They pointed out that as mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham had made “powerful statements” about the climate crisis, including backing the fossil fuel treaty – a proposed international pact on phasing out coal, oil and gas. 

Yet, since becoming prime minister, Burnham’s relative silence on climate change, alongside hints that he is considering approving new oil and gas fields at Rosebank and Jackdaw, have caused major concern among environmentalists. 

Danny Gross, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth, tells Left Foot Forward: “Andy Burnham has not been vocal enough on the climate crisis.”

He said it was good that Burnham had “finally” convened a Cobra (Cabinet Office Briefing Room) meeting on the extreme heat on 13 August, and that he banned disposable barbeques. However, he added “that’s absolutely not enough”. 

“What was disappointing for us and lots of other people was that it took Burnham so long to even talk about the climate crisis or even link the extreme weather we’re having to the climate crisis,” he said. 

Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields

Gross describes speculation that Burnham is considering approving new oil extraction at Rosebank and gas extraction at Jackdaw as “really worrying”.

To tackle the climate crisis, Gross says the government needs to create measures to adapt to the changing weather, alongside “strong action to cut our emissions as much as possible, which means saying no to climate-wrecking projects like Rosebank and Jackdaw”.

He said the decision is “a big test for the government” and if they are approved “it would seem like a white flag in a way”.

“It will send a very negative signal about their commitment to tackling the climate crisis and transitioning away from fossil fuels, which is a root cause of our cost of living crisis,” Gross says.

However, if the government decides to approve Rosebank and Jackdaw, Gross makes clear that “lots of campaign groups will be looking at the legality of the decision” and will continue to campaign against new fossil fuel projects. 

‘Adapting’ to the climate crisis

After a destructive summer of heatwaves, wildfires and droughts, the Met Office has warned that an “unprecedented” El Niño event, which is when eastern Pacific temperatures rise 0.5°C above the long-term average, is likely to bring storms to the UK and North West Europe this autumn.

In response, Friends of the Earth is urging Burnham to enact “much more comprehensive measures” to adapt to the climate crisis, including retrofitting buildings and creating robust plans to combat flooding. 

In fact, the climate charity is taking the government to court over its “dangerously inadequate” national adaptation plan, which it says fails to protect the public from extreme weather such as heatwaves and floods. 

Gross says: “A big part of climate adaptation is about managing flood risk. There has been underinvestment in this area and it’s a big responsibility for the government to really invest in flood defences, including natural climate solutions.”

Media representation of the heatwaves

The media also has a role to play in tackling climate change. When talking about the extreme weather, Gross says that campaign groups, media outlets and politicians all have a responsibility to talk about “the root cause of it – which is climate change”. 

At a time where the Right has fractured the political consensus on net zero, with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch abandoning her party’s net zero by 2050 target and Reform bashing “net stupid zero”, sections of the media are adding to the political backlash. 

When it comes to media outlets, analysis by investigative newspaper Carbon Brief published in January found that for the first time since 2011, there were more editorials in UK newspapers in 2025 against taking action on climate than supporting it. 

In total, almost 100 newspaper editorials opposed climate action in 2025, while 112 editorials – more than two a week – included attacks on then environment secretary Ed Miliband. 

Another research paper by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit found that almost three quarters (72%) of newspaper articles about the heatwaves that took place in June this year did not mention climate change. 

James Painter, a research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, says that to tackle this, “Politicians should be pressing for a more robust Independent Press Standards Organisation, and be calling out the misinformation with more regularity”.

Lobbying

At the heart of anti net-zero narratives is lobbying by fossil fuel interests. The Conservatives have accepted at least seven million in donations from funders and directors of climate denialist organisations – the Global Warming Policy Foundation and its linked pressure group Net Zero Watch. 

Reform UK is advising The Heartland Institute, a US-based organisation that rejects scientific consensus on climate change. The party’s biggest donor, Christopher Harborne, owns AML Global, a company that supplies jet fuel derived from crude oil.

Angharad Hopkinson, political campaigner for Greenpeace UK, told Left Foot Forward: “The main thing stopping climate action is fossil fuel money and lobbying. Oil and gas companies use their considerable resources to ensure that climate disinformation is distributed to the public, online and in broadcast and print media.”

She says: “To combat climate disinformation from the right, we need transparent political funding, robust counter-messaging based on real science, and strong public demand for long-term climate policies.”

Positive stories about climate action

Gross says he thinks “the biggest obstacle to addressing the crisis is no longer denial but defeatism” – the idea that climate change is such a huge problem that there is ‘no point’ in trying to solve it. 

A prime example of this was the Reform deputy leader, Richard Tice, recently saying to the public: “When it’s a bit warm, let’s enjoy it”. 

But in positive news, the public hasn’t bought into climate denial or defeatism. Hopkinson points out that polling has shown that people want more action on climate change, not less.

YouGov polling from November last year revealed that 60% of Brits back net zero targets. In addition, 39% of Britons said the government is currently not spending or doing enough to combat climate change. 

Hopkinson says: “As the climate delayers and deniers get louder, we have to resist and share climate science strongly in return.  Not to persuade the deniers, who frequently don’t believe their own lines, but to let everyone else know that they are in the majority, and should be listened to.”

Gross says that campaign groups, media outlets and politicians also have a responsibility “to tell more hopeful and positive stories about how climate action can improve people’s everyday lives”.

For example, telling stories about how retrofitting homes keeps them warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer, while reducing people’s bills and emissions, or how giving people the ability to install plug-in solar panels, as the government did last week, will help them generate their own electricity and reduce their gas consumption.

To borrow Tice’s words, the response to climate change should not be all “doom and gloom”. Action is being taken to tackle the climate crisis, and most of the public backs it.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

The post Andy Burnham has ‘not been vocal enough’ about climate crisis appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

If you had been playing a game of public ownership-themed bingo, all the buzzwords would have been ticked off. In the run up to the Makerfield by-election, Burnham said “the essentials of life” should be run “primarily for the public interest, not for the private interests”. 

He even directly said the water company should be nationalised. “Public ownership is absolutely an option,” he said, adding “for Thames Water, that is what should be done.”

More broadly, he has said that No 10 North would enable local authorities to “take greater public control of water, housing, energy and transport”.

Thames Water’s lenders seemed to think special administration was imminent too. So much so that they threatened legal action and offered the government a “golden share” to give ministers greater control over how it’s run. 

But the SAR announcement didn’t come. Last Friday, the iPaper reported that Burnham had “no immediate plans” to take Thames Water into special administration, with a No 10 source categorically denying there ever was a plan to make such an announcement.

‘Thames Water needs to go into Special Administration’

Caitlin Prowle, assistant general secretary of the Co-op Party, tells Left Foot Forward Burnham should put Thames Water, which is almost £20 billion in debt, into special administration. “I think it does need to happen,” she said. The Co-op Party is in favour of mutual or co-operative ownership of water, a public ownership model that would make customers the shareholders and overall owners of water.

“I think the government is very aware that this is a big problem they need to solve,” Prowle added.

Asked why she thought the government had not yet put Thames Water into special administration as expected, Prowle said: “I’m not sure what’s behind the delay. I think the government has been in place for 10 days and it’s incredibly early days.”

She said that Burnham had focused on making “a really strong flurry of announcements that are going to tangibly improve people’s lives” in his first two weeks as prime minister.

Prowle said that the upcoming Budget, likely in October, will potentially look at the issue of Thames Water.

“I think there is a growing political consensus that something needs to be done and I happen to think that the people in government agree with that, and it will be a matter of how and when this is dealt with,” she said.

