Cllr Hale said: “In a bizarre set of elections, anything is possible.”
The Labour Party has launched its campaign ahead of May 7(Image: Hull Live)
The Labour Party has launched its campaign ahead of Hull City Council‘s local elections next month. On May 7, one third of the council’s seats will be up for grabs.
A number of key local Labour Party figures met by the Wilberforce Memorial to kick-start their campaign, including Dame Diana Johnson and Emma Hardy. Also at the campaign launch was Karl Turner, who recently had the Labour whip suspended.
All three (Dame Diana Johnson, Emma Hardy, and Karl Turner) were elected as Labour MPs in July 2024. Mr Turner now sits as an independent in Westminster. The Labour Mayor of Doncaster, Ros Jones, was also in attendance.
At the event, the leader of the Hull Labour Group, Cllr Daren Hale, told Hull Live: “For the last four years things have stalled. All the projects that have come to fruition in Hull were started by the Labour Party.
“Nothing has happened, nothing moves, and that opens the door to Reform. So what we’ve got to do is make sure that people know the Labour Party is the only way to stop Reform in this city. The seats that we’re defending will only go to Reform or the Labour Party, so we’ve got to get the message out that actually, voting for the Lib Dems in those wards is a wasted vote.”
With the ruling Lib Dems only having a majority of 1 in the Guildhall, Cllr Hale said: “We’re pretty confident that A, the Lib Dems are going to lose control of the council, and B, we might be in a position to be back in power of May 7. In a bizarre set of elections, anything is possible.”
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The MP for Hull West and Haltemprice, Emma Hardy, addressed the gathered crowd of candidates and supporters. She said: “This is our opportunity to go out there and tell people what a difference Labour makes, because no one else is going to do that for us. Look at what we have achieved in the past few months, the biggest ever reduction in child poverty, the fastest reduction in child poverty for any Parliament in the history of this country, that is what a Labour government is delivering.”
Also speaking at the event was Dame Diana Johnson, MP for Hull North and Cottingham, who said that this upcoming election is “the trickiest” and “most difficult” the city has seen. “We all know that with populist parties, who offer easy solutions, it’s going to end in tears because they cannot deliver,” Dame Diana added.
A full list of all the candidates standing in May 7’s election can be found here. The current political weighting of Hull City Council is as follows:
- 29 – Liberal Democrats
- 23 – Labour Party
- 5 – Independent
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