Confessions of a defecting Starmtrooper

Next month, Keir Starmer is expected to lead his party to victory in the local elections. The Tories are forecast to lose about half of their councillors who are up for re-election. If it’s a very bad night they could also say goodbye to Ben Houchen and Andy Street, the metro mayors of Tees Valley and the West Midlands. All this would confirm that Labour is on track for a super-majority at the general election. Yet there is one election Starmer’s Labour must fight the left to win: that for the North-East mayor, which takes place on 2 May.

The new mayoralty – which covers two million people from Northumberland to Co. Durham – is already the subject of internal party turmoil. Last year, Starmer blocked Jamie Driscoll, then Labour’s North of Tyne mayor, from standing for the bigger job. This led to protests from those who saw Driscoll – once described as the ‘last Corbynista in power’ – as the victim of a purge of left-wingers. Driscoll quit the party and pledged to run as an independent. He hopes to win enough support to send Starmer a message.

‘There is definitely a move to make the Labour party just the parliamentary party,’ Driscoll, 53, tells me. ‘Cutting off all influence from constituencies and trade unions, things like that, like the American Democrats. It suits the people that are driving it, but I don’t think it suits the people of the north-east. That’s the real irony, isn’t it? It’s about devolution, taking power out of London. But London decides who people are allowed to vote for.’