‘They have to look at profit in social care’

An area that Burnham has not shied away from tackling in his first fortnight as PM is social care. For decades, successive governments have tried, and failed, to tackle the social care crisis. 

The 2010 coalition government, for example, proposed capping lifetime care costs, but ultimately abandoned the proposal. In 2023, the Conservative government’s planned £86,000 lifetime cap on personal care costs in England was delayed and then not implemented. 

For Burnham to place social care at the centre of his government’s agenda is bold but necessary.

In his speech about social care on Wednesday, Burnham said that Baroness Louise Casey would bring forward her review of how to reform adult social care by a year to 2027. He also initiated cross-party talks on social care, meeting with Lib Dem leader Ed Davey and shadow health secretary Stuart Andrew on Wednesday. 

However, Burnham’s speech did not address one of the sector’s most contentious issues: the role of private companies. For-profit providers now run around 96% of care homes. 

It wasn’t always this way. Before Thatcher became prime minister in 1979, local authorities provided around 63% of residential care home places, while the private sector ran just 17% of care home places.

“I think if they are going to solve the social care crisis, they are going to have to look at profit,” said Prowle.

She gives the example of how in Wales, as of the 1 April this year, all new children’s homes, fostering services, and secure accommodation must be run by not-for-profit providers. New for-profit providers are also no longer able to register with the Welsh Care Inspectorate. 

At the start of this month, the Co-operative Party published a report calling for a ban on private profit in adult social care and an end to private equity’s domination in the sector. 

“Private equity ownership is almost the exact opposite of community ownership,” Prowle said. “In the private equity model, profit is extracted from pay, staffing and care, it doesn’t care where it comes from.”

She said that under the co-operative model profits are put back into the business. Prowle recently visited Be Caring, the UK’s largest employee-owned co-operative social care provider, which she said had some of the best outcomes for care, staff retention and pay in the region.

“The reason is because every penny is reinvested in the service. For example, they told me they regularly improve staff uniforms and they’re able to do that because they’re reinvesting profit,” she said. 

Recognising co-operative housing in law

Another of Burnham’s cornerstone pledges is to deliver the biggest council housebuilding programme since the second world war. 

The Co-op Party is “hugely supportive of the ambition to drive up social homes”, Prowle said.

As part of this, the party is interested in community-led and co-op housing models, which provide affordable housing that is resident-led. 

Prowle said that one area that the Co-operative Party will be pushing the government on is to recognise co-operative housing in law.

“The idea that housing ownership is shared amongst multiple people doesn’t exist in law, so it doesn’t exist as a housing tenure,” she said.

Prowle described the UK’s tenure law as “still quite feudal” in that “it recognises landlords and tenants but doesn’t really recognise anything else”.

The Co-operative Party Assistant General Secretary said the organisation has been campaigning on this for some time, and that “it’s really straightforward” to do, “and all it does it makes it easier for housing lawyers, banks, financial advisors, whoever else to have a legal underpinning for this.”

Prowle says the party will also be pushing the Labour government to introduce business support for organisations that either want to transition to being a co-operative or people who want to set up co-operatives.

Risk or opportunity?

With the first Labour and Co-operative Prime Minister in history now in 10 Downing Street, there is a question hanging over the movement: if Burnham fails to deliver on public ownership and his promise to redistribute power to local communities, could it reflect badly on the co-operative cause itself?

Prowle thinks “there’s always risk” but that it’s “a huge opportunity”. She highlights that the UK now not only has a Labour and Co-op prime minister, but co-operative voices across key government roles, including Miatta Fahnbulleh and Alex Norris as Energy and Justice Secretary. In total, there are now 19 Labour and Co-op MPs on the frontbench. 

Prowle says the Co-operative Party was set up in 1917 to represent and be a political advocate for co-operative businesses at a time when the political system was dominated by private business interests.

“It’s going to be up to us and our political representatives in all parts of the country and across all levels of government to seize the opportunity,” she said. 

Prowle thinks “there are lots of reasons to be optimistic”. She argues that Burnham has shown he is committed to co-operative politics not just since he became prime minister, but over his almost 30 years in political life. 

“There have been a lot of signs from Andy Burnham that this is something he believes in and values and sees as part of his political identity,” she says. 

“It’s up to us now to turn that into something real.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

The post Andy Burnham should put Thames Water into special administration says Co-operative Party assistant general secretary appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Yet assessing Reform’s record is not straightforward. In the run-up to the local elections last year, Reform did not put out detailed local manifestos, which means there are few promises to measure the party against.

Where changes have been introduced, it has often been on issues linked to culture war divides. In Derbyshire, Reform removed references to net zero and emissions from council language. In Durham, Reform changed the councillor disciplinary process and added a clause to the councillor Code of Conduct to strengthen “freedom of expression”.

Councillor behaviour and complaints processes

“The atmosphere in the chamber has definitely changed,” says Anne Clarke, a Labour and Co-operative councillor for New Mills and Hayfield ward in Derbyshire.

Clarke said that in one full council meeting “lots of us were very upset because it appeared that a Reform cabinet member was shouting at a member of the public who had come to ask a question”.

In a meeting on 10 December last year, a member of the public said she was concerned about misuse of the St George’s flag by the far-right and racist groups.

She asked whether the council would consider flying the Union flag instead of the St George’s flag on council buildings as it represents the whole of Britain. 

Responding to her question, Stephen Reed, a Reform councillor and cabinet member for business services, raised his voice, saying that the St George’s flag stands for ‘unity and inclusion’ and that people cause division by focusing too much on diversity and the use of the flag.

Referring to Reed appearing to shout at the member of the public, Clarke said: “You just wouldn’t have had that before.”

In Durham, Reform has changed the code of conduct to allow for “a degree of immoderate, offensive, shocking or provocative expression”. The Conduct and Standards Committee, which oversees councillor adherence to the code of conduct, has also been changed.

The Reform administration has changed it so that the committee is now run by councillors rather than council officers.

Green councillor Jonathan Elmer said this could affect how complaints are handled, arguing that complaints against Reform councillors are unlikely to be upheld “regardless of how obnoxious and repulsive they’ve been” because there is “no balance on the committee”. The committee consists of six Reform councillors and three opposition members: one Liberal Democrat, one Independent and one Labour.

On the change to the councillor Code of Conduct, Elmer said: “What they want to do is enable a mechanism to greenlight, misleading, repulsive, divisive language.”

The Reform leader of Durham County Council, Andrew Husband, said that the committee is “politically balanced”. He claimed that there has been “a high percentage of breaches” involving opposition councillors that have resulted in no further action, but didn’t provide figures to support this.

Husband added that “the only difference” under the new system is that hearings are no longer officer-led “in a closed room”, but take place in front of a panel that includes opposition councillors. “So far we have received no complaints of unfair process,” he said.

LFF has submitted a Freedom of Information request to Durham County Council for complaints data.

Net zero

A week after winning control of Derbyshire County Council last May, Reform axed the climate change committee, which made a small saving of £12,988 – the cost of the committee chair and vice chair’s allowances.

The climate change committee was established in 2021, to measure progress against the council’s net zero targets.

The Reform council leader, Alan Graves, said that the administration did not take the decision in order to make “minor savings” but to “reverse the chase of the climate change agenda”.

Graves also claimed that “the net zero agenda has driven poor council decisions for years”.

In February, Reform renewed the climate change strategy introduced by the Conservative administration, but renamed it the ‘Environmental sustainability policy’ and removed all references to climate change, net zero and carbon emissions.

