The national Labour party has announced it will appoint the next leader of the city council in Birmingham, taking the decision away from councillors, after a damning internal report said the local party was “dysfunctional” and dominated by “personality-driven factionalism”.
The move would in effect oust the current leader, Ian Ward, who was re-elected as leader of the UK’s largest local authority after a contest in May last year, and his deputy, Brigid Jones.
Labour’s national party asked its Campaign Improvement Board to look into the situation in Birmingham late last year and the subsequent report, seen by the Guardian, details a litany of failings.
It found there were reports of misogyny and racism in the party, women and black and minority ethnic councillors were “disengaged and disempowered” and relationships with trade unions were defined by “animosity and lack of trust”.
“It is clear the existing culture and processes have contributed to a dysfunctional climate,” it said.
“A legacy of years of personality-driven factionalism, cultural challenges, two particularly bitter industrial disputes, a recent divisive leadership contest and changes to governance have had a detrimental impact on the mood and morale of the Labour group.”
A key recommendation is that Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and other party members from outside the region interview and appoint a new leader, deputy leader and group officers, who should now be elected annually.
This arrangement would remain “until the NEC are satisfied the Birmingham Labour group can effectively run its AGM”, the report said.
The announcement was met with anger by some local councillors, who told BirminghamLive it was “disgraceful behaviour from higher powers” in the party and an attempt to “burn a house down that wasn’t even on fire”.
The Birmingham Labour MP Steve McCabe criticised the report as a “hatchet job”.
“I’ve been around Birmingham politics a long time, and witnessed many stupid and vindictive things, but this takes the biscuit,” he said.
“Keir Starmer should halt it now. It’s a putsch mounted by people almost entirely dependent on his patronage. Birmingham is the loser. Criticisms should be shared with everyone concentrating on improvement. That’s what we were promised, not a hatchet job.”
Robert Alden, the leader of Birmingham Conservatives, said the report’s findings were of “no surprise” but the party’s response “was overly centralised and antidemocratic decision making that ignores the wishes of local areas”.
Responding to the report, Ward insisted he still had the confidence of the local party and said that by reverting to annual leadership elections “the group risks turning inwards instead of facing the city’s challenges”.
“As the leader of Birmingham city council I have led our city through the challenges of austerity and the pandemic, safeguarding frontline services, and delivering the best Commonwealth Games we have ever seen,” he said.
“I have led Labour to two overwhelming election victories. I retain the confidence of the Birmingham Labour Group having recently won a leadership election and I hope to continue leading our group as we tackle the major challenges that our city faces.”
The report also said a large number of complaints about services such as housing repairs and waste collection suggested the council had “longstanding and persistent issues in getting the basics right” and concluded this was the “single biggest risk to the party’s reputation” in the city.
The Labour report said Birmingham was “strategically significant” for the party, and a key area of concern before the West Midlands mayoral election next year and city-wide elections in 2026.
Labour won 65 of the 101 council seats in the last local elections in May 2022, but with a significantly reduced vote share that has prompted “widespread fear” the party could lose seats in 2026, the report said.
A key driver behind the report was a survey of minority ethnic councillors last year, revealed by the Guardian, in which they reported a “toxic culture” designed to keep them “in their place, which is at the bottom”.
A Labour party spokesperson said: “Labour will look at the recommendations in full and, where change is needed from the Labour party, we will implement that change.”
A Labour source added: “It’s clear from reading [the report] that change is desperately needed. This is the biggest authority in the country, there are a multitude of issues at its core. It’s vital that it is properly ran and it delivers for the people of Birmingham.”
