{"id":540716,"date":"2026-04-20T08:23:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T08:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/540716\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T08:23:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T08:23:14","slug":"the-uks-radical-preston-model-faces-an-uncertain-future-with-local-elections-looming-andy-beckett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/540716\/","title":{"rendered":"The UK\u2019s radical \u2018Preston model\u2019 faces an uncertain future with local elections looming | Andy Beckett"},"content":{"rendered":"

What legacy will Labour leave when it loses power? For its ministers and MPs, that question looms in the far distance, with the next general election probably not for three years and the current political fragmentation making its outcome almost impossible to predict. But for many Labour councils, facing the electorate<\/a> in less than three weeks with the party catastrophically low in the polls, now is a time for desperate campaigning mixed with private contemplation of a bleaker, quite possibly powerless future.<\/p>\n

Energetic and effective Labour councils may meet the same fate as complacent and mediocre ones, as local elections often follow national trends. The last time an unpopular, midterm Labour government faced such ominous local contests may have been many decades ago, in 1968<\/a>. Then the party lost more than three-quarters<\/a> of its councils in London alone, including traditional strongholds such as Hackney, Islington and Camden. Across Britain today, Labour activists and councillors are talking to each other in anxious mutters about a national wipeout happening again.<\/p>\n

One of the Labour<\/a> councils that may be swept away is arguably the most innovative in the country. In its efforts to push through radical reforms, sell them to the electorate and embed them in society \u2013 so that at least some will endure if it loses office \u2013 the limits and also surprisingly large possibilities of the supposedly dusty, diminished business of local government have been vividly apparent. And so has the inconsistency of the national Labour party towards new ideas that might revive it.<\/p>\n

For more than a decade, the small hilltop city of Preston<\/a> in Lancashire has been the site of a leftwing experiment in taking back control. Its council has redirected much of its spending towards local companies, persuaded businesses to pay higher wages and promote diversity, collaborated closely with local public sector institutions and encouraged cooperatives and other collective enterprises that empower residents. It has sought to turn a rundown, ex-industrial place previously dominated by outside corporate interests \u2013 the kind of place found across Britain \u2013 into a more self-reliant, dynamic, democratic and equal city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Preston model\u201d, as it\u2019s reverently known in leftwing and municipal government circles, has attracted attention around the world. In 2023, the medical journal the Lancet found that<\/a> after the introduction of the council\u2019s policies, \u201cthe prescribing of antidepressants and prevalence of depression decreased\u201d in Preston, and residents \u201cexperienced a 9% improvement in life satisfaction and 11% increase in median wages \u2026 relative to expected trends [in] other similar areas\u201d.<\/p>\n

The centre of Preston, Lancashire. Photograph: Oli Scarff\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

When I visited the city in 2019 and again last week, its central streets were more bustling, with more independent businesses and better maintained public buildings and outdoor spaces, than in many comparable places. Last Monday, the council leader since 2018, Matthew Brown<\/a>, took me to some of the many enterprises his administration had supported or initiated: a cooperatively run yoga studio, a new council-owned cinema and \u201cthe only cooperatively managed Travellers\u2019 site in the country\u201d. Preston still has problems such as concentrations of poverty and vacant, decaying buildings, but it also has prospects.<\/p>\n

Yet the council\u2019s achievements have not insulated it from Labour\u2019s wider difficulties. In 2018, during Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s leadership \u2013 which loudly supported the Preston experiment \u2013 Labour held 35 of the city\u2019s then 57 council seats<\/a>. Now it holds only 26 out of 48, giving it a majority of just four, and next month may lose seats to the Liberal Democrats, Reform, the Conservatives or the Greens. Were Reform to capture the council (last year it took Lancashire county council from Labour), the Preston model might quickly unravel. \u201cI think very little of it would survive,\u201d Brown told me. \u201cOr a lot of it would move to the grassroots level\u201d \u2013 to community organisations enacting social change by themselves, without the council\u2019s help.<\/p>\n

Before the May elections, the council has hurried through funding assistance for a new ethical bank, North West Mutual<\/a>, which from 2027 plans to provide accounts and loans specifically to individuals and businesses in the region, and to have a much more equal pay structure than other banks. Like many of the council\u2019s projects, amid the restless flows and vehicles of global capitalism, the bank\u2019s localism can sound old-fashioned. But global capitalism isn\u2019t working well for most people in Preston or the wider world. And the bank is influenced by long-established, more patient business institutions, such as Germany\u2019s regional banks. With rightwing populism surging in places with dying high streets and disappearing local pride, the Preston model seemingly offers a way to reverse all these trends.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been inspired by Preston, and everything that Matthew Brown has done,\u201d says Andy Burnham<\/a>, mayor of Greater Manchester. Yet since the end of Corbyn\u2019s leadership, the interest in it from Labour nationally has been minimal. Under Keir Starmer, the party has generally been incurious, and often outright hostile, towards promising new policies and ideas from the left \u2013 despite the absence of them from the Labour right and the party\u2019s urgent need for fresh approaches.<\/p>\n

Some of this attitude can be explained by Starmer\u2019s scorched-earth approach to anything associated with Corbyn\u2019s tenure, but the problem goes deeper. Historically, the centralising, often conservative Labour hierarchy has often been suspicious of Labour people doing bold things in local government. During the 1980s, when the national party was struggling against a dominant Margaret Thatcher, it nevertheless remained cool towards the relatively popular, Labour-run Greater London Council (GLC), which was reshaping the capital\u2019s infrastructure, social attitudes and sense of itself in radical and lasting ways. One of the GLC\u2019s key figures was Valerie Wise<\/a>, who chaired its strongly feminist women\u2019s committee. She is now an important member of Brown\u2019s administration in Preston. \u201cI only came on board because it\u2019s radical,\u201d she told me.<\/p>\n

No political project lasts for ever, though, and radical ones often last less time than others. \u201cI\u2019m quite philosophical about this coming to an end,\u201d Brown said. Eight years leading a reforming council is unusual \u2013 and exhausting.<\/p>\n

But then he went back into his usual upbeat mode. There was so much more for the council to do, he said. \u201cWe\u2019re fighting to win.\u201d With the electorate so split, surprising Labour councils may survive May\u2019s elections. Or, as with the GLC, which Thatcher abolished in 1986<\/a>, some of their people, policies and ideas may carry on in new ways. The problem with cities, from a conservative point of view, is that they don\u2019t stand still.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What legacy will Labour leave when it loses power? For its ministers and MPs, that question looms in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-540716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}