Interview with, (He Who Must Not be Named), Sir Robin Wales, first Executive Mayor of Newham

We thought that we might ask the first executive mayor of Newham for his thoughts in the forthcoming elections and on the candidates.

ON. Sir Robin, you were the first executive mayor of Newham and at one time, arguably one of the most influential men in local government. You were in the Labour Party, but now you have switched. Why? Sour grapes at having been deselected?

SRW. I joined Labour when I was in my teens. Like the Hull MP Karl Turner, I expected to remain in Labour for all of my life. The values of the Labour Party that I joined are the values I still hold today. What has changed is the Labour Party. We see this repeated across the UK. When Aaron Roy from Hartlepool joined Reform, he said the same thing “it was Labour that had moved”, not us. We hear the same thing from Democrats in the USA.  Harold Wilson once referred to the party as a broad church, but it is now a ‘church’ with its own office of the inquisition and with its own witchfinders. What has happened to Karl Turner is merely an example of the increasingly intolerant politics of the current Labour Party.

ON. So why did you join Reform? Why not the Liberal Democrats or even the Tories?

SRW. There have always been two drivers to my politics. The first is to support policies which support working people. To talk of the ‘working class’ is to invite pointless discussions about definitions, so when I use the term, I’m referring roughly to social classes C1-E. The second driver consists of the principles of the Enlightenment, specifically the essential freedoms of thought, expression and action. 

The working class has been abandoned by Labour. In response, in two of the last three elections Labour was more popular amongst those earning £70,000 pa than it was amongst those in classes C1-E. That is perverse for a party founded to represent working people. Clive (Furness) and I are currently working on a second book and one of the themes is the way in which Labour and cultural organisations generally have been taken over by, what we call, the New Patrician Class; those now dominant in politics, media and the arts. Their interests are not those of working people and they are easily identified by a fixation with fashionable political causes, supporting ‘this year’s oppressed group’.

These fads seem to have a life of around two years before boredom sets in and a new cause rises. The common theme of these fads is not to find solutions to problems but to engage in performative outrage.

Labour’s desperation at the thought of losing the Muslim vote has fuelled the move towards intolerance. People are important and deserve protection; ideas should be fair game.  Indeed, if you prevent debate around ideas, you will ensure an increasingly intolerant society. The 20th century has many examples, the best being the USSR and Nazi Germany, but they were far from being the first. Catholic Europe and Puritan North America were both earlier examples of what happened when freedom of thought and speech were curtailed. We are not about to enter a new ‘dark age’, but we do risk losing some fundamental and hard-won freedoms with the introduction of the ‘anti-Muslim’ definition, simply because Labour is afraid of losing Muslim votes.

ON. Can I ask you to reflect on the local elections in Newham?

SRW. Certainly, where shall I start?

ON. You have mentioned Muslims, three of the mayoral candidates are Muslims. What are your thoughts on that?

SRW. Obviously, I feel more sympathetic to some candidates than others, but democracy depends upon men and women being willing to put themselves forward and fight, metaphorically, for their ideas. It’s their ideas and their programmes that I am concerned about, not the faith that they follow.

ON. Any predictions for the council results?

SRW. I saw that Tony Travers of the LSE had recently suggested that Newham will be a hung council after the election. This seems quite possible. The Greens could well extend their success across the north west of the borough. Newham Independents seem set to pick up seats along Green Street and in the north east. Reform might surprise us all and pick up seats, particularly in the south of the borough. It’s not entirely clear where the Labour vote will come from now. There will be a residual support for Labour spread across the borough, but how much of it will reach the critical mass in a particular ward is open to question.

The interesting vote will be for the mayoralty, where I think that four candidates have a chance.

ON. So, what are your thoughts on the candidates?

SRW. Newham Independents have shown a remarkable rise. Mehmood (Mirza) has taken an idea and transformed it into what is possibly the strongest party in the borough, at least as of today. Having said that, before he left, (or was kicked out of the Labour Party), Mehmood and I were never allies. He was one of the team that supported Rokhsana Fiaz in the reselection battle. He was and appears to continue to be aligned with Jeremy Corbyn. That end of the party always struck me as more concerned with grievances than with solutions.