Kinsella said: “Language is really important to them, they talk a lot about ‘common sense’ and say ‘we’ll partake in issues to do with climate change when it’s common sense’.”

He added that “there are a lot of inconsistencies” in Reform’s approach to climate change. Reform approved a motion to ban solar farms across Derbyshire, which is not something they have authority to do, but has approved plans to develop a solar farm on ‘farmland’ on a former colliery site in North Derbyshire, which has received £700,000 in government funding.

In Durham, Reform scrapped the council’s pledge to achieve net-zero by 2045 and has presented motions at full council calling for coal mining to be brought back to the North-east. 

One opposition councillor in Durham said: “Reform talks about the negative impacts of wind farms and solar fields, but we remember a time in County Durham when the whole area was polluted and covered with coal spoil heaps and open cast coal mines and landscapes were utterly degraded.”

Alison Gray, a Labour councillor for Lanchester and Burnhope called the Reform council’s vow to bring back coal mining as part of its plans to reindustrialise Durham “Trumpian slogans”. “Many former miners would hate the thought of their children going down the mine again,” she added.

Reform also scrapped plans for solar panels to be installed on eight council buildings, which Gray said “would have saved a lot of money”. Liberal Democrat councillor Mark Wilkes, who has led the opposition’s campaign to keep the solar project, said the scheme would have saved £77,000 per year. 

Doge and DEI

Reform announced that it would set up an Elon Musk-inspired cost-cutting team after the May elections last year.  Kinsella said that in Derbyshire, councillors had the impression that a Doge squad would come “unannounced and sack people left, right and centre, but actually none of that happened”. “It was all very much a damp squib,” Kinsella said. 

He said that Reform couldn’t find big savings “because there isn’t loads of inefficiency or waste”. 

Alan Graves, the Reform leader at Derbyshire County Council, said their cost-saving initiatives had “hardly [been] a damp squib” and that Reform had found millions of pounds in savings. He said Reform has delivered on the budgeted savings plan of £35 million for 2025/26, as well as a further £42 million in savings.

He stated that some of these additional savings are included in the 26/27 budget savings programme of £43 million, but did not give examples of where the efficiencies would be made.

One area where Reform said they would make cuts in Derbyshire was on diversity, equality and inclusion.

Clarke said: “They probably had this idea that we had a huge diversity and inclusion team and that they could make cuts there, but that had already been done by the previous administration.”

Graves said that cutting DEI initiatives was “not about savings, but the direction the council wants to take”. He added: “Our focus is on ability rather than protected characteristics”.

Reform in Derbyshire has a ‘Doge’ cabinet member, John Lawson, who said last June that he would bring the council’s finances “back from the brink”, despite admitting there was “limited scope” for savings to be made in the short-term. The Reform council has now said it will spend up to £5 million on employing consultants to identify savings.

Clarke said that she asked a question at cabinet about the broad range of projected savings Reform expects the consultants to identify. Savings are expected to be between £19.2 million and £38.7 million.

“I said, ‘well what confidence have you got when you’ve got that wide of a range?’,” Clarke said.

In West Northamptonshire, leader of the Labour group Sally Keeble, told LFF that Reform had had to keep the council’s diversity training, but “rebranded it as ‘the legal framework for taking decisions training'”.

‘Opposition must feel very irrelevant’

In Durham, Husband said that “it seems the opposition feel very irrelevant”. He maintains that Reform has “achieved something they [the Conservatives] never could in only 9 months”. Likewise, in Derbyshire, Graves claims that Reform has identified £43 million in savings for 2026/27, but he did not give examples of where these savings would be made.

From these conversations with opposition and Reform councillors, it seems Reform has delivered few sweeping policy changes so far. County councils run by other parties have typically focused on trying to deliver day-to-day services – adult social care, buses, libraries, bin collections and potholes.

While Reform has also done some of that, the party’s approach has focused more on reshaping the council’s priorities, with a particular focus on making wins on broader ‘culture war’ issues, such as net zero, diversity, equality and inclusion and campaigning for hotels for asylum seekers to be shut down. Whether this is what the public will want to vote for in the upcoming local elections remains to be seen.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

The post Reform’s first year running councils: ‘The atmosphere in the chamber has changed’ appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Then came the rumours of an insurgence just before Labour conference. Burnham’s name hit the headlines as he refused to rule out a return to Westminster and a challenge to Keir Starmer. The speculation went as far as to suggest he could run in suspended Labour MP Andrew Gwynne’s seat in Gorton and Denton or in Graham Stringer MP’s seat – rumours which have since been rejected.

His speech at a conference fringe event did little to quash the talk. If Mainstream had played a part in Burnham’s interventions what did his failure at conference mean for the fledgling group? And to conjure up some crude comparisons – was Mainstream to be to Labour’s soft left what Momentum was to the hard left? And Andy Burnham its Jeremy Corbyn? 

Burnham for PM?

Momentum was set up in October 2015 after Corbyn’s leadership victory, not to get him elected. But could Mainstream have been set up to make Burnham leader? After all, he is popular choice for leader. A poll of 704 Labour members conducted by YouGov in September found that 62% would back Burnham, and just 29% would back Starmer.

Rachael Maskell MP, who had the Labour whip suspended when she voted against the government’s welfare bill in July and signed Mainstream’s founding statement, was direct about wanting Mainstream to help make Burnham leader.

“I personally can’t see anybody else who can save our country from the far-right,” she said of Burnham. 

Maskell thinks he is one of few figures in the Labour Party who has the leadership and communication skills to pull that off: “Those skills I haven’t identified in many people, I’m not saying any people but not many people in Westminster.”

The Labour MP for York said that “There’s plan A, which is that Andy becomes prime minister.”

“There’s plan B, Andy doesn’t become prime minister but we have such significant influence in whatever emerges,” Maskell added. 

She said that Mainstream has “got to plot both paths”, adding that “if Andy is serious about doing this and still up for it, we’ve got to plot away for him to come back.”

Mainstream ‘wasn’t set up for that’

Other founding members in Mainstream were quick to dismiss the idea that the group’s purpose is to help a Burnham leadership campaign. 

“Mainstream’s never done that, first of all. It wasn’t set up for that,” Alex Sobel, MP for Leeds Central and Headingley and another Mainstream founding member told Left Foot Forward.

“It’s just not the aim of the organization. I just want to say that very clearly. He came in very late to sign up. He came in literally at the last minute,” he added. 

Sobel said that other equally well-known Labour MPs who he wouldn’t name had expressed interest in joining Mainstream before Burnham got involved, but in the end hadn’t signed up. Burnham’s involvement was welcome, but the group wasn’t created for him. 

Luke Hurst, national co-ordinator at Mainstream, was careful to stress that the organisation doesn’t want to become bogged down in talking about individuals at the expense of discussing cultural issues within the party. 

“We’re really glad that Andy’s one of our backers and he obviously has a really important contribution to make to Labour because he’s pioneered popular and transformative policies in Greater Manchester,” he said, “but there’s a risk that this entire debate becomes about people rather than culture.”

He added that if Mainstream were ever to take a view on whether Burnham should be leader, the decision would be voted on by Mainstream members. 

The unsuccessful challenge

Burnham’s quiet challenge was swiftly flattened by the disciplined party run by Morgan McSweeney – some may say, aided by the persistent questioning of lobby journalists running around after the mayor at conference.

To a packed room at a Labour for Electoral Reform fringe event, Burnham said a “climate of fear” was shutting down “open debate” in the party. He criticised the leadership for suspending MPs like Maskell for trying to protect disability benefits. The Manchester mayor dismissed the idea he was speaking out “purely for his own ambition”, saying he was speaking for thousands of councillors worried about next May’s local elections. 

