Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram said Labour will find it “really easy on the doorstep” when campaigning locally
Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram said Labour will find it “really easy on the doorstep” when campaigning locally
Labour will find it “really easy on the doorstep” when the party fights for votes over the next month, according to Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram. Thousands of people will cast their votes across four areas on May 7.
At a launch of Labour’s local election campaign across the North West from Duke Street Park in Sefton, Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram said he was confident about Labour’s chances but national issues could make things “difficult in parts”. All seats in St Helens and Sefton are up for grabs while a third of seats in Knowsley and Halton will be contested.
Liverpool and Wirral are having no elections this year as their councillors were elected for four years in 2023. Voters will go to the polls in those areas in May 2027 while Mr Rotheram is up for re-election himself in 2028.
Asked whether elections over the next two years could be a crucial test ahead of his own bid for a fourth term, the Metro Mayor said: “People especially in areas like this, they know what’s happening.
“What we have got to do is explain to them some of the things potentially they didn’t realise are as a result of a Labour council and a Labour Metro Mayor. That is where we have got to get to at this moment in time.”
Mr Rotheram said people needed to keep voting Labour or they risked putting regional progress at risk, telling the ECHO: “If it’s about local and regional, it’s really easy on the doorstep.
“We tell them we have actually delivered on their behalf. Not about what we might do in the future, not if we had a magic wand and all the things that we would promise them which we would never deliver from another party.
“We can tell them what we have done on public transport and we see that every day. They see the brand new trains which are the most accessible in the country. Half a billion pounds on them.
“They see the buses being taken back over. They see the new ferry, which is replacing the Royal Iris in the Mersey, that we are building. They see that there’s more jobs for their kids and grandkids.”
He added: “If it was a referendum on what’s happening nationally, that’s going to be difficult in parts. There’s some great stuff that the national government is doing. If it’s what’s happening regionally, that I think we have got a good story to tell.”
Sefton council’s leader Cllr Marion Atkinson said: “Don’t take a risk. We are doing some fantastic things in Sefton. We have got a children’s service that is good, we have got an adult social care service that is good.
“We have been shortlisted for the most improved council on a national level. We have got 1,000 affordable homes we are going to be building by 2030.”
She added: “Look, the point is we want to keep going with our clean, green streets. We are taking thousands and thousands of bin bags off the streets as we speak so it’s really important that people vote Labour three times in this election because a lot is at risk.
“We don’t want division in Sefton. We want to keep our community together.”
Asked whether the party faced an uphill battle given national polling currently shows Labour in joint-third, she said: “We are fighting this election on local issues. We have got a really good story to tell in Sefton so we won’t be distracted which is what Reform, the Greens, and the other parties want us to be.”
