Sussex Mayoral Elections 2026?
Last month’s hARoLD was full of news of the Labour government’s plans for local government reorganisation. Broadly, these involve the abolition of borough and district council, the replacement of county councils with unitary authorities and the creation of a mayor, in our case to preside over East & West Sussex and Brighton. May’s county council elections were duly cancelled at the request of the Conservatives. There isn’t much detail on these new structures as yet, but it seems likely that the mayoral elections will take place in May 2026. Coordination of Liberal Democrat efforts for the Police & Crime Commissioner Elections last year (and previously) was lamentably poor.
Steve Murphy called a meeting of all of the constituency associations to discuss how we go forward on Saturday 8th March; Brighton Lib Dems provided the venue. Martin Griffiths, Andrew Mier & Stewart Rayment attended on behalf of Hastings & Rye. All the East Sussex parties were present, except Eastbourne, the three Brighton constituencies are covered by one party. Chichester, Horsham and Mid-Sussex were represented, I'm not sure about the other parties in West Sussex. Time is of the essence and a committee to start the selection of a mayoral candidate should be in place by the next weekend. Martin is representing us and reported on progress at April’s exec.
We hold 5 parliamentary constituencies across the whole county. Chichester, Horsham, and Mid-Sussex in West Sussex, Eastbourne and Lewes in East Sussex. Labour has Crawley, two of the Brighton seats and both Worthing seats in addition to Hastings & Rye. The Green Party holds the other right and seat, and the Conservatives, Bexhill & Battle, Arundel & South Downs, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, and East Grinstead & Uckfield, where Benedict Dempster came second for the Liberal Democrats.
In terms of vote share, we came third in the general election. Labour took 192,049 votes, the Tories 175,335, the Lib Dems 146,787, Reform UK 88,456 and the Green Party 73,576.
We can win the mayoralty if we work on a coordinated basis starting now, in Hastings and Rye we are already aware of that and need to up our game. The Tories lost the last general election, Labour happened to be the main beneficiary but as you will be aware have scarcely enjoyed a honeymoon period since then. They are not particularly popular running Brighton and I've heard criticisms of their administration in Worthing. Apart from Crawley and ourselves, they probably lack the organisation in mobilise in rural Sussex, were we have our strength. Reform are not considered a major factor in Sussex as yet, they are primarily interested in Kent. Voters who had said to our canvassers that it was between the Lib Dems and Reform were said to have been persuaded in places like Chichester after a few minutes expounding on our merits. There is nothing to be complacent in this, it is work that needs to be done. The Green Party lost control of the Brighton unitary authority last year and now only have 8 seats on that council; in Hastings there is some question as to whether they really know what they are doing. Of course, they have their pockets across the countryside but do not look like a contender for the mayoralty.
So, it is up to us to win and an elected mayor would be by far the most powerful Liberal Democrat in country, rather than a backbench MP in opposition. They would be able to make decisions over transport policy, social welfare and housing and indeed how the new local authorities relate to the general public. If we want this, it is up to us to go out and get it.
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