Burnham’s speech was met with criticism from the Prime Minister’s backers. Ex-Home secretary Alan Johnson, who was encouraged to run against then prime minister Gordon Brown in 2009, told Burnham “Do what I did, go and find a television camera, stand in front of it and say: ‘I have no intention of standing against the elected leader of our country’.”

Despite the failed challenge, Mainstream members maintain that Burnham’s intervention had merit. 

Maskell said Burnham was “a really important voice at conference, I think he offered a lot of hope”. 

“Some people say, did he overreach? And I don’t think he did,” she said.  

She described Burnham’s intervention as “a respectful challenge” to the Labour leadership, and said it must be listened to because the polls are “spelling out disaster”.

Maskell didn’t see any issue with someone of Burnham’s proven capability giving advice, but added: “clearly it was a problem to the leadership and they tried to kill it off and shut it down.”

Hurst said that “The point that Andy was making about the culture of the party was vindicated by the response to the things he said at conference really.”

Sobel said that politicians as successful and popular as Burnham offer important lessons for the party.

However, he acknowledged that Burnham’s intervention probably didn’t go down well with the Labour leadership.

“I’ve not had a conversation with anybody in the cabinet, leadership or number about Andy Burnham at any point so I’ve no idea what they think, but I imagine that’s probably the bit that they would have liked the least,” Sobel said.

What’s next for Mainstream?

The group is soon to be two months old, and now has 2,000 members. The deputy leadership candidate Mainstream endorsed, Lucy Powell, won the election. Sobel said he thinks “Lucy will open up a dialogue with Mainstream”. He added that her seat on the National Executive Committee is important for internal Labour matters. “She’s particularly focused on Labour democracy, and I hope that’s where we’ll have the most engagement with her,” he said.

At a local level, Hurst said members come forward saying they want to organise within Constituency Labour Party (CLP). Ahead of the 2026 local elections, he said that councillors have expressed interest in forming a councillors’ network.

More broadly, Hurst told Left Foot Forward that around 30 more Labour MPs, who he said he couldn’t name, have expressed interest in joining Mainstream. He noted that the current culture in the party made it difficult for some MPs to sign Mainstream’s initial founding statement, which they published on 7 September. 

“Various MPs said to us ‘we support what you’re doing, but we can’t sign this statement’ because of that top down disciplinarian culture within the party, which meant that some people were concerned about being part of something which says ‘look the party’s in a pretty dire place’,” Hurst said. 

Mainstream’s aim is to push the Labour leadership to change course and improve its chances of taking on Reform UK in 2029. 

Realistic but radical policies

As part of this, Mainstream wants the leadership to adopt more pragmatic but radical policies. It has yet to draw up policy plans and have members vote on them, but there are several popular ideas among Labour’s ‘mainstream’ that are likely to feature. 

According to polling of Labour members commissioned by Mainstream, scrapping the two-child limit, public ownership of utilities, taxes on wealth are all policies that are overwhelmingly popular.  

Sobel said that first, Mainstream needs to develop its internal processes and views on internal Labour Party democracy, and then it will develop public policy in consultation with its membership.

He said: “We’ll need more time to develop a comprehensive policy platform. I’m not sure how in-depth we’ll go, but we are 100% not running an alternative Labour Party.”

The Leeds and Headingley MP said he hopes Mainstream will have a policy platform in place in the coming months, but it could take up to a year: “I’m always hopeful so months is my preference, but these things are resource dependent.”

Central to Mainstream’s project is opening up debate within Labour. Hurst believes that the “centralising political experiment” led by “a hyperfactional group at the top of the party” is contributing to Labour’s malaise and slump in the polls. 

He said discussion has “kind of dried up” in the Labour party, and that it’s part of a broader cultural problem in Labour that concerns Mainstream. Though they may disagree on some issues, Mainstream is willing to engage with members across the left, centre, and right of the party.

“Things are pretty dire and it’s going to take all of us to correct course,” Hurst concluded.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

The post Andy Burnham’s shadow challenge and the future of Mainstream appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Speaking to Left Foot Forward at the Lib Dem autumn conference, Jardine said the Labour government had “shown a willingness” to take on some Lib Dem ideas but added: “I wish they would take on more of what we’ve said about asylum seekers.”

“I don’t think it helps for everybody to fall in behind reform and say ‘oh immigration is awful’, it’s the immigration system which is broken and we haven’t dealt with it properly for 10 years,” Jardine said. 

Jardine argued that the government needs to offer an alternative, not just “a milder version” of what Reform says. 

In May, MPs rejected a Lib Dem amendment to the immigration bill that would have allowed asylum seekers to work after three months, but Jardine said the party will continue to push for it. 

She highlighted the country’s “employment gaps,” noting that many care home workers in her constituency came to the UK on student visas and cannot stay because care work salaries don’t meet visa income requirements.

“The vast majority of applications for care home jobs are coming from people on visas,” she said. “If we lose them, how is our care home sector going to operate?”. 

She also noted that the country doesn’t want the expense of putting people in hotels, but “if they [asylum seekers] were working they would be contributing, rather than the taxpayers”. 

Labour’s performance

Jardine also commented on Labour’s early performance in government, stating: “I don’t envy them because they’re taking over in incredibly difficult circumstances,” but added that she didn’t think the party realised how difficult it would be moving into government.

She emphasised the importance of political parties listening to public, and says this is something the Lib Dems continue to do.

“You have to listen to people and then take that back,” she said, “That’s another thing Farage is playing into, he says ‘oh they’re not listening to you’, well actually yes we are”.

Asked whether Lib Dem leader Ed Davey listens to his MPs, she said: “Let’s put it this way if I didn’t think so I wouldn’t say so because that would be the way to guarantee he didn’t listen.”

She added that Davey has “come up through the party like the rest of us, so it’s kind of ingrained in us to listen”. 

Jardine’s sacking from the front bench

Until July, Christine Jardine served as the Lib Dem spokesperson for women, equalities, and Scotland. She was removed from the front bench by party leader Ed Davey after voting against a Tory amendment calling for a review of benefits access for foreign nationals and people with mental health issues.

Davey had instructed MPs to abstain, but Jardine voted against the motion in honour of her late husband, who had bipolar disorder.

“I thought I’m going to get in trouble for this, I’ll get my wrist slapped, but I thought I had more capital in the bank than that,” she said.

Jardine added that she and Davey remain on good terms, with him calling her afterwards. “He felt he didn’t have any option, and I felt that I didn’t have any option,” she said.

On whether there are any avenues open for her to return to the front bench, she said: “I doubt it’ll happen, it would be a pleasant surprise but I don’t think it’ll happen.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

The post Christine Jardine MP urges Labour to adopt Lib Dem asylum seeker policy appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

There is a particularly personal dimension to the disability benefit cuts for Whittome. She has a chronic illness, and received disability benefits herself earlier in her life.

Now, Labour plans to tighten the criteria for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which could see around 370,000 people lose support. The government is also proposing to reduce Universal Credit payments for people with health issues — with new claimants potentially seeing cuts of up to 50%, while existing claimants face a freeze until 2029. According to Politico, ministers are planning to introduce a bill to Parliament containing the controversial disability benefit cuts this week.

This means the showdown vote could take place as soon as the week of 30 June.

“I think fighting against these disability cuts and the rollback of trans rights and regressive and aggressive steps on immigration policy, especially the disability cuts as a disabled person… I’m feeling it very sharply,” she says.

