A party pushing for independence for the North of England is making its first foray into Newcastle at this year’s local elections.
The Northern Independence Party is standing eight candidates in elections across the region next Thursday, two of which are on Tyneside – David Stewart and Andrew Ehala. Mr Stewart is hoping to challenge Labour in the Wingrove ward, where the candidate for the city’s ruling group is Joyce McCarty – who is currently suspended from the party after alleging a “Muslim plot” against its ousted leader, Nick Forbes.
The 41-year-old, an academic at Newcastle University, is a former Labour member who says he left the party after Keir Starmer became leader as it no longer “offered enough differences to the Tories” and he wanted to advocate for more left-wing policies, such as nationalising energy companies. The maths lecturer says he “absolutely” believes that the party, which was founded in 2020 and also has candidates in places such as Leeds and Sheffield, has a chance of winning a seat somewhere by tapping into a sense of anger at Westminster politics and a desperation to close the North-South divide.
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Mr Stewart, who had initially joined Labour under Ed Miliband's leadership, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “There is a lot of dissatisfaction with the current state of politics. People are looking for something else. My guess is that turnout is going to be quite low and where we have effective candidates getting the message out there there is a chance for us.
“We are at the start of building a movement, so the important thing is that we are galvanising support and showing people that there is an alternative type of politics to get involved in. It just doesn’t feel like we are going to get where we need to be while all the decisions are being made for us in Westminster.”
Mr Stewart wants the North to emulate Scotland in having a powerful independence lobby, as well as pushing for things like free prescriptions and free university tuition.
The Northern Independence Party is not the first regional-focused movement to appear on ballot papers here. The North East Party was formed in 2014 to advocate for devolution of powers and budgets to local decision-makers and now has four county councillors in Durham, as well as town councillors in Peterlee.
Brian Moore, standing in Gosforth as the party’s sole candidate in Newcastle, agrees that the “status quo cannot be sustained”. He is standing on a platform that includes building a new bridge over the Tyne, axeing tolls from the Tyne Tunnel, and merging Newcastle and Gateshead into a single authority.
Mr Moore, an outspoken former Lib Dem city councillor, said: “There is a dissatisfaction with Westminster and that has led to smaller parties growing across the country – that is reflected by the overwhelming strength of the SNP in Scotland, Plaid Cymru doing well in Wales, the Yorkshire Party too.
"We still have to fight against an electoral system that is not good for us, but the North East must have a voice that is equivalent to the mayor of London or Manchester. If we don’t then we will not get the funding that the region so desperately needs.”
