Local elections 2024: George Galloway celebrates with a mango lassi - but Manchester is still Labour

Labour has retained almost total control of the city council in Manchester - despite a headline-grabbing win for George Galloway’s Workers Party.

The ruling party now has 86 of the 96 seats in the council chamber but they lost their deputy leader when Shabaz Sarwar narrowly beat Luthfur Rahman - much to the Rochdale MP’s delight.

Elsewhere, the Liberal Democrats won four seats, followed by the Green Party with three and, for the first time ever, the Workers Party with one. 

Things got off to a slow start in Manchester. Results started to come in at around 2pm, three hours later than initially estimated – there was even an audible cheer throughout Manchester Central Convention Complex when the start of the count was finally announced. 

As predicted, it was a good day for Labour, which has held the majority in Manchester. The number of councillors has stayed the same at 86, having won back Hulme from the Greens and lost in one of the most hotly anticipated battlegrounds of the day – Longsight.

One of the Labour councillors celebrating re-election is the Piccadilly ward candidate Jon-Connor Lyons. He told Manchester World that he is “really excited” about this new term, emphasising his continued work on issues such as “more affordable and social housing, green spaces, cleaner streets.” The Piccadilly councillor had caused a stir during his campaign by running ads on the gay dating app Grindr.

He told Manchester World: “As we head into a general election, this was always going to be a test to see whether voters have got trust in Labour and today’s results right across the country have shown that they do have trust, that they’re ready for change and they want a general election. 

“The Gridr ads were certainly something that worked for Piccadilly ward. We have a very high number of LGBTQ+ people, it was a fantastic idea from our campaign team and we’re really happy that we executed in a creative way.”

Despite the loss, the outgoing Green Party candidate in Hulme, Ekua Bayunu, who is also a former Labour party member, spoke passionately about her ward, pledging to continue her work alongside the party activists and local community. She also promised to hold the Labour council to account when it comes to Hulme, which she says has been “taken for a ride” by the leading party. 

She told Manchester World: “During my two years with the Green Party, I have flourished and I have really been able to get the Labour-led council, doing what it should do, which is working in the interest of the people. They haven’t been doing that and I’m going to make sure that I continue as an activist, working with the Green Party activists to bring them to account.”

The most talked about election battle took place in Longsight. Crowds of press and Worker Party supporters, easily the largest crowd in the two counting rooms, gathered around the Longsight table early on. Ultimately, the party were responsible for Labour’s only loss of the day, with candidate Sarwar narrowly beating incumbent Labour candidate and deputy leader of Manchester City Council Rahman, 2,444 votes to 2,259.

Controversial party leader Galloway turned up to congratulate his colleague as the count wrapped up, telling journalists that he had spent £75 on a taxi to get there. He had enjoyed success earlier in the day in Rochdale, where two of his party’s candidates were also elected. Galloway also told journalists that he would be celebrating with his colleagues over a mango lassi. 

He told ManchesterWorld that voters “deserve better.” He continued: “They deserve better. Britain deserves better. Labour voters deserve better.

“Keir Starmer is a block of useless wood and if Labour had taken the opportunity to get rid of him when we offered in the Batley and Spen by-election, after he’d just lost Hartlepool, we told everyone: If we can beat Keir Starmer here, he’ll be out. That was our slogan: Starmer out. They really should have taken us up on that offer because he was bad enough back then and he’s a pretty miserable figure today.”

Manchester council may have lost its deputy leader in Longsight, but council leader Bev Craig successfully defended her seat in nearby Burnage. Like Galloway, the Labour councillor is now looking at what this will mean for the party nationally heading into a general election, commenting that Manchester still has the largest Labour group in the country. 

She told ManchesterWorld: “In Manchester, one of the reasons that we have 86 out of 96 councillors is that we listen really closely to what people tell us all year round. We know the people care about the cost of living crisis. We know that, despite their own pressures, they also care about protecting the most vulnerable, which is why we will be prioritising that – from fixing the housing crisis to tackling homelessness.

“But we also know that the basic stuff matters to them, so having clean and tidy streets, investing in parks and leisures, and libraries. It’s because we listen. We’re rooted in our communities and we work hard for people.”