But the MP for Nottingham East is quick to shift the focus away from herself. “Obviously, that’s not the point. The people who will feel it most sharply are the people who are going to be plunged into poverty because of these proposed cuts.”

The rebellion against PIP cuts

Whittome is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, which veteran left-wing MPs such as Diane Abbott and John McDonnell are part of. In a debate on the proposed PIP cuts last month, she highlights that opposition to the cuts did not just come from her group. “There were other MPs, not just left-wing MPs, who made really strong contributions,” she says.

She explains that it is difficult for any MP to speak out against their own government, “but I think that’s particularly tough if you’re an MP who’s just been elected, and you certainly did not expect this.”

Whittome supports lifting the two-child benefit cap, which the government has so far not committed to abolishing. Although she did not vote for the SNP amendment to King’s Speech last July, which called for the cap to be lifted, she expressed her support for abolishing it during the debate.

She shares her disappointment that Keir Starmer removed the whip from seven Labour MPs who supported the SNP amendment. “I made it clear [to the whip] that it wasn’t acceptable and I spoke out about it afterwards and called on the party to reinstate my colleagues,” she says, describing the suspensions as “a blow to the campaign group”. At PMQs recently, she asked Starmer why the government hasn’t committed to scrapping the cap, which she referred to as “the most cost-effective way to cut child poverty”.

Despite the difficulties of diverging from party lines, Whittome predicts that there will be significant opposition at the upcoming vote on benefit cuts, stating, “the rebellion will be huge”.

Growing up under Tory austerity

I wonder how Whittome manages to continue speaking up so tirelessly. The 28-year-old became politicised at a young age due to her experience as a teenager under Tory austerity. She says: “I think it was kind of from when the Conservative coalition government was elected in 2010 that I really became politicised. I think because of the destruction of everything around us.”

Her family’s benefits were cut. She hoped to claim Education Maintenance Allowance, which she said would have really helped her, but the Tories scrapped it just before she started college. Young people were left languishing on CAMHS waiting lists.

The first issue she campaigned on was the Conservative coalition government’s bedroom tax. Again, the policy resonated with her personally, as it affected people living on her estate in Nottingham.

“I just thought that it was such a foul, cruel policy and I wanted to be part of the fightback against it. I felt like it was something that was just so evil, that surely we could win,” she reflects.

As an activist, she realised that the issues she campaigned on also required legislative change and that she needed to influence Parliament. That was the reason she became an MP. At age 23, she joined Parliament, making her the youngest MP, the “Baby of the House” at the time.

Five years on, she still believes that change comes from grassroots movements: “It’s fought for from below, and then those fights are won, leading people in power to implement those changes. That’s how it’s been throughout history.”

Even when fighting for change is hard, she says: “My faith has always been in our movement. And that’s something that even when it gets very hopeless, you can’t erode that.”

Pushing Labour to go further

Is the Labour government delivering the change she had always hoped for?

She feels Labour has taken “some really good steps”, including with the employment rights’ bill, their plans to end no fault evictions, and Ed Miliband’s work on green energy.

However, she adds, “Of course they can go further, and I’ve been pushing them to go further, but it’s just been really frustrating to have to battle some of the basics like Palestine, welfare, obviously trans rights, foreign aid.”

Whittome says the local elections showed that Labour’s first ten months in office “haven’t been good enough,” and the party needs to listen and change course. She warns that if it fails to do so, it risks “not only not being elected for a second term but handing power to a far-right government.”

She is relieved that the government has decided to restore the winter fuel payment to 7.5 million pensioners, but stresses that “it shouldn’t have been taken away in the first place”.

‘We’re not on the side of multi-millionaires’

The Tories have eroded people’s trust during their 15 years in power, Whittome says. To fight Reform UK, Whittome says Labour has to rebuild people’s trust in politics and build an economy that cares.

“It should be the mission of a Labour government to reduce inequality, tackle poverty, end austerity, not continue it, reverse it.

“I think the way that we restore that trust is by showing whose side we’re on. We’re not on the side of multi-millionaires, millionaires, billionaires or multinational corporations.

“We’re on the side of working-class people, that’s regardless of whether they’re able to be in work or not, regardless of the country that they were born in, the colour of their skin, their gender, their gender identity, their sexuality, their immigration status,” she says.

Whittome explains that the Labour government has inherited an economy that works for the super-rich: “It was built for the super-rich and it has seen working class people living in poverty and working in exploitative conditions.”

Building an economy that cares

There is an alternative. She says what we need “is to build an economy that cares for people and the planet.” That means introducing a wealth tax, and scrapping restrictive fiscal rules: “The black hole would disappear if you adjust the fiscal rules.”

For Whittome, a healthy economy should be measured by the well-being of its people and their quality of life, rather than just by GDP and debt.

“For me, the measure of how well the economy is doing is how well people are,” she says.

“Do we have a functioning society? Where people can get a GP appointment, a dental appointment, there are enough school places, where everyone has enough to not just put food on the table and keep the lights on, and pay the rent, but also live a comfortable life.”

These are all important questions to address if people are to feel Labour is delivering the change they voted for.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

The post Exclusive interview – Nadia Whittome MP: ‘We need to build an economy that cares for people’ appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

“Doncaster is a former mining city, so everyone says my dad voted Labour, and his dad voted Labour before him, without looking at what they’ve actually done,” he says.

This is a place still shaped by Margaret Thatcher’s decision to close coal mines, citing their declining economic viability, alongside her desire to weaken the power of trade unions, particularly the National Union of Mineworkers — a policy that ultimately triggered the 1984–85 Miners’ Strike. Labour’s historic strength here was built on its close ties to the unions and the working-class communities they represented.

The council has been under Labour control almost continuously since 1974, aside from a period of no overall control between 2004 and 2010. Ros Jones, the incumbent Labour mayor, has been in post since May 2013. But a recent Electoral Calculus poll for the Telegraph has predicted that Reform UK, which has candidates standing in every ward on 1 May, could take control of the council. 

I visited Doncaster, the only Labour-controlled council up for election on 1 May, to see how locals are planning to vote.

‘They’ve been in power too long’

Bob has already posted his vote—for Reform. He thinks all of the main political parties are the same and doesn’t think Reform would be much different, but his feeling is that Labour’s time is up. “They [Labour] want getting rid of. They don’t care. They’ve been in power too long,” he says.

“Ros Jones just wants to take a picture and look pretty in the newspaper,” he adds. 

But his frustration is not just about the photo opps, Bob, a retired shopkeeper, feels politicians have watched on while Doncaster has steadily gone downhill over the years. He points to a quieter city centre, and to the outdoor market where we’re standing, which has lots of empty stalls. 

Like several others I speak to, it is not long before Bob raises concerns about immigration. He mentions Copley Road, a street near Doncaster Market, where there are Romanian shops and Turkish Barbers — a road where he once ran a business himself.

Akin to claims made by Reform, he says these shops are cash-only and indicates they “must be to do with money laundering”. Bob feels the council hasn’t done anything to ensure that these shops ‘integrate’ with the wider community. 

Concerns about immigration

Eileen, 87, who lives in Tickhill, is one of the lifelong Labour voters Bob refers to. She will be voting Labour and for Ros Jones as mayor.

She has mixed views about the council’s work. Eileen criticises some “stupid planning decisions” in the city, “making cycle lanes and taking a two-lane road on a busy road making it into one-lane, I think that’s been absolutely stupid”, but overall she says “they’ve done a good job”.

She is particularly happy with the council’s efforts to re-open Doncaster Sheffield airport, which closed in 2022. The council has taken out a £105 million loan to re-open the airport, and will also receive £30m in funding from the South Yorkshire Mayor.