I have noted that both Labour and Newham Independents have published policy proposals that look remarkably similar to the policies I enacted a decade ago. One of the more leftish commentators has noted that this is a ‘back-to-the-future’ programme, and they are none too happy about it. The policies seem fine to me, they address some of the concerns of the population. 

What neither Forhad (Hussain) nor Mehmood seem to have appreciated is that you can’t be as generous to residents when you are struggling to balance the books as you can when you are £50m in credit. When I left office it was after ten years without tax rises and without cuts. It was after the introduction of policies which had a direct benefit on our residents, the Every Child programme, an outstanding Sure Start offer and a dramatic change in the educational offer to Newham school children. We had the best jobs brokerage scheme in the country and we left £50m in the bank. Under Labour Mayor Fiaz, that has disappeared.

ON. So, Mirza, yes or no?

SRW. Mehmood seems to me to be a symptom of a problem we have across the country; people voting on the basis of identity. We saw this in the Gorton and Denton byelection; Muslims voted Green; white working classes voted Reform. Labour were humiliated. We saw it in the election of Muslim independents who have coalesced around Corbyn and Zara Sultana. We have only to look across the border at Tower Hamlets to see how some 30% of the population now dominate the political scene with 90% of the council seats and a mayor returned to office after being dismissed by the courts for “corrupt and illegal practices”. I do not see this as a positive development.

ON. And Labour?

SRW. Forhad is not Fiaz. He’s a decent man and he’s not stupid. I worked with him for many years. My concern is that he lacks the political courage to tackle some of the problems. We can see it in his campaign, he doesn’t want to be associated with Fiaz, but he is unwilling to criticise her record. Inevitably this will mean that he is tarnished by her performance.

When I left office, the council had an approval rating of above 80%, now it languishes at 29%. 

Forhad is also hampered by the national party. Once upon a time, the national party was generally more popular than the local party. Not now. Labour is mired in sleaze and has proven to be ineffective. Starmer has upset everyone over Gaza. What’s more, no-one knows what Labour stands for anymore. Forhad could suffer if the local elections become a referendum on the national government. He is defending an unpopular national party and an unpopular local party.

ON. The Greens have nominated Areeq Chowdhury.

SRW. I’m afraid that I know very little about Areeq. As you doubtless know, he was originally elected as a Labour councillor and then went off to join the Greens. On the plus side, he does seem to be a Green councillor who is more concerned with Newham than his pronouns, which is possibly why he was selected.

My impression is that while the Greens would be happy to pick up some more council seats they are not particularly interested in running the council. It appears that their main aim is to prepare the voters in the north west of the borough to receive the ‘tit-whisperer’ as candidate in the general election.

ON. What about the Tories and Liberal Democrats?

SRW. I must confess that I know less about Laura Willoughby and Terri Bloore than I do about Areeq. To a large extent that is because both parties have basically abandoned Newham. They will stand candidates for the sake of putting on a show, but I can’t remember the last time they tried to win a seat. Sorry, I’ll revise that. It was when Alec Kellaway stood for the Lib-Dems before he rejoined the Labour Party, 30 years ago. Alec was a fine local councillor committed to the area in which he represented. I’m afraid, if either party want to be taken seriously, they have to put in some work between elections and Alec would not be a bad example to follow.

ON. I’ve left it to last, but what sort of chance do you think the Reform candidate has?

SRW. I guess that I should go for full disclosure here. Clive (Furness) and I are friends. Before I became mayor, we were councillors for the same ward. He was an indispensable member of my executive team when I was mayor and the work that he did on tuberculosis has had a national impact. It is no exaggeration to say that there are people who are alive today, who would not be, were it not for the work he initiated. We wrote Left, Right, Wrong together and we are collaborating on a second book at the moment. He and I have made the political journey together from half a century in Labour to Reform.

He understates his ability and over-delivers. He doesn’t do histrionics; he is thoughtful and understands the scientific method, (not many politicians do); he is willing to take political risks and bear the costs, he has proven that he can make things better for Newham.

Personally, I would be delighted if he succeeded. For me, he is without doubt the outstanding candidate.

ON So, who will win?

SRW I think that four candidates will have a chance of poling above 20%. It is, I suspect, too close to call just yet, if pushed I’d say it will come down to Newham Independents and Reform, but I’d be unwilling to bet a lot of money on the outcome at the moment.

The mayoral and council elections will be held on Thursday 7th May 2026.