What next after the May 7 elections

Last week Oldham witnessed a seismic shift in its political make-up – this week, the borough is grappling with its consequences. 

An eventful election count on May 7 saw the area’s Labour group decimated by Reform UK and independents. With just 18 Labour councillors remaining, the council boss Cllr  Arooj Shah has announced her intention to step down from her post next week, with Labour sources confirming the group intends to give up control of the council. 

That brings 15 years of Labour rule in the area to an abrupt end. The question is: What next? 

The remaining political groups will now need to scramble to secure enough support for one of their leaders before the first council meeting on May 20. They’ll need more than half – so at least 31 – to vote for them, or at least agree to abstain. 

But there’s a pretty major obstacle. In the borough where ‘toxic politics’, online mudslinging, and screaming matches in the chambers have become the norm, and groups regularly tear into one another both online and in real life – no one wants to work with each other. 

“Whichever way you cut it, the numbers don’t stack up,” one councillor told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. “People have been more vocal about who they won’t work with than who they will. I honestly don’t see us securing an administration without the government intervening.” 

And they’re not alone. Most of the councillors across the political spectrum who the LDRS spoke to said they had ‘no clue’ who would be able to take control of the council.

The vote last week saw Reform UK catapulted into the borough’s second largest group with 16 members, followed by The Oldham Group with 10, the Lib Dems with six, Conservatives with four, and six independents or hyperlocal groups. The fragmentation means no group has more than a third of the total council, and group leaders are busily courting each other for support. 

A Lib Dem spokesperson said: “The worst thing would be for Oldham to be left ungovernable. So we want to speak to people who want to find a way through this, bearing in mind the problems that we already face in the borough and some of the mistakes that have been made in the past.” 

But in both off and on the record conversations, almost all groups have made it clear they are drawing lines in the sand. Many expressed they are simply ‘fed up’ with the way politics is done in the borough, with mutual accusations of ‘divisive and toxic campaigns’ that take aim at individuals instead of policies. 

In her statement declaring her resignation from council leadership, Cllr Shah confirmed her group ‘would not seek any working arrangement, either through a coalition or supply agreement’ to maintain Labour’s control of the council. 

Similarly, Oldham Reform UK leader, Cllr Lewis Quigg, who split from the Conservatives after a dramatic row with a former Tory leader, declared on election night: “There will be no coalitions, no secret agreements. If you voted Reform, you get Reform. That’s what’s going to happen.”

Yet The Oldham Group, Lib Dems, and Conservatives, have ruled out supporting Reform, meaning they could struggle to form or maintain a minority administration. And after many ran on anti-Labour slates at the 2024 election, or spent years in opposition to Labour, there’s not much support for the red rosettes either. 

That leaves the possibility of a coalition group between the Oldham Group, Lib Dems, Conservatives, with either Oldham Group leader Cllr Kamran Ghafoor, or new Lib Dem leader Cllr Sam Al-Hamdani at the helm. 

“The problem is, negotiating a coalition is risky,” one councillor explained. “You don’t want to show your support for one until you’re one hundred percent certain everyone else will go for it. And supporting the wrong group is effectively signing your own death warrant – just look at the kind of abuse [the independents received for supporting the Labour administration].

“I think we are heading for some real instability. I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen. What I do know is that I’m very worried for the future of Oldham.” 

And ultimately, it’s the borough of Oldham that will lose out for as long as the leadership remains unclear. Several councillors expressed fears the uncertainty could go on for ‘weeks – or even months’, effectively grinding decision-making processes to a halt, or putting them into the hands of unelected executives. 

One political expert predicted that whatever the result, any administration will be fraught with instability for the coming year. 

They foretold bleakly: “It will descend into infighting and farce with people just showboating in meetings but with very little being agreed. Things will tick over, because the officers will keep it all going in spite of the members, but it will just be seen by investors and potential future senior officers as somewhere that is too poisonous to bother trying to do any good work. 

“Investment will dry up and the council won’t be able to attract good quality officers to work for it.”

Group leaders are understood to be meeting throughout this afternoon and evening to try to come to an arrangement. Suggestions have also been made to postpone the upcoming full council meeting to give councillors more time to negotiate a working administration, the LDRS understands.