Ros Jones, the incumbent Labour mayor of Doncaster City Council.

But immigration is where her tone shifts. “I’m not being racist when I say this,” she says, “but I’m worried about the amounts of immigrants there are in Doncaster.” For context, according to the 2021 census, around 32,100 of Doncaster residents were born outside the UK, which represents just over 10% of the total population. 

Eileen doesn’t explain what her concrete worries about immigration are, but she says she doesn’t like taking buses or coming to the town centre as there are “lots of migrants” and she thinks they “don’t have respect for the Doncaster people”. 

She then talks about what she sees as Doncaster’s decline. One of the city’s shopping centres, Frenchgate, “is nearly empty, they’ve taken all the lovely shops,” she says, comparing it to her childhood, when her grandfather would bring her to the bustling cattle market and racecourse.

“I seem to think that people believe South Yorkshire is a very poor area, and it isn’t,” she adds.

Little faith in Labour

Andrea, 47, says she is particularly worried about the NHS, as she has been on a waiting list for over two years for shoulder surgery.

Andrea says she will still have to wait as the procedure is considered “non-urgent” and she feels that people from ethnic minority backgrounds receive higher priority in the NHS, echoing another anti-migrant argument Reform has made about asylum seekers getting ‘priority access’ to NHS treatment.

She says she’ll vote Reform as she thinks “they’re not going to go back on everything like Labour are doing at the moment”. Andrea is most worried about begging, drug use in the city centre, crime rates, and the fact “you don’t know who’s English”.

Worries about Reform

Others are worried about Nigel Farage’s party gaining votes in Doncaster at the local election, but feel Labour isn’t doing much to differentiate themselves from the Tories and Reform nationally. 

Anthony Cox, 25, is concerned about Reform. “There’s a lot of push for the Reform Party, and I’m like, no thank you,” he tells Left Foot Forward. As a result, he says he’ll be voting tactically rather than with his heart.

Cox says “I’m not happy with the national government, I think they’re terrible,” but he thinks the Labour mayor, Jones, is doing a good job. Ideally, he’d vote Green, but he doesn’t think they have a real chance of winning, so he’ll vote Labour. 

“I’m not happy, but it’s what it’s come down to really,” he shrugs. 

As for Reform, he says: “All of their campaign materials have blatant lies on them and if anyone does any research, it’s obvious these people are just making things up.”

Reform’s mayoral candidate, Forex trader Alexander Jones, is running on a platform that claims the council is ‘broken’, with a focus on making it ‘leaner’ and more efficient, while also working to improve safety on Doncaster’s streets. 

Cox adds: “I don’t want them in because they’ll just cut all our services to death and we don’t have many services as it is.”

Furthermore, he describes Reform’s rhetoric about migrants as “barbaric”.

However, he doesn’t rule out the possibility of Reform taking control of the council. “There’s so many candidates that I think it’s possible. The national government isn’t helping, basically they’re no different from the previous government.”

On Doncaster’s high street, mayoral candidate for the Health and Social Care Party, Doug Wright, stands with a megaphone, telling passersby about his 30 years working for Doncaster Council and his experience as a Unison branch secretary.

He is standing in Thursday’s local election as an “alternative candidate” promising to fight for local people.

‘Reform can’t do anything for this council’

“Both political parties [Labour and the Tories] have treated people in Doncaster like dirt,” he tells Left Foot Forward.

Wright explains that his campaign is anti-Reform: “Most important for me, is don’t support Reform. As far as I’m concerned, they are what they are – a national organisation that can’t do anything for this council.”

“They don’t even mention local people, it’s a sad state of affairs.”

He adds that Reform doesn’t offer policies, but are tapping into immigration and political discontent to gain support: “All they do is pass the word around, ‘Oh, immigration!’ ‘Yeah I’ll vote for them’, and that’s all it is.”

Wright says that in a divided political landscape, the NHS is the only shared ground that remains: “We must defend our people and health and social care, it’s the only thing we can join together on.”

Reform’s anti-immigration stance is clearly cutting through to people in Doncaster, tapping into the existing feeling of discontent in the South Yorkshire city. Many spoke of Doncaster’s “better times” and a steady decline due to the closure of its coal mines from the 1990s onwards. Some said they felt politics had let them down, while others expressed no interest in voting at all. However, those who said they were backing Reform didn’t seem to have a sense of what the right-wing party would do differently or how they would address this perceived ‘decline’.

Meanwhile, the national picture is doing little to boost Labour’s prospects. Voters cited Labour’s decision to means test winter fuel payments, along with a general feeling that the party’s policies are failing to make life easier for ordinary people, as key reasons for their dissatisfaction. After nearly 50 years of backing Labour, many in Doncaster feel their loyalty has not been rewarded.

Yet, with Reform UK’s campaign barely mentioning local people and issues, and instead focusing on divisive anti-immigrant rhetoric to explain away the community’s challenges, Doncaster is unlikely to see the change they’re hoping for.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

The post Decline and disillusionment in Doncaster: Could Reform win this ‘Red Wall’ council? appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Her commitment to her community started when she ran as a Lib Dem ‘paper candidate’ in the 2019 general election. During the pandemic, she set up a Facebook group to help people who couldn’t go out to get shopping and prescriptions. “I enjoyed being part of a community team that helped people,” she says. This, combined with a realisation that “things don’t change unless you get involved and try and make them change yourself”, inspired her to take the next step, first becoming a parish councillor in May 2021, and by December that year, she was an MP.

In an exclusive interview with Left Foot Forward, Morgan discusses the challenges facing rural areas, her fight to improve local services, and why the Lib Dems are pushing Labour to be more ambitious.

‘I’d like to see them go further and faster’

Make no mistake: Morgan thinks the legacy the Conservatives have left Labour is “pretty appalling” and she thinks it’s reasonable for Labour to say putting things right won’t be quick or easy. However, she doesn’t think Labour is being ambitious enough.

“I think we would have been more ambitious than the current government. They seem to be taking a sort of a slowly slowly approach and I’d like to see them go further and faster,” Morgan tells Left Foot Forward.

Credit: Parliament. Helen Morgan questioning the Health Secretary Wes Streeting on measures the government is taking to tackle cancer waiting times.

As the Lib Dem health and social care spokesperson, she says being more ambitious would not just be injecting millions into the NHS ahead of the winter crisis, but preventing the crisis in the first place. 

“That [funding] needs to be put on a kind of a permanent planning basis so that the capacity is there to deal with the winter crisis and it isn’t a crisis,” she argues.

On dentistry, Morgan remains unconvinced by the government’s promises. The UK’s dental crisis continues to deepen, with 94% of those who did not have a dentist and who tried to access NHS dental care unable to do so, according to recent Office for National Statistics data.

“I’ve heard all the right noises from the government but we haven’t seen an awful lot of action,” she says. While some Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) have made efforts to improve access, she insists the real issue lies in the dental contract itself.

The NHS dental contract is a framework where dental practices agree to provide a specified amount of NHS dental care, measured in units of dental activity (UDAs), in exchange for a fixed payment.

“We need to renegotiate the dental contract because we can’t just have dentists handing back their contracts left right and centre,” Morgan remarks. 

Admittedly, during the election campaign, now health secretary Wes Streeting acknowledged that “the contract is so out of date that it just doesn’t pay what the dentistry is worth”. Yet, Morgan and the Lib Dems will not just be watching closely to see what happens next, they’ll be holding him to account.

