By actually listening to local people, a Majority candidate beat Labour in a North East council election

Amid the ongoing preparations for a new left party, former North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll has been busy empowering people in the North East and beyond via local party Majority. And one Majority council candidate Karen Weech even got more votes than Labour, despite being new to electoral politics. The Canary spoke to her to find out more.

‘No one had ever knocked on their doors before’ says Majority candidate

Karen Weech described her motivation for running under Majority in the Rothbury ward of Northumberland County Council, saying:

I’m sitting shouting at the telly. I’m scared and I’m frightened and I’m angry with the way things are. And I want to affect change and I want to make a difference. So I got involved in Majority and they very much supported me every step of the way.

She lives in the area, though she grew up elsewhere. And she dove into the process of getting to know local people better. This came partly via a community assembly. There, she said, people worked together to develop a charter of local priorities, “and that’s what I based my campaign on”.

This was a new experience for most people, because politicians hadn’t really listened to them before. As Weech explained:

it was the first time people had been asked what their opinion was, what their thoughts were. I had people saying ‘no one’s ever knocked on my door before’.

And this, she stressed, is part of “the growing concern and frustration with the traditional party politics” which “just doesn’t serve them at all”.

The fact that her campaign did things differently generated “a real energy”, because people finally had a chance to talk about the issues and for their voices to count.

Ignored, abandoned, and seeking change

Weech and Majority didn’t win the election. But she received as many votes as the Labour Party and Green Party combined. Incumbent councillor Steven Bridgett stood as a Liberal Democrat in 2008 and 2013, and then as an independent after the Lib Dems‘ disastrous national coalition with the Tories made their brand toxic. But 2025 saw his lowest number of votes since he assumed the role. In the villages surrounding Rothbury, Weech said, many people “don’t feel like they have a voice” and think Bridgett “doesn’t really support people in the villages”:

They felt that their villages were abandoned and… their issues weren’t addressed.

People also claimed Bridgett has created a divisive “them and us” environment where he “cuts people out all the time if they don’t agree with his point of view”.

Majority, on the other hand, focuses a lot of energy on listening to people and empowering them. It’s not a group of career politicians, either. As Weech insisted:

It’s people like me who’ve never considered being part of a political system.

And Majority has given people like her:

an opportunity and support and guidance and inspiration and empowerment and training to be able to do a really good job on the local basis.

This is exactly the kind of work the left needs to be doing going forwards. And Majority is already laying strong foundations for the local elections in the North East next year: