Marvin Rees says the stunning Bristol referendum result to scrap the city’s elected mayor is not a reflection on his leadership.
The Labour mayor, who will complete his second term in office before the committee system is adopted in 2024, criticised Thursday’s (May 5) city-wide vote as a “distraction” from the crises facing the city. Speaking moments after it was announced around 3.30am, on Friday, that 59 per cent of voters had opted for a change in the way Bristol City Council is run, Mr Rees said he hoped his fears about the committee system were wrong.
He said: “I’ve been clear from the start that it’s not about me because I’m not running in 2024. This has always been about the system. Having said that, we will work hard over the next two years, deliver for Bristol and try to make sure we get a really good cohort of Labour councillors elected so we really can protect Bristol’s progressive political culture.
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“Our job now over the next two years is to continue to deliver, to get as much in place as we can to build momentum. There will be a lot of good things landing, particularly in 2024 with the arena, the L&G site coming forward on Temple Island, the university campus, Bristol Beacon will be coming through, City Leap will be delivering nearly half-a-billion pounds of investment in our energy system, so hopefully that momentum will carry on into the future.
“I really hope this committee system can deliver for the people of Bristol because that’s what they need.” He said the referendum issue was a “distraction”.
“We have a cost-of-living crisis, we have a climate emergency,” Mr Rees said. “We’ve been looking at how we’re going to deal with the mental health legacy of covid and also continue to deliver on the housing crisis.
“That’s what we’ve been spending our time on, so I think this is a distraction – a distraction with major consequences for the city. But I really hope that my fears about the committee system are wrong, and we will see over the coming years.
“My job is to continue to deliver for two years and try to make sure that there is as much momentum in the city as possible so that if things do begin to seize up, that momentum will continue to take the city forward into the years ahead.”
He said the result was not a personal blow, despite 56,113 people voting to scrap the position he has held since succeeding George Ferguson as mayor in 2016, with 38,439 casting a ballot to retain the role in Thursday’s poll.
Mr Rees said: “I won two elections, so in terms of my record, my time in office, my style, on a big turnout and the number of votes I’ve got, they eclipse these numbers here, so I’ve been tested twice and been returned twice and then said I was going to leave and reinvent myself.
“But I’ve been clear how important I felt it was for me to step aside and make space for the city to think about itself and reinvent itself, again with another mayor. As it is, the city will be, I won’t call it reinvented but will go back to a committee system and will have to work itself out from there.
“I really hope my fears of the committee system are not warranted and that it proves to be successful because the scale of the challenges we face right now coming off the back of the pandemic, dealing with Brexit, the climate emergency, ecological emergency, housing crisis – that requires a city that is focused on making decisions and focused on delivering, not focused on internal wrangling and posturing and politics that gets sucked into City Hall.
“It needs city leadership, not just politics that is sucked into council business. If that latter happens, it will be a challenge for Bristol. But if the committee system can provide that city leadership and it can drive delivery and decision making then the city will be able to take on the challenges and take the opportunities that are in front of it, but we will see.”
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