Paul Tilsley was 23 when he was first elected for the Liberal party in Birmingham’s council elections in 1968. At that time, the UK had an unpopular Labour government facing an economic crisis, tensions around immigration and US pressure to back military action abroad.
Such a backdrop may seem familiar, but this May the local elections in Birmingham could not be more different. Tilsley, now a Liberal Democrat, faces a fragmented field with candidates from Labour, the Conservatives, the Greens, Reform UK and independents all competing for his seat and no party expected to win an overall majority on the council.
“I think the result is going to be somewhat of a bugger’s muddle,” he said. “I cannot see you getting to a result on 7 May where you could put two parties together to govern Birmingham. No single party is going to win.”
Labour is predicted to get a dire set of results in May’s elections taking place in Scotland, Wales and English councils, while there are likely to be gains for the Green party and Reform.
In Birmingham, Labour’s 14-year dominance could end after a series of problems and scandals at the council, including the botched implementation of a new IT system, a declaration in effect of bankruptcy in 2023, and industrial action by refuse workers that has made headlines around the world.
Tilsley has been a vocal critic of Labour’s record in the city, calling the local authority a “shadow of what it was”, but said he had no faith that Reform and independent candidates would be able to address the issues facing residents.
“We will have a situation where … a large number of councillors elected for the first time, with the best will in the world, think they can change the world. And then, when you look at the financial situation, realise that all the promises that you’ve made are undeliverable.”
Tilsley’s worst fear is the council becoming ungovernable, with opposing factions unable to form a coalition, raising the possibility that government-appointed commissioners brought in for five years to oversee the council’s financial recovery after the bankruptcy move in 2023 will have to remain beyond 2028.
One of the people hoping to capitalise on Labour’s perceived failures in Birmingham is Akhmed Yakoob, who is supporting local candidates. The criminal lawyer has a large social media following, including 220,000 followers on TikTok. His group, the Independent Candidates Alliance, has formed an electoral pact with George Galloway’s Workers party to field about 70 prospective councillors across the city.
In 2024, he came close to unseating Labour’s Shabana Mahmood in the general election, campaigning primarily against Labour’s policy on Gaza. Since then, Yakoob’s supporters have faced accusations of intimidation during the election campaign – claims that he said have “no weight and no evidence”.
The alliance’s pitch is squarely aimed at voters who are disillusioned with the mainstream political parties, but with their outsider status has come controversy. Another of the candidates standing for the alliance is Shahid Butt, who was found guilty of a plot to blow up the British consulate in Yemen in 1999. Butt told the BBC in February that the charges were fabricated and he was tortured into making a confession. Yakoob said Amnesty International had “said that these convictions were unsafe”.
Yakoob, 39, who is facing trial next year on money laundering charges that he denies, said voters in Birmingham were fed up with Labour and they had realised that the party had been “deceiving them for decades”.
Despite his public criticism of Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, including calling a video of him dancing at an event in Trafalgar Square “degeneracy”, Yakoob said his candidates would be prepared to work with other parties including the Greens and the Lib Dems “for the betterment of the voters”. However, he ruled out working with Labour or Reform.
The Green party said it would be open to working with councillors that shared its values, while those “who seek to divide our communities will be given a short shrift”. The council’s leader, Labour’s John Cotton, said the election stakes were high and voters faced a “clear choice”.
Critics of the Reform insurgency have focused on the party’s lack of experience when it comes to governance, something that could be tested should it find itself in charge of the council’s £3.5bn budget.
A spokesperson for Reform said it was “frankly absurd” for incumbent council members to “lecture anyone else about competence”, and that Labour had “comprehensively failed”. “Labour has run Birmingham into the ground, racking up one of the highest debt levels in the country while residents are left with missed bin collections and collapsing basic services,” the spokesperson said.
On Thursday, the Times reported that Unite, the union representing striking bin workers and Labour’s biggest union donor, had held secret talks with Reform about resolving the dispute.
Labour’s mayor in the West Midlands, Richard Parker, said the outcomes of council elections across the region were of crucial importance and would directly affect the delivery of his agenda.
“We could end up having a hotchpotch or a sort of coalition of chaos emerging,” he said of the situation in Birmingham. “It’s important to me that we have serious people running our councils post-May and they are people that will work with me.”
Asked whether potential losses in the region would reflect the failures of Keir Starmer’s leadership, Parker said: “People, particularly in this region, don’t feel that the change that they wanted has happened quickly enough and they are frustrated.”
Mus Dar, a founder of the campaign group Brummies United Against Racism, said it would not be surprising if voters in the city sought a change in leadership of the council. “People are angry and frustrated about the bin dispute. People are angry about issues around housing. People are upset with the bankruptcy and how public assets have been sold off,” she said.
Dar said she was concerned that the valid frustrations of Birmingham residents would be seized on by Reform. “We know there are issues in our communities … but those problems aren’t caused by migrants,” she said. “What we’re concerned about is how Reform are exploiting people in order for their own political gain.”
After recent hate crime incidents and a flag campaign in the region, Dar said her group had contacted all parties fielding candidates in Birmingham to sign a pledge standing against racism, which included a promise to “support urgent action to remove flags or symbols in public places that create division”. She said it was backed by all parties except the Conservatives and Reform.
The leader of the Conservative group in Birmingham, Robert Alden, said: “Any pledge which implies our national flags are racist is a pledge we will not sign.” He said the city was at a crossroads and the Conservatives had a plan “to balance the books, end the strike and clean up the city”.
Mashkura Begum is the chair of the women’s organisation Saathi House and the co-chair of Birmingham Citizens. For groups like hers, the elections provide a chance for the new council to focus on tackling child poverty, poor housing and unemployment. “We’re keeping a very close eye on the elections,” she said. “Birmingham faces some of the highest child poverty rates and, despite being one of the youngest cities in Europe, too many people are still struggling to find employment.”
On whether she could work with candidates that had little experience in local government, she said: “We’ve seen what experienced councillors and MPs have done. So why not give new fresh independent individuals an opportunity?”
However, Tilsley’s assessment was less optimistic. Asked whether candidates from the independents alliance, the Greens and Reform would be able to address the plethora of problems in the city, he said: “No. They will have no idea of the complexity of running a [local authority] that is the largest in Europe.”
He added: “If anybody thinks that simplistic solutions will solve Birmingham’s problems, think again.”
