England’s mayoral elections this week mark a milestone for the country’s devolution agenda, experts say, as candidates and voters consider an agenda that is increasingly different from Westminster politics.
On May 2, 10 mayors will be elected, many of them for the first time, in areas covering a record 44 percent population.
The votes come amid feverish speculation about exactly when general elections, expected sometime this year, might take place and how they might turn out.
But in what has long been one of the West’s most centralized countries, experts say the election may reveal less about Westminster politics and more about voting priorities outside the southeast, as candidates consciously avoid the political framework of their national parties.
“In general, mayoral elections are about the person,” said Peter Kellner, former president of polling firm YouGov, pointing to the brands made in recent years by “high-profile” figureheads such as the Tory Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen, were built.
Houchen, like other mayors, has often pursued policies that look different than those of his party.
“This is very well known in American gubernatorial elections,” Kellner added. “Someone is building an in-person vote that is very different than what their parties are going to do in the House [of Representatives] or presidential elections.”
While London has had a mayor since 2000, such figureheads outside the capital were only introduced in larger areas from 2017 as ministers sought to stimulate the struggling regional economy.
More devolution deals have been signed in rapid succession over the last 18 months, meaning three new mayors will be elected for the first time on Thursday in the North East, York and North Yorkshire and the East Midlands.
Akash Paun, head of decentralization at the Institute for Government think tank, said media and voter interest in this year’s mayoral elections represented a milestone in the process.
“I feel like this is the first time that a lot of people are really seeing how governance has changed in England,” he said.
Although Westminster’s focus has often viewed the tighter races as a guide to general elections, he said: “These are important jobs in their own right in their regions.”
As a collective, the 10 mayors have the potential to be both powerful and “problematic” for any government, he noted.
Public transport has been the focus of most mayoral campaigns, in part because voters outside the capital have a clear understanding of the long-term under-investment in infrastructure.
This concern goes hand in hand with the powers granted to mayors, which include ever-larger decentralized transport investments and the ability to re-regulate their bus networks.
“I think that traffic is probably the single biggest issue in most of these places given what mayors and candidates are talking about,” Paun said, adding that this is “probably not surprising.”
The IfG analysis of budgets overseen by mayors shows that transportation is “the single largest item – and often by a wide margin,” he said, adding that it therefore “dominates” mayors’ options.
In 2023, Greater Manchester’s Labor mayor Andy Burnham became the first to bring the local bus network under public control after almost 40 years of deregulation, a move that has so far proven popular.
His Labor colleagues in Liverpool, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire are now promising to do the same. I feel like this is the first time that many people are really seeing how governance has changed in England. These are independent and important jobs in their regions
Meanwhile, Houchen has made a number of big transport commitments in the Tees Valley, using money he secured last year through the closure of the northern section of HS2.
Andy Westwood, professor of government practice at the University of Manchester, said the increasing number of mayors and the resulting focus on regional growth issues was progress.
“That’s one thing that you’d probably have to say has worked quite well,” he said of the current government’s “levelling” agenda, which aims to rebalance and decentralize England.
The “high command” within the Labor party has also agreed that mayors will be “promoted” if they win a general election, he added.
“Having this institutional stability is a rare moment in England’s regional economic thinking,” he said.
Of the contests taking place this week, the fates of Conservatives Andy Street and Houchen will be the most closely watched in Westminster. Both have to fight hard to assert themselves in the face of the Tories’ waning popularity – and both have pursued different goals in Westminster than their party.
Street, in particular, stands out from his London counterparts by telling the Financial Times last month that local delivery should be more important than culture wars.
Political consultant Greg Cook, Labour’s former head of political strategy, said mayoral elections were particularly difficult for pollsters to predict because of smaller sample sizes outside Greater London and potentially low voter turnout.
“Local factors,” he added, are “difficult to capture for any survey.”
Important local issues are at play this year, including the collapse of Birmingham City Council in the Street area, fears that East Midlands train manufacturer Alstom could close, and an ongoing row over finances at Teesworks, the huge regeneration project under construction the management of Houchen.
Cook said there was “a feeling”, particularly in races with more prominent candidates such as Burnham, Houchen, Street and London incumbent Sadiq Khan, that voters in such elections are “willing to deviate from their usual voting behavior”.
Mayoral politics have “taken on a life of their own,” he said, adding: “I think it’s a new kind of dynamic.”