Adam Cook is a Politics student at the University of Leeds
Throughout the last few Conservative governments, we have seen the number of mayors grow from just Greater London to, by 2025, mayoralties covering a majority of the population of England. With this, we have seen a great transfer of political and financial power move from the capital to the regions of the country.
This is a great legacy that the Conservatives have given the country and one in which we as a party should be proud to introduce localism, which is at the heart of conservativism. As we Conservatives are now deciding which direction our party will face, the next leader will need to hit the ground running with next year’s mayoral elections where we have the chance to win four mayoral races.
Sadly, we have seen that all but one mayoralty is now held by Labour. This must be a priority of the next Conservative leader. Allowing Labour to control the offices of mayor up and down the country will only embolden the Westminster party to conduct its disastrous policies like cutting funding for rail infrastructure, with little resistance from within their ranks in the mayors.
Getting more Conservative mayors to protect services, provide financial oversight, bring law and order back onto our streets, and bring greater scrutiny of the Labour government from outside the Westminster bubble. For the next leader, having a talented team of mayors who can represent the views of regions around the country and conservatives’ principles at the newly created Council of Nations and Regions will be only a benefit for the rebuilding of the party post-2024.
For this to be possible, lessons must be learnt from the previous mayoral campaigns. The next leader needs to make a priority, selecting candidates for mayoral positions. Giving the candidates the time needed to truly get known by the electorate and provide their policies for the region. Unlike in 2024 where the mayoral candidate for West Yorkshire had around 10 weeks to get their name out to the public and policies created and publicised and even less time for the candidate in South Yorkshire.
This is taking nothing away from the great amount of work that those specific candidates and all mayoral candidates put into campaigning. However, due to late selections they were handicapped from the very start, limiting our chances of winning both the mayoral races and local council seats under the combined authority’s area.
Yes, I concur that during the elections this year would never have been an easy win in many mayoral races. However to select candidates so late, it gives the impression that these are not offices in which we Conservatives have an interest in winning and this is a mindset that needs to be changed for the upcoming mayoral races, the leader will have to move past the notion that mayors are held to the same standard as the national party as it is much more a personality campaign.
It was evident in recent mayoral races that they are a lot more about the personality of the mayoral candidates and this must be reflected in allowing the candidate the correct amount of time to work on getting known publicly and be able to hold the current Labour mayors to account.
This allows for the candidate to also move past national issues allowing for local issues to dominate as they should in such a kind of election. With this we can win greater share of the vote in typical labour areas and truly begin the rebuild of the party both in those mayoral areas and on a national scale making the case for the national Westminster party.
With an increased in our mayoral representation, we can show the people of the United Kingdom that we can be trusted to run the country again. Winning as many mayoral races as possible between now and the next general election is vital for this to happen.
Allowing Conservative principles and policies to be implemented even while we are nationally in opposition, the mayoral offices allow us the fantastic opportunity to enact change in the countries economic and political outlook while paving the leader’s road back into Downing Street.
The next leader of the Conservatives has a massive hill to climb to get the party back into government and ignoring the mayoral races will only damage their ambitions to stand in front of that famous door. Each mayoral race we can fight, and win will be a smaller hill the leader will face.
The first job the next leader needs to do is get the 2025 mayoral candidates selected, allowing for their vision for the united party to be taken to the streets and through the letterboxes of people around the country in mayoral races we should be winning. Lets get conservatives doing what we do best, serving our local communities and not allow Labour to remain there dominance of mayoral offices.
