Despite missteps council’s Labour leader backs Starmer

Dudley’s Labour leader is backing Keir Starmer despite facing a tough day when voters go to the polls for local elections.

Cllr Adam Aston currently leads a group of 23 elected Labour members on the 72-seat Dudley Council and will be defending eight seats the party holds plus two it held after the last election but whose councillors defected to The Black Country Party.

With Reform UK riding high in opinion polls and Labour predicted by pollsters to take big losses in the May 7 elections, Cllr Aston knows the challenge he faces.

He said: “I’m under no illusions this set of local elections are going to be very difficult for a number of reasons – these are mid-terms to some degree and people tend to vote against the government at local elections.”

Apart from the challenge from Reform UK to the political right, Dudley Labour also has fresh opposition from the left in the form of The Black Country Party while the Liberal Democrats operate in the centre ground.

While the Green Party does not currently have any Dudley councillors, it provides another challenge to Labour from the political left.

Cllr Aston said: “Politics has changed over the last couple of years we find ourselves in a position we are not used to in Dudley.

“Dudley has traditionally been two party with the odd smaller party, we have now five political parties on the council.”

Sir Keir Starmer’s government in Westminster stumbled over issues like winter fuel allowance and disability benefit changes while the Prime Minister faced repeated calls for his resignation from opposition parties over the Peter Mandelson affair.

Cllr Aston says, despite inheriting an economy and public services ‘in tatters’ from the previous Conservative government, Starmer has had successes as well as challenges.

Cllr Aston said: “I think there has been some great stuff the government has done over the last two years. 

“Of course there have been a couple of missteps along the way, they have been acknowledged and as members of the Labour Party we have made our views known to our MPs.

“The government is doing good things, we have had the biggest improvement in workers’ rights in the history of workers’ rights yet we don’t shout about it enough.

“I don’t think Starmer verbalises his politics enough; he is, on occasions, seen as technocratic.

“That is just the way he is but right now I can’t think of any other politician or a leader of a political party I would want in Number 10.

“In the current global climate he is an incredibly safe pair of hands.”

A full list of candidates standing in the 2026 Dudley Council elections is available on the council’s website.