Paul Blomfield, Labour MP for Sheffield Central, is stepping down at the next election. There has been quite a list of applications to be the new Labour candidate, which is no surprise, given the large size of the Labour majority. Blomfield won the seat in 2019 by 27,273 votes on a turnout of 57%.
Sheffield Central has not always been a safe seat. When Blomfield first stood in 2010, after Richard Caborn stood down (Caborn’s majority in 1997 was 16,906, on a turnout of 53%), he won narrowly with a majority of 165 (yes only 165!) on a turnout of 60%. His opponent then was Liberal Democrat Paul Scriven who had been leader of the Council when the Lib Dems gained power for a short period.
But since then, Blomfield has built a very substantial majority, no doubt based on Sheffield’s Labour traditions and the performance of the Conservative government, but also because he is credited with being a hard-working, responsive, committed politician who has served his constituents well. He will be a hard act to follow.
The Sheffield Central Labour long list
The current long list consists of six candidates, two of whom are well known and respected Sheffield city councillors: Abtisam Mohamed and Jayne Dunn. Two are national figures: comedian Eddie Izzard and political/economic journalist Paul Mason. Then there is Mike Buckley, who chairs ‘Sheffield for Europe’ and is the Labour campaign coordinator in the Sheffield Central constituency. Finally, dentist Rizwana Laia is an ex-clinical lecturer at Sheffield University and experienced in climate-related issues in integrated care.
The shortlist of approved candidates will be sent to local Labour Party members to vote for their preferences on 14 November.
Cllr Abtisam Mohamed
As someone who is involved in observing and commenting on how the city council operates, I had been aware for some time of the contribution Cllr Mohamed had made. She represents Firth Park Ward and is widely regarded as one of the main contenders in this selection process.
I was interested to discuss with her how she felt about (potentially) following that hard act of Blomfield’s. It was the first time we had sat down together for discussion; she was friendly and responsive, and we were soon on first name terms. “I am always ready to face a challenge, and especially if I know I have the support to do so”, she told me. And it became clear to me that this is a theme that emerges strongly from her life story.
She came to the UK from Yemen as a small child in 1982 with her mother and sister.They lived in Rotherham and then moved to Sheffield, to join her steel worker father, who had arrived in the 70s. (He, in turn, followed her grandfather, who had worked in Sheffield’s steel industry since the 60s).
She was the second oldest of eight children. Hers was a very traditional, conservative family, which did not give women and girls much power or influence: they were supposed to know their place. But in her teenage years, she wanted to do what her friends were doing and so rebelled against this. She realised where the constraints were and pushed against them. Her parents feared for this independent daughter, so it was not always an easy childhood; but that rebelliousness would come to define her approach to politics.
Abtisam did not do well at school, gaining just four GCSEs at her understaffed local secondary, Earl Marshall. Two of these GCSEs were in English, a success she puts down to her inspiring teacher.
Lawyer and activist
It was only as an adult that (after a period back in Yemen) Abtisam achieved sufficient qualifications to become a teacher and later a lawyer. She initially became a community worker, wanting to help people. She worked with a group of local women, listening to them, finding ways to address their concerns, learning to identify community needs, and to find ways of reaching out to people and working with them to make progress. She enjoyed it: going to work, she says, was easy! Her later community work included developing youth activities, creating a study support project, mental health support sessions, social groups for older people, and a healthy living centre.
She now earns her living working as a solicitor. After she qualified in law, she and a colleague established their own solicitors’ practice, working with vulnerable people; they now also have two case workers.
Abtisam saw people with a range of needs in her work, but initially continued to concentrate on her legal practice. It was when it became clear that the austerity policies of the Conservative Party (elected in 2010) impacted negatively on the communities she worked in that she turned her attention to politics.
The coalition years and Sheffield City Council
That post-2010 government was the coalition between the Conservatives, and the Liberal Democrats led by Nick Clegg, then MP for Sheffield Hallam (2005–2017). As well as austerity, it brought in changes to the education sector, and to health and social care, and privatised some public services. It became obvious to Abtisam that to protect those communities, there had to be a political struggle: she joined Labour in 2010.
Party membership became activism when the cuts started to affect the local libraries, youth centres, nurseries, and a study support centre. She became part of a group of local people campaigning against cuts in their area. They were in the town hall every week, attending meetings, asking questions, challenging council structures.
Then a senior councillor approached her and asked whether she would join the council – and she did, becoming acouncillor in 2016. She has found that even when times are hard, it is still possible to make choices; and she wanted people’s voices to be heard.
She has recently been involved in education policies in the Council, taking responsibility for that in the cabinet of 2019–2021. When the cabinet system came to an end in 2021, she joined the leadership team and has worked recently on two areas: youth services, and race equality.
Cllr Mohamed and I both remembered how important youth clubs were to us in our youth, and so how tragic is their stripping –and the short-sightedness it demonstrates towards constructive social opportunities for young people.
The Sheffield Race Equality Commission was set up in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, to take a serious look at the local situation. It appointed 25 commissioners and worked over two years. When the report was launched in July this year, Cllr Mohamed spoke on ‘next steps’ and chaired part of the session, and has assisted in setting up a legacy group, to examine progress on the recommendations.
An additional project has been to write a bid for £200,000 from the Economic Regeneration fund, for activities in her own ward, which would bring local people and businesses together. It was successful, and now they are working on bringing it to fruition.
Priorities in parliament
She tells me that her priority as an MP would be to challenge and reduce the inequalities that face people in our country: real levelling up, through investment. The European funding that has been lost has not been replaced and this means that cities like Sheffield have been left behind.
Abtisam would put serving her constituents, responding to their needs, at the top of her list. She would want to find ways of working with people from as wide a range of political perspectives as possible in order to do so.
Education must be a priority: it changed her life. But investment in education has been shrinking: what the government claims to do and what actually happens are very different.
Of course, the climate crisis is the biggest issue for the world, and Abtisam especially likes MP Rachel Reeves’ proposal that every decision of government must take into account how it affects the climate.
Abtisam knows that the challenge provided by the current government is huge. It has damaged, sometimes destroyed services. Parks, youth services, libraries: these are local things that really matter to people, and have suffered. The ‘hostile environment’ means that people are scapegoated, and support systems reduced; migration is described as an ‘invasion’, appealing to right-wing Conservative supporters.
She understands that our political systems need attention: an unelected second chamber is not acceptable, and a change is needed in a voting system which delivers a huge majority for a party that has gained less than half the votes overall. She voted at her constituency meeting for the party to support proportional representation.
And for her, most importantly, we need more powers for local authorities, and more say in their funding, so they can deliver the services their communities need.
Could Abtisam become Sheffield’s first ethnic minority MP?
Both Abtisam and I agreed that Brexit and Covid have had significant effects on our society and how people live their lives, and in their behaviour: has social media, to take one example, become a route for more disrespect? It seems that that under the Johnson regime, and influenced by his personal approach, there was an implicit acceptance of bad behaviour. Certainly, in this selection process there have been hate messages: misogynistic, racist, trans-phobic: do people feel freer to express such attitudes when they are not there in person, but on-line?
A source of pleasure in Abtisam’s life has been the positive recognition by her family of the role she plays both within the family and the communities she is part of: very different from how they viewed the rebellious nature of her childhood and teenage years! They have heard local people speak of how she has helped them and became the person who sorted things out, so they are proud of the work she now does in the community, and also how she sorts things out for the family. Will they have the chance to see her stand as an MP?
And will the rest of us see an MP from a community that has played such a role in Sheffield’s industrial life, and our first ethnic minority MP?
We will shortly see whether that is a possibility.
