Will metro mayors save Labour?

When the history of these years of the Labour party is written, there will be a footnote for the year 2017 thanking the former Tory chancellor George Osborne. Next year, some of our largest city regions will be voting for metro mayors, which wouldn’t have happened without the support of the MP for Tatton. Yet the new mayors have the potential to save what’s left of sensible Labour.

Behind Osborne’s championing of metro mayors was the desire to hurt the opposition. They were to be the Conservatives’ way into Labour’s urban heartlands. Much as Boris Johnson had proven in London, with the right candidate, red cities would vote blue. Newly enfranchised Tory voters would rebuild the Conservatives in the old industrial north. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans.

Instead of being Tory Trojan horses, these mayoralties are becoming Labour lifeboats. Freed from the parliamentary party’s struggles, Andy Burnham, Labour’s candidate in Manchester’s mayoral election, will find the city a rejuvenating sanctuary. Similarly, Sadiq Khan is wearing the independence of City Hall like a tailored suit. These mayors aren’t panjandrums; they do, and will, have real influence and power. As Jeremy Corbyn shuffles imaginary pieces of his social movement across the electoral map, Burnham et al could reconnect Labour with its base.

Theresa May shouldn’t be complacent. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the abolition of the Greater London Council (GLC); the institution that made Ken Livingstone a household name (in London, at least) and became so disruptive that Margaret Thatcher reformed it out of existence. From aggressive rates rises to declaring London a nuclear-free zone, Livingstone used this perch to make trouble for the government of the day.

I’m not suggesting that the Labour figures who are likely to become mayors will get up to anything as destructively pointless as the latter years of the GLC, but there will be conflict. In setting out to remake the UK’s economic geography Theresa May cannot afford to get stuck in trench warfare with northern Labour mayors. Her party is ill-equipped to win that battle. Luckily for May, the new mayors will want to prove Labour can still govern, if only to win back those voters who have deserted it for Ukip, rather than pick pointless fights with the government.

“I make no apology for saying politics here needs to change,” said Andy Burnham last week, sounding every inch the actor auditioning for a leading role. Yet, despite the rhetoric, he is a man in exile. Sensible Labour has been exile in for some time, its talent retreating to the backbenches and now beyond.

Exile, in the words of Salman Rushdie, offers the “dream of a glorious return.” Where Labour hasn’t taken devolution seriously it has been punished: Scotland and Wales stand as testament. English devolution has given Labour a chance to come home, but only a chance.