’s not a politician, is also a drawback. One Hull resident I speak to questions whether “getting punched in the head for a living” is the ideal CV for a mayor.

But others note the power of being a political outsider, as well as the narrative that Campbell is a local boy done good.

Tarik Bolton, a 36-year-old business owner and Labour voter, said Campbell “has had a good run at being a Hull hero”, particularly when he fought Tommy Coyle in the 2015 Battle of Hull. The fight was held in Craven Park, a rugby stadium in Hull, and pulled in thousands of spectators.

“(In boxing) Hull goes out and supports him in droves, we haven’t had anyone in a long time to stand and get behind like that. It was The Beautiful South before that.

“If you walk into a booth, without the flags and stuff behind them, and you had to pick to vote for someone… you’d be hard to find anyone who hasn’t heard of Luke Campbell.”

Despite this, he said he still believed that Hull was a Labour city.

‘I’m not in the right headspace’

While in Hull, I went for a walk around the city centre, with hopes of speaking to residents about the election.

The sun was beating down and the streets were filled with shoppers enjoying the rare good weather. I spotted a man drinking a coffee alone and stopped up to ask him about the election. A busker was playing “time to say goodbye” nearby. The man turned  with tears in his eyes and said” “Not today mate, I’m not in the right headspace.”

Despite stopping dozens of people, few knew the election was happening, and those who did struggled to name any candidates. One man told me to try my luck down by the pier, where people were “a little fancier”.

It was there I met social worker Sadie Silver, 42. She said she wasn’t aware the election was happening.

“You know that Hull is one of the most apathetic cities when it comes to voting.”

Although a Labour voter, she too seemed disillusioned about politics.

“But now I’m a bit like, with the political system, they’ve all got their hands tied. So regardless of what the values are it seems there are powers influencing them so they can’t actually do anything.”

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Told that Reform’s Luke Campbell was the bookie’s favourite to win she said “that’s insane, that’s really worrying”.

“That is absolutely terrifying, even just the message that would send to other people.”

Reflecting on the rise of Reform, she said immigration has been “such a difficult thing” for the left to talk about. “It just means there’s been a vacuum, and the right – who are against it – people like Reform, they can just take that space.”

She said Hull had a history of anti-fascism, but people felt like they weren’t being “heard”.

“It’s feeling the pinch isn’t it, it’s the same old story – economic crisis – and then people are looking for someone to blame.”

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