Subscribe to trusted local news
If you are accessing this story via Facebook but you are a subscriber then you will be unable to access the story. Facebook wants you to stay and read in the app and your login details are not shared with Facebook. If you experience problems with accessing the news but have subscribed, please contact subscriptions@thestrayferret.co.uk. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
- Subscription costs less than £1 a week with an annual plan.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
08
May
‘The country is in a mess’, says Labour mayor as Reform surges in local election
Labour mayor David Skaith has said Britain is in a mess, in a message reacting to yesterday’s local elections.
Elections did not take place in North Yorkshire, but Labour suffered a bad night nationally, increasing pressure on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to resign.
Reform UK is the big winner, gaining hundreds of seats on local authorities in early counting.
Harrogate-born Mr Skaith, the Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, said he expects Labour to lose more than 1,000 councillors who could be “replaced by parties who put division and opportunism before the needs of the public”.
He added:
I am incredibly worried for towns and cities across Yorkshire and the country who, through frustration, have just elected a dysfunctional, divisive, and dangerous party in Reform UK.
The country is a mess. There’s no getting around that. It’s a mess that dates back to the financial crash of 2008, the disastrous impact of austerity that followed, international instability and war, and the reactionary politics we saw in the latter years of the last government. This isn’t about blaming the last lot, it’s a crucial context to understand why we are where we are.
'Clear plan' needed
Mr Skaith said Britain needed “a clear plan and a dogged determinism to follow it to the letter” focusing on basic issues that matter to people.
This week Mr Skaith spoke glowingly in an interview with the Stray Ferret about Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester considered by many to be a frontrunner to succeed Sir Keir.
In his latest statement, Mr Skaith said:
I do not think it is the right thing to do to default to the chopping and changing of governments that we saw four years ago. It’s unstable. But communities in York and North Yorkshire and across the country need, now more than ever, to clearly see and feel that this is a government that is on their side and is taking steps to prove that.
Sir Keir said this morning he intended to lead Labour into the next general election. He said:
“It was a five-year term I was elected to do, I intend to see that through."
0