Oldham Council leader set to return despite local elections setback

While confidence around Cllr Arooj Shah's leadership has waivered in recent months, typified by a vote of no confidence by the Conservatives, the ruling Labour party have unanimously got behind her.

The decision came at Oldham Labour's annual general meeting (AGM) last night, Tuesday, and while it does not have a direct effect on the council - it suggests that she will be backed to take control of the authority when members nominate a leader at the council AGM on May 22.

One Labour councillor, who explained that he wished to withhold his name as the party is sensitive about its members talking to the press after defeat on Thursday (May 3), told The Oldham Times why Cllr Shah was the right person for the job.

Jim McMahon MP and Cllr Arooj Shah at the local elections last week (Image: Newsquest)

He said: "She was voted in unanimously, everybody is fully behind her - including myself, we've got confidence in Arooj.

"I think the way she has ran the administration and has done it for the benefit of the residents, she's got a very clear vision and we just need to deliver on that vision, and we need to deliver more of the town centre plans.

"It's very fair to say everybody is happy, obviously we lost some very good colleagues and we are sad about that but there are factors that are out of our control - I don't think there's anything Arooj could've done different.

"In some of the seats we lost it wouldn't have mattered what they did, they would've lost it - in Coldhurst we lost a very, very good candidate."

The civic centre was restless during this month's local elections, as counting went on into the early hours of the morning (Image: Newsquest)

After five years on the council, Ruji Sapna Surjan lost her seat to independent Cllr Montaz Ali Azad by 975 votes - the same candidate she had initially beaten by 331 votes to get onto the authority in 2019.

At one point, before the 2021 local elections, Labour made up three quarters of the council but after a bashing at the polling stations last week, the group hold just 27 seats.

The party lost a staggering six seats in Failsworth West, Waterhead, Alexandra, Royton South, Coldhurst, St Mary's, and only gained two in Failsworth East and Hollinwood - and it came at a time when nationally Labour gained 186 seats.

Speaking about the local elections, the Labour councillor said: "The result, let's be honest, isn't the result we wanted but factors like Gaza and some of the negativity going around is what affected the result.

Werneth ward Cllrs Nyla Ibrahim and Shoab Akhtar defected from the party last month over its stance on Gaza (Image: Oldham Council)

"As you can appreciate, with Gaza we don't have much control over that. We have spoken out about it, we have called for an immediate ceasefire and the hostages held by Hamas to be released.

"People are linking the international issues with local politics and they wanted to get a message across, it's understandable but disappointing for us."

Just weeks before the elections, Werneth ward councillors Nyla Ibrahim and Shoab Akhtar defected from the party over its stance on Gaza, which at the time had brought Labour's majority on the council to just one.

Their moves to become independents reflected positively for Cllr Ibrahim who reclaimed her seat in the ward this month - which due to the late announcement, was unchallenged by Labour.

Oldham Labour has been contacted for comment.