“As a third party, we’re trying to be a constructive opposition and come up with sensible suggestions along the way, rather than just kind of cop around the edges,” she says.

“I think I hoped I would come second when I set about that process, winning was a little bit of a shock.”

North Shropshire’s first non-Tory MP in two centuries

Morgan knows the importance of challenging the political establishment, having won her seat from the Tories in a by-election in 2021, bringing an end to 200 years of Conservative representation and the stint of disgraced Tory MP Owen Paterson.

“I think I hoped I would come second when I set about that process, winning was a little bit of a shock,” she admits. Before entering politics, Morgan was a chartered accountant who held senior roles at British Gas and Centrica.

She first ran as a parliamentary candidate in the 2019 general election, believing there should be a Lib Dem on the ballot paper, so people could “vote with their hearts and not with their heads”. That year, she came third after the Tories and Labour. 

Overshadowed by not one but two political scandals, the 2021 election was a different story. Paterson had finally resigned after he was found to have lobbied the government on behalf of two firms – Randox and Lynn’s Country Foods – who were paying him over £100,000 a year. 

In a turn of events that only reinforced the sense of being taken for granted, the Partygate scandal broke just a week before polling day. Morgan won by 5,925 votes, achieving a 34.2% swing, the seventh-largest in a by-election since the Second World War. And her mandate has continued to grow. In last year’s election, she boosted the Lib Dem vote share by over 40%, receiving 26,214 votes.

Poor public transport

“It’s a bit of a no-brainer to invest in public transport because there are many, many studies that say it’s a good investment, it will generate economic growth.”

As an MP representing a rural area — and having grown up in rural Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire — Morgan knows all too well that rural public transport is inadequate. In response, she has introduced her own Private Members’ Bill (PMB) to Parliament, the Bus Services Bill.

PMBs rarely become law, as they are scheduled on Fridays, a day when many MPs are absent—and they are prone to filibustering, where opponents make long speeches to exhaust the allotted debate time. However, if successful, the bill would be transformative — requiring the government to ensure a seven-day-a-week bus service in every town with a population over 10,000.

In North Shropshire, she says poor transport is “a real problem and we’re in this sort of cycle of decline where the bus service is infrequent and unreliable. 

“So people don’t use it. And then the bus company says, well it’s not viable because no one uses it and they cut it a little bit more and then even less people use it.”

She argues that the current system—where private operators run only the profitable routes, leaving councils to cover the cost of loss-making ones—has failed. Morgan supports giving councils the power to franchise bus services, allowing local authorities to oversee how routes are planned and operated, as in areas like Greater Manchester where mayor Andy Burnham has brought buses back under public control.  

However, she says she doesn’t think Shropshire Council has enough money to franchise local bus services, and that they’d need additional funding from government.

Despite these funding challenges, Morgan is clear things can’t go on as they are, as the lack of reliable bus services is holding people and businesses back. 

“You want to know that if you start work at 9am you can catch a bus that is going to turn up every single day and get you there at quarter to nine,” she says. Her bill aims to guarantee that. 

She adds: “It’s a bit of a no-brainer to invest in public transport because there are many, many studies that say it’s a good investment, it will generate economic growth.”

With growth at the heart of this government’s agenda, it may be an issue they can’t afford to ignore.

Deteriorating public services

A photo of Helen Morgan outside Whitchurch Hospital in Shropshire

Another key issue first raised by constituents during Morgan’s by-election campaign in 2021 was the deterioration in local public services. Constituents reported being unable to get GP appointments, and waiting times for ambulances and in A&E were long. Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust was in special measures between 2018 and May 2024, while its Care Quality Commission rating is now ‘Requires Improvement’.

It’s no secret that public services in rural areas face distinct challenges. They are less well funded, harder to access, and in some cases, non-existent. Funding disparities between rural and urban areas exacerbate this issue.

Data from the Rural Services Network highlights the scale of this funding gap, revealing that in 2025/26, rural areas will receive 41% less government-funded spending power per capita than urban areas.

Not only that, but government funding formulas don’t take into account the demographics of the local population.

“We’re one of the most sparsely spread councils in the country and there’s a cost to delivering services for those people,” Morgan says. Shropshire has a higher proportion of residents aged 65 and over. By 2029, 41.6% of its population is projected to be over 65. 

Currently, the way funding is calculated is by looking at the number of GPs per head, but as Morgan points out, “if you’ve got a very young population those people will be visiting their GP much less frequently”.

“I think we maybe need to look at some of those statistics and weight them for the demographics of the population you’ve got,” she says.

Pushing for change

“If you go about things the right way you can start to make a difference”.

Morgan acknowledges that she can’t directly solve these issues as an MP, but she holds the Integrated Care Board and government to account, and has made sure there’s focus on services locally so they start to improve.

“We’re starting to see some green shoots of recovery,” she says, emphasising the importance of continuing to put pressure on NHS England and the Department for Health to ensure services continue to improve.

Another example of the North Shropshire MP improving access to healthcare was last winter. The government created a pot of money for 11 hospital trusts that were struggling with winter pressures. Local hospitals in Morgan’s area, the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trusts, got nearly 30% of the extra funding.

“Obviously, they [the NHS Trusts] had asked for a chunk of money to relieve the pressure, but I’d been campaigning on it too,” Morgan explains. 

“I think that becomes very compelling for the decision makers, when there’s political will and pressure being applied from a local MP as well as a request from a trust and some cross-party support,” she says.

From her fight for reliable public transport to holding the government accountable for local healthcare, Morgan has shown that even in a traditionally Conservative stronghold, change is possible.

She admits that change isn’t fast, and is constrained by how much money the government has and what its priorities are. However, with her accountant’s eye for detail and analytical skills, and her optimistic approach, she firmly believes: “If you go about things the right way you can start to make a difference”.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

The post EXCLUSIVE: Helen Morgan MP – ‘I think we’d have been more ambitious’ appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

PIP helps Ismail to cover the extra costs related to his health needs and his learning disability.

“It helps me be part of my community and takes me to places I need to reach,” Ismail says. Through the Motability scheme, Ismail’s family member leases a vehicle, enabling him to get to appointments and participate in activities. 

Last Tuesday, the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall laid out plans to make £5 billion in disability benefit cuts.

Labour has said it will legislate so people will need to score a minimum of four points in at least one activity to qualify for PIP from November 2026. 

Currently, PIP eligibility is based on scoring at least eight points across 10 daily living activities.

Resolution Foundation analysis has indicated that up to 1.2 million people could lose between £4,200 and £6,300 per year due to the changes. 

“There are lots of barriers around things I can’t do because of my health and also having a learning disability, and PIP just gives you that extra ability to be able to get out and afford things that you need to support your needs,” Ismail explains.

Labour argues that the reforms will ensure support is still available for those with the “greatest needs”. But Ismail questions the logic behind the cuts.

“The thing is people with learning disabilities don’t choose to have a learning disability,” he says. “A learning disability is not a thing that will go away.”

He adds: “If a learning disability is always there in their lives, then why should their benefits change?”.

Ismail highlights what he sees as widespread confusion about employment and disability benefits like PIP. 

“I earn a salary, but my PIP isn’t about that, it helps me with daily life, my mobility, and living a fulfilling life with a learning disability,” he explains.

He explains that though he is working, he is still affected by barriers when accessing healthcare and social care. In addition, navigating society is more challenging for people with disabilities.

Whether accessing services or going to work, Ismail must disclose his learning disability and request reasonable adjustments.

As a result, he says that the government needs to think about the lives of people who rely on PIP. 

“Money comes and goes, but people are more important than anything else,” Ismail says.

