By Jenny Nolan
The Local elections in Birmingham have been grueling but educational for us. We supported eight YP endorsed candidates in six wards and of those two candidates were successful, Harris Khalid in Ward End and Nosheen Khaliq in Alum Rock. Two others in the Small Heath ward found themselves only 30 votes away from victory. Small Heath suffered from a split vote on the left and this let in the LibDems. The most successful candidates were those that had been campaigning for a length of time and knocked every door.
In two other wards we supported independents who weren’t YP endorsed, and two were elected. In one of these wards (a Reform target) we got involved in the Stand up to Racism ‘Stop Reform’ campaign and we did this by targeting undecided households. The candidate we supported here had a track record as an effective ward councillor. They held their seat, on a shoestring budget, and the second seat went to Reform by a relatively small margin. There are lessons to be learned here and we will be meeting with the councillor to consider what we can do in the ward in order to stop Reform winning again.
Finally, we have seen local division (and not just driven by Reform), intimidation and harassment on an unprecedented scale in Birmingham and this is largely due to an organisation that has backed some of the Indies and seems to be attempting to claim all the Birmingham Independents as their own. This is something we foresaw and we are currently attempting to address this in our city alongside our allies.
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(Previously published in Connections Newsletter no. 3)
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