Hull & East Yorkshire Socialist Alliance

(HEYSA)

Hull and East Yorkshire Socialist Alliance was launched in the Summer/Autumn of 2000. It is an independent local organisation and not a branch of any national body - although it may affiliate, on a voluntary basis, to national bodies and may co-operate with like-minded groups in other areas.

It consists of individual members and affiliated organisations - with a structure deliberately designed to avoid the possibility of domination by any one organised group. For a copy of the constitution, or information about forthcoming activities, click on one of the links at the bottom of this page, or e-mail heysa@bigfoot.com

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THE AREA AND ITS POLITICS

Hull is an old industrial and maritime city of approximately 250,000 people and a major port - where the river Hull flows into the Humber estuary. It is a city in long-term economic decline, with a falling population and a statistical profile which places it at or near the bottom of most league tables - whether for educational achievement, household income or quality of life. It does however, score highly in the fields of teenage pregnancy, obesity, poor health and car-crime. Its' political culture is equally sickly, with some of the lowest election turnouts in the UK - especially on the sprawling Council estates which make up a very large part of the city.

Despite these problems (shared with many other northern towns and cities), Hull does have some attactions and can be a pleasant and interesting place to live and work. There is an alternative political and cultural life in the city if you look for it and the delights of the Yorkshire countryside and coast are not far away.
Hull sits in the midst of the largely rural County of East Yorkshire. Other East Yorkshire towns include Beverley, Bridlington, Hornsea, Withernsea, Driffield and Market Weighton. The small river port of Goole (traditionally in the West Riding) marks the western edge of the new East Riding of Yorkshire administrative area.

Hull was dominated for decades by an old style Labour Party - largely moribund and run by cliques of long-serving party members who had little or no ambition to change things. This has changed somewhat in recent years and a younger and cleverer (or more devious) leadership has emerged. However. most Labour Councillors are still in the old mould and the internal divisions within the ruling Labour Group are every bit as bitter as those between the rival parties.

A position in the Council's new style "Cabinet" (which attracts a salary) is still all that most City Council members aspire to. While the newer and younger apparatchiks may have some leading positions, the old reactionary and paternalistic Labour Party traditions are still strong. However, the success of the Liberals (who ran a short-lived minority administration in co-operation with some unprincipled "independents"  in 2002-3) in recent years means there is now an ever present threat to continued Labour Party control of the Council. The more unsavoury features of a huge Labour majority with little opposition or genuine accountability (which were all too evident a few years ago) are less obvious now - though probably not entirely eradicated.
Two small groups, led by former Labour Councillors, have broken from the Labour Party in recent years (calling themselves independent) but neither appears to be based on principled socialist objections to Labour Party or City Council policies and one (led by former leaders of the now abolished Humberside County Council) has burned its bridges with the left by exploiting hostility to asylum seekers to chase racist votes in the local elections.
In the rest of East Yorkshire there is a mix of vicious county-type tories (those who remember Rick Mayall's New Statesman character may be interested to know that Haltemprice is a real place in East Yorkshire with a real Conservative Association) and some Labour Party strongholds (Goole for example). The East Riding Council is generally hung with no overall control these days but in practice there is very little difference from the old Labour Adminsistration in the previous Humberside County Council, which included North Lincolnshire and the industrial towns of Scunthorpe and Grimsby as well as Hull.

Hull has three MPs - all Labour with large majorities - two of whom are ministers. However, loyalty to the Labour Party is shallow and the Liberals have made serious inroads into Labour Party support in Hull. It is not impossible that this will translate into a serious challenge to the Labour MPs at the next General election (although the election after that is more likely). 

The Socialist Alliance candidate in Hull North in the 2001 election gained about 1.7% of the vote (in line with Socialist Alliance performance across the UK), despite running a more active and vigorous campaign than the Labour victor. This constitiuency will have a new Labour candidate in the next election (chosen from a depressingly bland bunch of women-only careerists) and remains the most likely scene for a left-wing challenge in the city.


To contact HEYSA e-mail:
heysa@bigfoot.com

Follow the links below for information about forthcoming HEYSA events and activities or for a copy of the HEYSA constitution.

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