Ismail also questions whether the reforms will actually save the government money, suggesting they could lead to increased social care and healthcare costs instead. 

“It would be completely heartbreaking if they took my PIP away, I would be shut away and confined to four walls, which would affect my mental and physical health.”

He emphasises the need to consider the people that would be impacted by disability benefit cuts. “When it comes to applying cuts and changes, the government needs to really look at the lives of people with learning disabilities,” Ismail says.

“People only have one life, and the government should consider that people with learning disabilities deserve to have a fulfilling life like anyone else.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

The post ‘The government needs to think about people’: A PIP recipient reacts to Labour’s plans to cut disability benefits appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

“I was really worried about the rise of really negative trends in politics and I just wanted to see my sorts of values winning,” she says in an exclusive interview with Left Foot Forward.

Fast forward to 4 July 2024, and Chowns saw her values translated into a historic election win. She became the constituency’s first female MP, the first Green MP in the Midlands and the first to unseat a Conservative MP there since 1906.

The new North Herefordshire MP says it is “absolutely fantastic” to be part of the second cohort of Greens in Parliament and “taking on the baton from Caroline Lucas”.

Chowns spoke to Left Foot Forward about the environment, her frustrations with UK democracy and why she believes politics is all about finding common ground.

An ‘energising’ election campaign

Chowns won the seat with a nearly 6,000 majority and a 69% turnout. She describes the campaign as “energising” and says everyone involved felt proud they’d achieved “real political change”. 

Now one of four Green MPs in Parliament, she maintains the same enthusiasm eight months on from her win. “It’s a hugely demanding, energising job, and there is no shortage of momentum from my perspective,” Chowns tells Left Foot Forward.

Like most MPs, Chowns entered Parliament with a long list of campaigning priorities. But she is realistic in her approach: “I didn’t promise that I was going to fix X, Y, Z, because I knew I couldn’t. I promised I was going to work flipping hard.”

‘I didn’t have any thoughts about getting involved in being elected myself’

Elected politics was not always where Chowns saw her future. 

Chowns has worked for international development charities, including Christian Aid and Voluntary Service Overseas. In 2014, she obtained a doctorate in International Development, writing her thesis on water infrastructure in rural Malawi.

At age 40, Chowns started campaigning in 2015 because she wanted to do “something constructive”. However, she admits: “I totally didn’t have any thoughts or expectations about getting involved in being elected myself”.

As it happened, Chowns then ended up running as a non-target candidate in the 2015 local elections, but didn’t win. In 2017, she was elected as a Green councillor on Herefordshire County Council. She was re-elected as a councillor in 2019.

‘People want political representatives who’ve got some clear values’

From the outset, Chowns was struck by how much “common ground” she could find with people while out campaigning.

She ran monthly street stalls in a local market town. She recalls a conversation she had with two older women who said: “We’re terribly worried about the suffering refugees have gone through taking these dangerous journeys, but we’re really worried about integration”. 

Chowns told the women about her experience of welcoming families through the Freedom from Torture holiday scheme, which provides respite breaks for refugees who have experienced trauma. 

“I shared my experience with the refugee families I had met, and we sort of agreed to disagree,” she says.

However, half an hour later, one of the women returned and said: “I’ve been thinking about what you said, and I’ve changed my mind.” Similarly, out on the doorstep, Chowns says that plenty of people have said they would vote for her despite not agreeing with her on everything.

“People want political representatives who’ve got a bit of conviction and some clear values. They don’t even need to agree with you all of the time to vote for you,” she reflects.

From Brussels to Westminster

While Chowns is new to the Palace of Westminster, she has served in another chamber. She was the Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the West Midlands for just under a year before the UK officially left the EU on 31 January 2020. Now, she has been an MP for roughly the same length of time.

What are her thoughts on how the two Parliaments work? “There’s lots of ridiculousness about the way we do things [in Westminster],” she says.  

One issue she’s been campaigning on since July is Parliament’s need to modernise, specifically by introducing electronic voting for MPs.

“My experience of being in the European Parliament is you have the buttons in front of you, you vote.  It’s immediately shown on the screen who’s voted, and you can get through a bunch of stuff really quickly,” she says. 

She contrasts this with the House of Commons, where each vote involves “15 minutes of walking through corridors”. Not only that, but the timing of votes is uncertain. 

“So there was one time a few months ago, we were all supposed to be going back to our constituencies that evening, but we didn’t start voting until 7pm,” she says. 

10 votes and several hours later, those who didn’t live in London were unable to get back to their constituencies. Chowns wasn’t able to get back to Herefordshire until lunchtime the next day, meaning all her constituency duties scheduled for the morning had to be pushed back. 

Chowns has been equally vocal about the need for proportional representation. She reflects on how much she appreciated the proportional system in the EU Parliament, saying, “It just incentivises cross-party working all the time”.

While our Parliament has all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) and select committees, there isn’t the same proportionality, “The injustice of our electoral system is that parties have a huge majority [of seats] on a minority of the vote.” This is also reflected in how MPs are represented on select committees, where the composition doesn’t always match with a party’s share of the vote.

Speaking up in Parliament

In Parliament, Chowns is committed to standing up for Green values and issues that her constituents raise with her.

She went to visit a group of people in another constituency recently and they said, “‘You do realise you’ve spoken more than 50 times in Parliament, our MP has spoken once’”.

“I was gobsmacked, because part of the job is, in my view, speaking up in Parliament” she says. 

She has spoken in Parliament about flooding for the fourth consecutive month: “I’ve spoken about flooding in Parliament because it’s the fourth month running we’ve had flooding in my constituency”. 

Water pollution is another issue Chowns has frequently spoken about. Asked how the issue should be tackled, Chowns, a member of the environmental audit committee, says “equal attention needs to be given to agricultural pollution as to sewage pollution”. In her constituency, which includes the Wye and Lugg river, she says agricultural pollution, primarily caused by animal waste and fertiliser runoff, is the biggest contributor to water pollution. 

Chowns, who lives on a farm, emphasises the need to discuss agricultural pollution, as well as the role water companies are playing in contributing to water pollution.

“Agricultural pollution is harder to deal with [than sewage pollution] as it’s diffuse. It kind of trickles in all sorts of places, whereas sewage pollution comes out of a pipe,” she says. 

She says water protection zones need to be established to create incentives and penalties for farmers to prevent pollution. She also emphasises the need for increased investment in nature-friendly farming programs and more effective regulators.

“The Environment Agency needs funding and teeth,” she says, adding that it has become “a shadow of its former self” due to funding cuts over the last 15 years.

In addition, she says that supporting farmers to take up nature-friendly farming schemes, which reward farmers for protecting nature, is “good for livelihoods, jobs and food production, and it’s essential for tackling the nature and climate crises”.

Thinking beyond five-year election cycles

Chowns says that farmers are the biggest advocates of nature-friendly farming, but that, as with many policies, they need long-term government support.

“If we’re serious, and this applies in so many areas of policy – health, social care, housing – we’ve got to be thinking beyond just a maximum five-year election cycle and adopt a generational mindset,” Chowns stresses.

She points out that a major flaw in the political system is its tendency to prioritise focusing on the next election, meaning politicians throw soundbites at each other and engage in lowest-common-denominator politics.

Instead, Chowns would like to see MPs stop using issues as political footballs, and build consensus across party lines to make policy for the next generation.

With her values-driven politics, Chowns is keen to play her part in bringing that vision to life.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

The post EXCLUSIVE: Ellie Chowns MP – “I just wanted to see my sorts of values winning” appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.