Mayoral candidate pledges to create a ‘North West powerhouse’

LIVERPOOL Walton MP Steve Rotheram has pledged to create a “North West powerhouse” after being selected as Labour’s candidate for Liverpool City Region’s first metro mayor elections next May.

Steve Rotheram, who is Jeremy Corbyn’s parliamentary private secretary, was selected ahead of current Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson and Liverpool Wavertree MP Luciana Berger.

In a speech after his win, Rotheram said he wants to work with Labour’s mayoral candidate in Greater Manchester, Liverpool-born Andy Burnham, to push for greater support for the region.

“The Prime Minister may have backtracked on the idea of a Northern Powerhouse, but with Andy Burnham as the metro mayor of Manchester and me as the metro mayor of the Liverpool city region, it is our intention to create a North West powerhouse,” he said.

Addressing Theresa May directly, he added: “You will now have to turn some of the rhetoric from the steps of Downing Street into the resources that we need in our streets to rebalance the economy.”

His mayoral campaign slogan was “No borough left behind”, stressing the importance of the city region’s five other authorities – Sefton, Knowsley, Wirral, St Helens and Halton.

Rotheram, who spent eight years as a Labour councillor in Liverpool’s Fazakerley ward before being elected to Parliament in 2010, received 2,029 votes in the first round, with Anderson getting 1,641 and Ms Berger 1,202.

After Berger’s votes were transferred to the second choice, Rotheram won 2,670 to 2,042.

Rotheram outlined his plans for the region if elected next year and was eager to send a strong message to Prime Minister Theresa May. He said: “As a new Prime Minister, I am happy to give you the benefit of the doubt. If you’re serious about the issues of social justice, I trust you to put your words into practice.

“You have talked the talk for the people of Liverpool city region, but you now need to walk the walk. We will simply no longer accept being left on the side lines whilst funding is poured into London and the south. Our area has been neglected by your government and we want a fair share of transport, infrastructure and investment.”

The metro mayor will have control over transport and strategic planning as part of a 30 year with Whitehall worth £900m. Elections to decide the new metro mayor for Merseyside and Halton will be held in May 2017.

It is a larger role than the one currently held by Anderson, who was elected as mayor of Liverpool in 2012 and 2016. But Rotheram said that the contest was never meant to be a “referendum” on the performance of Anderson.

He said: “For me, it was always about providing a choice for Labour members and an opportunity to set out our individual visions for this brand new position as a metro mayor.”

“Whether it’s in Walton or Westminster, it is the members that I’ve always listened to and spoken on behalf of, and it is the members today who have spoken. These things are never easy when colleagues go head to head but it was in the main a good spirited contest.”

Meanwhile, Burnham, who was selected as Labour’s candidate in Greater Manchester on Tuesday, said he and Rotheram and “other mayors who come through” needed to create a “distinctive brand of northern Labour”.

He said: “In a way that the party hasn’t done in recent times, it needs to speak very directly to people and represent them properly in terms of the way people think and feel.”

Labour’s dominance in the two regions means Burnham and Rotheram are odds-on to win their mayoral races in May 2017.

The pair will appear together at a press conference next month to call for improved rail links in the North West, which Burnham said would give the public a flavour of how the two politicians would work together.

“I think it’s a shift in the centre of gravity,” he said. “This idea that Westminster is the be all and end all is dysfunctional. I think Labour needs to learn from what happened in Scotland where arguably, after [the inaugural first minister of Scotland] Donald Dewar died, we neglected the development of devolution.”