Birmingham City Council Announces New Minority Administration of the GREENS, Liberal DEMOCRATS, AND the Better Birmingham INDEPENDENTS
On 7th May, the Birmingham City Council, the city’s electorate, decided that no one party would have control of the City Council (51 seats out of 101 required for overall control) after 14 years of Labour Control. The distribution of the seat resulted in Reform UK Party 23, Greens 19, Labour 17 (inclusive 1 Labour and Co-operative, Local Conservatives 16, Independents 13 and Liberal Democrats 12. This results in a hung council with NOC requiring a coalition to pass the magic 51 seats.
For the ward breakdown of the Birmingham Local Elections, click here.
In the horse trading that followed to form the city council’s administration, nobody wanted to work with Reform UK. Labour didn’t want to engage in this one-out, deciding they wouldn’t be part of any coalition and needed time to reflect. The Local Conservatives and Reform UK said before the election they wouldn’t work with each other, given defections from the former to the latter, both nationally and locally competing for a similar electorate, which has now come to pass. 'Better Birmingham Independents' formed their group to cement a potential coalition.
The coalition talks over the last month have led to a minority administration with the Greens, Liberal Democrats and Better Birmingham Independents, plus some other independents, taking control of the hung Council with their collective 40 seats
The formal announcement of the new minority administration was made at part 2 of the Council meeting held on 5th June, as a follow-up, given that coalition talks were still in progress at the Council meeting held on 19th May. Cllr. Rodger Hamer, Liberal Democrat Leader, was elected as the Leader of the Council due to his previous 17 years of experience. Cllr Julien Prithard was announced as the Deputy Leader, who has been on the Council for 8 years.
So, what does all this mean for realising the current city council vision agreed by the Labour Administration in 2024/5 – “to make Birmingham the best place for young people in Europe and a world-leading anti-racist city by 2035. To find out more about the City Vision, click here.
BRIG had lobbied for an anti-racist city vision since its launch in 2021and developed a BRIG Anti-Racist Pledge for agencies and communities to commit to working together to create an anti-racist Birmingham and West Midlands. This pledge was signed by over 70 organisations at its October 2024 Summit. To find out more about the BRIG Pledge at the 2024 Summit, click here.
The cabinet appointments and their deputies have also now been announced, which span Councillors across the Greens, Liberal Democrats and the Better Birmingham Independents. The full list of appointments can be found here.
In the run-up to the local elections, Brummies’ United Against Racism and Hate Crime asked candidates to sign a pre-election pledge committing them to tackle division, racism and hate crime. All the now elected councillors from the Greens, Liberal Democrats, Better Birmingham Independents, Labour and some of the remaining independents had signed the pledge. This hopefully provides an indication that the current City Vision will be honoured and strengthened in its implementation. All the parties that signed the pledge have stated their intent to make progress on delivering race equity, equality of opportunity, fairness, enhancing community unity and cohesion efforts, addressing division, deepening democracy in all the city’s neighbourhoods, and firmly tackling those who are actively seeking to promote racism, hate and division.
However, the new minority administration only has 40 seats, and doesn’t have the 51-seat threshold required to carry out the election priorities they pledged to deliver. However, none of the other parties on their own can outvote the minority coalition. Even with the other parties potentially combining to outvote them, only a pact between Reform UK and the Local Conservatives may have been able to challenge with their 39 votes. So, the minority administration has the margin of a single vote, which will require every one of their groupings to be present at the Council meeting, and at times will be a tall order with likely absences for a variety of reasons. Thus, the support of Labour and some of the other independents will be vital in getting on equality issues through the Council chamber. This will be crucial on issues such as the removal of flags, which are unlawful to attach to lampposts and highway furniture. Both Reform UK and the Local Conservatives had stated support for flags as part of their election campaigns. The new minority administration will need the support of others in implementing a progressive, intersectional equality, equity, unite and anti-poverty agenda, inclusively for all discriminated and oppressed sections of our communities and neighbourhoods across the city. As the City Vision and the Council’s equality policies have been mainly embedded in the past by the previous Labour administration, it is safe to assume their support for equality issues will continue.
BRIG, alongside an emerging coalition of anti-racist and community campaigning organisations, are issuing the City Council’s new minority administration an open invitation to meet with us to tackle racism in our city, improve community unity, stop those seeking to divide us and deliver on the 2035 City Vision.
The first step the new administration can take is to join us in stopping Britain First coming to our city on 20th June, which is International Refugee Day, for the second year running, to spread their hate and division, especially against our muslim citizens and communities.