March of the "smaller parties" in North Solihull

MOMENTUM: The Greens and UKIP were the real winners at
the Solihull local elections

AFTER all the excitement at yesterday’s elections, there seem to be two things which no longer exist in Solihull – small parties and safe seats.

The day belonged to those parties who until a few years ago would have been lumped in as “others” on the BBC’s election special.

Not anymore. In Solihull, the Greens and UKIP polled almost 30 per cent of the vote between them; it would have been considerably more if UKIP had fielded a full slate of candidates.

If you add in the Independent Ratepayer councillor, almost a quarter of the seats on the borough council are now occupied by parties that aren’t Tory, Labour or Liberal.

Let’s look at UKIP to begin with. They now have a foothold on the council after claiming the scalp of Labour leader David Jamieson in Kingshurst & Fordbridge.

They were helped, no doubt, by the fact their candidate Debbie Evans is well-known locally and had previously represented the ward as a Conservative.

But if you examine the results more closely, it’s clear the breakthrough could have come just as easily in another part of the borough. In fact there were three wards where UKIP came a close runner-up.

Among them Castle Bromwich, where for years the Conservatives have been confident of a comfortable majority. When Mike Robinson was last up for election four years ago there were 1500 votes between him and second place Labour. Yet yesterday UKIP came within just 100 votes of triumph.

The ability of the eurosceptic outfit to overturn, or come within a whisker of overturning, strong majorities will no doubt alarm parties. And if once dependable seats can disappear without warning, it makes the business of preparing for the elections next year rather more difficult.

One party who know a lot about good preparation are the Greens, whose three gains today have seen them become the official opposition in Solihull. At the moment they have all the momentum; those seats they target they win. And all this just six years since Mike Sheridan became their first member of the council.

BREAKTHROUGH: Mike Sheridan won his Smith's Wood seat
in 2008.

Seizing on the deep sense of resentment surrounding aspects of the North Solihull regeneration, the party has washed Labour away in their former strongholds of Smith’s Wood and Chelmsley Wood. Disillusioned Lib Dems have flocked to their cause also, allowing them to start to build support in Shirley and Elmdon.

Being the second largest party in Solihull is still a long way from having your hands on the levers of power. The Lib Dems - who were in that position for a decade - at one time had double the Greens’ ten members and even then, they had to broker a deal with Labour to be able to force the Conservatives from office.

MAKE-UP: How Solihull Council now looks

All the same, the status as “second party” will no doubt give the Greens renewed belief. Perhaps now they’ll be looking at taking the fight to the Tories in their traditional heartlands. Who knows what damage a party who opposes HS2 could inflict in areas like Balsall Common or Hampton-in-Arden, where there is a lingering dread about the development.

What’s for certain now is that the “big parties” all have things to consider in Solihull. For Labour, the loss of their third leader in six years is a massive setback. As a former MP, David Jamieson was a formidable figure in the council chamber and his pugnacious approach often got under the skin of the Conservative cabinet. With him gone, the party will have to look to rebuild its support in areas where once it dominated.
The Tories, who gained a seat, and the Lib Dems, who limited their losses to one, may well think they got off lightly. But as they buckle down for the battle for Solihull at next year’s General Election, they’ll be wary of the growing popularity of other parties. Neither the Greens or UKIP could take the parliamentary seat but the substantial numbers voting for these parties in many different parts of the borough could yet decide who does.