VOTERS across Sandwell will be going to the polls for a second time this year following the announcement that a general election will be held in July.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made a surprise announcement on Wednesday (May 22) that a general election will be held on Thursday, July 4 this year – ending months of speculation.
July’s election will be the first to use Sandwell’s new constituency boundaries after they were redrawn following a review.
The four new seats in Sandwell are West Bromwich, Tipton and Wednesbury, Smethwick and Halesowen.
West Bromwich West has been renamed ‘Tipton and Wednesbury’ with West Bromwich East now becoming the new ‘West Bromwich’ seat.
Warley becomes ‘Smethwick’ with Halesowen and Rowley Regis, which includes some parts of Sandwell, redistributed to neighbouring constituencies and renamed ‘Halesowen.’
At the last general election in 2019, Nicola Richards and Shaun Bailey picked up historic wins in the borough becoming the first Conservative MPs in history to be elected in West Bromwich.
Shaun Bailey will be standing for the Conservatives again this time around but Nicola Richards has already said she will not be standing for re-election in West Bromwich.
Halesowen
The candidates in Halesowen so far have been confirmed as Emma Bullard for the Green Party, Alex Ballinger for Labour and Ryan Priest for the Lib Dems.
Conservative MP James Morris will be standing for re-election.
Smethwick
The only details revealed so far are that Labour’s current Warley MP John Spellar, who has held the seat since 1992, will be standing again on July 4 in a bid to be re-elected.
Rod Macrorie is the Green candidate.
The former Tory Sandwell councillor Jay Anandou, who stepped down from the party last year, will be standing as an independent candidate.
The old Warley constituency – which is made up of the Abbey, Bristnall, Langley, Old Warley, Smethwick, Soho and Victoria and St Pauls wards in Sandwell – forms the new ‘Smethwick’ seat.
A small part of the Blackheath ward will move into the new ‘Halesowen’ seat.
Tipton and Wednesbury
West Bromwich West MP Shaun Bailey, who in 2019 was the first Conservative to ever win the seat, will be standing for re-election.
A near 12 per cent swing from Labour to Tory saw Mr Bailey win with 17,419 votes – just over half of the vote and 3,799 votes ahead of Labour.
The Green Party has confirmed Mark Redding will be its candidate in Tipton and Wednesbury.
Nominations to be Labour’s parliamentary candidate in the new Tipton and Wednesbury seat close on Monday, May 27 with interviews expected to be carried out during the week.
Jatinder Hayre has already put himself forward to be Labour candidate with Lambeth councillor Martin Bailey and former West Midlands assistant police and crime commissioner Tom McNeil also rumoured to be in the running.
Former Sandwell Labour councillor Mohammed Yaseen Hussain, known as Billa, will be standing as an independent.
Mr Hussain was suspended from the Labour Party in 2020 after photos emerged of him breaking social distancing rules during the Covid-19 pandemic – just days before he was announced as chair of a task force investigating BAME coronavirus deaths.
Abdul Husen is the Workers Party of Britain candidate and Jack Sabharwal will be standing for Reform in Tipton and Wednesbury.
The old West Bromwich West seat has been divided up with Great Bridge, Princes End, Tipton Green, Wednesbury North and Wednesbury South forming the new Tipton and Wednesbury boundary.
Friar Park and Hateley Heath move from West Bromwich East to help form the new Tipton and Wednesbury seat. The new Tipton and Wednesbury seat also includes the Coseley East ward – which is part of the Dudley borough and not Sandwell.
West Bromwich
West Bromwich East MP Nicola Richards picked up a historic win for the Tories in 2019 and was the other Conservative in West Bromwich, alongside Shaun Bailey, to pick up first-time wins in the two Labour strongholds.
However, Ms Richards has already announced she will not be standing for re-election in West Bromwich and is looking elsewhere in the West Midlands for a potential new parliamentary home.
Labour parliamentary candidate Sarah Coombes will be battling to retrieve the seat from the Tories in West Bromwich in what will be seen as a must-win if the party has any hope of winning nationally.
The newly renamed seat, which was previously West Bromwich East, was coincidentally the home of former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson for 18 years, for whom Ms Coombes worked as a political adviser.
She will be up against Conservative candidate Will Goodhand, who failed to win in Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland in 2015.
Ex-Labour election co-ordinator Mohammed Yasin will be standing as an independent.
Rohim Mohammed will be standing to represent the Workers Party of Britain, led by George Galloway who himself finished sixth with just 489 votes in West Bromwich East in 2019, and Ray Nock is the Reform candidate in West Bromwich.
Gita Joshi will be standing for the Green Party.
The current council wards of Charlemont with Grove Vale, Great Barr with Yew Tree, Greets Green and Lyng, Newton and West Bromwich Central – which make up the West Bromwich East seat – all remain in the new West Bromwich boundary and are joined by Oldbury from West Bromwich West.
Tividale moves to Tipton and Wednesbury and Rowley moves to the new West Bromwich seat.
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