Three names are in the running to replace Nick Forbes as Newcastle’s Labour leader.
The long-serving council chief will be leaving city politics in May, announcing last month that he would not stand in May’s local elections after being deselected by party members in his Arthur’s Hill ward.
While Coun Forbes will stay on as council leader until the end of his term in May, he asked for a new Labour group leader in the city to be chosen before then to offer “clarity” to voters about the party’s direction.
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Labour councillors will vote on Monday, March 14, to decide who that will be, but the three candidates vying for the top job can now be revealed – Nick Kemp, Irim Ali, and Clare Penny-Evans.
Coun Kemp had been widely expected to throw his hat into the ring, having tried to oust Coun Forbes last year – a challenge which saw the incumbent survive by a fairly close margin of 30 votes to 22.
The Byker ward councillor had previously quit the council’s cabinet in June 2020, as a bitter split emerged within the city’s Labour establishment.
He alleged in his resignation that he was being undermined by “constant sniping” and “personal animosities”, before the council leader then claimed to have received “a number of complaints about Coun Kemp’s behaviour”.
Coun Kemp, who runs a public relations firm, has served on the council for 20 years and responsibility for issues such as trading standards and bin collections in his past role as cabinet member for environmental and regulatory services.
His two opponents would make history if they became council leader, a role that has never been held by a woman.
Coun Ali, a solicitor, would also become the first non-white councillor to hold the civic centre’s most senior elected post were she to win.
A solicitor practising in property and immigration law, she has represented the Wingrove ward since 2008.
She served as the council’s cabinet member for public health in the first year of the Covid pandemic and is currently responsible for community services and public engagement, including libraries and leisure services.
Coun Penny-Evans is also a current member of the council’s cabinet, holding the climate change and public safety portfolio.
She has represented Heaton since 2017, works for Byker-based charity Skills for People, and is a graduate of a Labour women in leadership programme set up in memory of murdered MP Jo Cox.
Notably absent from the list of councillors who have put themselves forward for the leadership contest is Karen Kilgour, the council’s deputy leader, who was considered among the potential replacements for Coun Forbes.
She has been the council’s second in command since last May, when she toppled Coun Forbes’ long-serving deputy Joyce McCarty.
It is understood that Labour councillors have been invited to two virtual hustings events next week to hear from the three leadership candidates, before a new group leader is elected the following Monday.
A new leader of the council will not be formally appointed until the local authority’s annual general meeting on May 25.
Coun Forbes, a moderate ally of Sir Keir Starmer and a prominent voice within Labour nationally, has alleged an "ambush" by members on the left of the party that led to his landslide defeat by local activist Abdul Samad in Arthur's Hill.
