I cut my writing teeth on fanzines in the 1980s, and the independent small press means a lot to me. It provides fertile ground for creative voices to develop, for the flourishing of an informed democracy. Last decade I contributed articles to Moseley B13 Magazine, a venerable monthly established in 1973, gaining a place on the editorial team for a time. A current member of the editorial team asked me for an analysis of the recent Birmingham City Council elections, with a Moseley focus. That article was delivered on the 18th May, for publication in the June edition which came out this week. But last week the editor contacted me to say the article was being pulled, and would not be published. The editor felt “even when there isn’t bias…people will be outraged about next to nothing”, and even after editing to remove any possible perception of bias, there was concern it was too ‘opinion-based’.
I’m disclosing this publicly because I think there is a public interest in discussing what standards of political impartiality and scope for opinions should obtain in the local small press. All Moseley residents I’ve spoken to are very surprised that the article was rejected on this basis, and in some cases outraged at the apparent suppression of political discourse.
“I go to church with half these people, and they still say ‘in my opinion’ I don’t get it: there’s always opinion that goes against the grain. I wouldn’t say you are but even if you were I’d say it was perfectly acceptable food for thought. To be honest I thought not publishing it goes against the grain. People have a right to express their opinion, and I thought it was an informative article. Debate is part of our culture, one of the reasons I live in Moseley, I don’t know if that’s gone but I think its a fundamental of this place. To scrub it out is uncivilised and ill-educated.”
The article as submitted is reproduced below, slightly expanded to take account of the wider Birmingham context, and the latest news. I open the issue to you: would you have published this? Feel free to comment below.
May’s elections removed Birmingham City Council from Labour’s control. What next?
The American politician Tip O’Neill remarked “all politics is local”, but the recent local and devolved elections in the UK, and their aftermath, might prompt us to declare the opposite. Labour and Tory politicians alike lined up on the media to claim that since all voters ‘on the doorstep’ talk about is Keir Starmer, these elections reflect almost exclusively concern with our national leadership. Personally I would question this: voters may well talk about Starmer to doorstep canvassers, but I suspect their votes reflect a complex mind-map of global, national, and local alliances and concerns. An effective Councillor can transcend party affiliation, picking up votes based on the content of their character and the quality of their work, not the colour of their rosette. Moseley is an excellent example. Comfortably in the top fifteen wards by voter turnout (43.14%), Moseley re-elected Izzy Knowles with the most votes for any Councillor in the entire city (3724), a reflection I think of her reputation as a hard worker who gets things done. Ms Knowles agrees: “I think I got a personal vote and on local issues. I’m lucky in that I know and live in the ward and can devote a lot of time to the work, which I enjoy.” Her Liberal Democrat colleague, Phillip Mils also did well, receiving 2139 votes.
Results for Moseley and adjacent wards
Moseley is now bordered to the south by a Green wall, the party taking all seven council seats for Bournbrook and Selly Park, Stirchley, Brandwood and King’s Heath and Billesley, as well as one for Balsall Heath West. Sparkhill was held by the Labour candidates, while the two seats in Sparkbrook and Balsall Heath East were gained by independents, Raihaan Abbas (affiliated with the Independent Candidate Alliance) and Mohammed Jamil Khan (who was associated with the ICA but who’s now reported in the Birmingham Mail to have joined the non-affiliated group of ‘community independents’). To my mind these results reflect local Birmingham concerns as much as any national issues: like the Reform votes, a rejection of the Council’s leadership.
But Birmingham is under unusual circumstances, and has been since the Conservative government in Westminster appointed commissioners to constrain and watch over the council in late 2023. In this sense a vote in Birmingham against the status quo really does represent a direct rebuke to the government in London, since Birmingham is effectively under their direct rule, with commissioners to remain in place till 2028. But paradoxically or, as I would prefer to say, ironically, this makes this election hyper-local. Since the Council’s hands have been tied, it seems to me impossible for a voter to decide on the Council’s leadership, so can only really make an informed choice based on the performance of individual Councillors. Perhaps this accounts not only for Izzy Knowles’ strong performance, but also for three ex-Labour councillors re-elected as independents: a reward for their principled decision to leave the Labour group.
Fifty-one seats are needed for the slimmest possible majority on the Council. Once the Birmingham results all declared, it was clear that Reform’s twenty-three Councillors could not form an administration even with support from all sixteen Tories. The Green’s nineteen councillors, if supported by Labour and Co-operative’s seventeen and the Liberal Democrat’s twelve would only need three of the thirteen independents to support a workable administration. The Liberal Democrat leader Roger Harman was first out to make a public offer, reproduced below, followed by a rather empty statement from the Tories.
Jex Parkin, chosen as Birmingham Reform’s leader announced they would not be forming an administration, since no one else on the council wants to know them. At the time of writing, the Greens remain tight-lipped, and the independent councillors are reported to be ‘waiting on the sidelines’, their considerable broker power held in reserve to see what options emerge.
But the London-appointed commissioners running our council isn’t the only national imposition. The leader of the Birmingham Labour group has, since 2023, not been elected by Birmingham Labour councillors, as would be normal in a local democratic process, but appointed by Labour’s National Executive Committee. This was true of outgoing Council Leader John Cotton as it is of incoming Labour leader Nicky Brennan, who has claimed that Labour has been so stung by the election results they will “not be entering into any coalition agreement or power-sharing arrangement with other parties”. It’s impossible to know if this is what she really believes (I’d argue Labour in Birmingham did well to retain any seats; they’re level with the Tories and have more seats than the Lib Dems, who have lost support in central areas), or if she has been directed by Labour nationally to reject coalition-building. It’s worth noting the leader of Worcestershire’s Conservatives has been suspended by Kemi Badenoch for daring to defy the national leadership and supporting a coalition with the Green Party. Is Ms Brennan wary of a similar sanction from her party’s national leadership?
Nevertheless, a Green-led council with Labour, Liberal Democrat, and indie support was the one workable solution I could see for Birmingham, the capital city of non-conformity. But with Labour blocking this, I’m told the Greens, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are talking. So anything could still happen as a confidence-and-supply arrangement, this so-called rainbow coalition voting consensus measures issue-by-issue. If no agreement can be made, even for a minority administration, the commissioners will step in and run the Council’s statuary services, and no one wants that.
Perhaps we can resort to another quotation from American politics, resolving to ‘Unite or Die’, and to reassert Birmingham’s independence from Westminster, as a matter of common sense. I suspect Birmingham’s political future belongs not only to those who can work together, but to those who can reassert Birmingham’s ability to govern itself.
UPDATE
Since the above article was written there have been developments. The Tories proposed a constitutionally innovative “Council of the Leaders”, although this has been written off as a gimmicky idea that will go nowhere, since the leaders will be meeting in any event. Meanwhile a minority coalition of the Liberal Democrats, Greens, and seven independents united under the name ‘Better Birmingham’ emerged as the only option on the table for the government of Birmingham. We will find out tonight if the full council will vote to support this proposed administration. Stay tuned.