Jamie Driscoll joins Green Party as former Labour mayor hits out

Former Labour mayor Jamie Driscoll has joined the Green Party.

Driscoll, who served five years as the elected North of Tyne mayor, described Britain as “a mess” and said the party, led by Zack Polanski, was “serious about running our country in the long-term interests of all our people”.

Originally elected mayor for Labour in 2019, he quit the party and ran as an independent in the 2024 North East mayoral election in which he finished second to Kim McGuinness, having raised more than £150,000 in donations for his campaign.

Polanski said: “This is another example of the Green surge sweeping across the country.”

The Greens won their first seats on Newcastle City Council last year and currently have four councillors.

Driscoll, a former Newcastle councillor, had previously set up his own party, Majority, and spoke of his desire for a “progressive alliance” to become a force in the city.

He previously told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that he planned to stand for Majority in his former Monument ward seat at 2026’s “all-out” elections.

Newcastle City Council is currently under no overall control, with Labour being the biggest party.

Driscoll said British politics “is a mess and it’s not the fault of immigrants”.

“Our economy isn’t working for workers, it isn’t working for small businesses,” he said.

“I’m joining the Green Party because I see an organisation that’s serious about running our country in the long-term interests of all our people.”

Polanski added: “Jamie is a well-known political figure with a proven track record of delivering real change to people’s lives.”

Driscoll has also been embroiled recently in the controversy surrounding Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s left-wing Your Party movement.

He was one of the directors of a company which held more than £800,000 of supporters’ donations that Sultana was previously accused of withholding.

Driscoll and the other two directors of MoU Operations Ltd resigned in October, saying they had “behaved with integrity” while accusing the party of “factually incorrect claims”.