Candidates vie for votes amid the chaos left after curious case of the missing MP
WHEN LABOUR took the seat of Sheffield Hallam from the thenLiberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg in 2017, it was one of the biggest shocks of the night.
But the ensuing chaos brought on the constituency by Jared O’Mara, Momentum’s first MP, has damaged Labour’s reputation potentially beyond repair, and if the polls are to be believed, Jo Swinson’s party are set to take the seat back.
Lib Dem candidate Laura Gordon – who has been taking her one-year-old daughter out on the campaign trail this week – is currently ahead in the polls, and in the large village of Dore, by the River Sheaf, orange square placards proclaiming “Liberal Democrats winning here” line the leafy streets.
“I’ve been calling it Schrödinger’s election and Schrödinger’s by-election,” Ms Gordon joked in reference to the famous thought experiment involving a cat which is simultaneously alive and dead, as she explained the scandal with Mr O’Mara started when she was halfway through being selected as the Lib Dem candidate.
“It’s been pretty full-on since then,” she said.
Mr O’Mara, who has rarely been seen in public in recent months, announced this summer that he would be quitting as an MP before changing his mind.
And Ms Gordon has been picking up casework he should have been taking on.
“Not as much as I would’ve liked,” she said. “People come to me and it’s been really hard because if you’re not an MP, you don’t have access to the same resources. It feels though I’ve been letting people down.
“Jared has to take a lot of the blame, he chose to put himself forward and since then he’s chosen not to do the job. Having said that, he’s obviously an acutely vulnerable individual who has been put into this position.”
But Ms Gordon said the saga had “corroded trust” in politicians, at a time when they were already suffering from low levels of confidence. And it is not just Mr O’Mara who has damaged Labour’s reputation in Sheffield Hallam, it is also the Labour-run city council, which prompted mass protests against its controversial policy of felling thousands of street trees as part of a £2.2bn PFI contract.
“I think there’s a sense of being let down by Labour,” Ms Gordon said. “It’s not just about the trees, it’s about the way the council engaged with the protesters, they arrested people, it was ridiculous.”
But asked whether she was confident of a Lib Dem win, she cautiously added: “You can never underestimate the Labour Party, they have a strong vote.”
The test for Labour in Sheffield Hallam will be whether voters are happy to put aside the betrayal they felt at the hands of Mr O’Mara and put their trust in candidate Olivia Blake, a former Sheffield City Council deputy leader, or the national party.
Coun Blake, who knows the city well through her post as a councillor and is the daughter of Leeds City Council’s leader Judith Blake, said it was time to move on and she wanted to show constituents that Mr O’Mara did not reflect the wider party.
She said: “This is the main reason I wanted to stand, I felt I could do a good job at representing people, I know what it means to be a good, hardworking representative and to put things right that are wrong.”
While Coun Blake said Mr O’Mara should have resigned when he said he would, she felt the Lib Dems had taken advantage of his poor mental health.
She added: “I’m very concerned about the way people are treated, there is a point on being responsible and I do think the Lib Dems on some of their leaflets have pushed that. This is a man who has openly said he tried to take his own life.”
She added: “I certainly don’t believe in negative campaigning.”
The Yorkshire Post visited Mr O’Mara’s last registered office address, but was told he no longer used the space.
Coun Blake will be focusing on issues around public services, climate change, and Brexit in her election pitch. She said: “I want to listen to what (constituents’) issues are and try to understand where they are coming from. It’s about understanding local issues and making sure we are taking them on.”
Rhi Storer, a masters student at the University of Sheffield, will vote for Coun Blake, but admitted Mr O’Mara had damaged the party she supported.
She said: “I’m a Labour supporter and coming to study here I can tell constituents are really frustrated they have not had any representation.”
Greg Ford, 27, considered himself a floating voter, and although he had previously been registered in Rother Valley, finding a new home in Sheffield meant he felt his vote counted more. He said: “I think my vote could make a difference this way around. (Jared O’Mara) should not have been allowed to stand in the first place, I don’t he was a fit and proper person to run.”