The longlist of candidates that want to be Sheffield Central’s MP when Paul Blomfield retires at the next General Election – whenever that may be, is an interesting and diverse one. This week, one of those candidates Mike Buckley cycled to a café on Ecclesall Road to buy me a coffee and tell me why he should be elected.
Mike grew up in the Woodhouse area of the city, where his mum was a school teacher and his dad was a vicar. He told me, “My dad’s not around anymore – mum still is, but I just remember them both being a force for good. Mum’s a little old lady now, and she still goes and visits other little old ladies who are sick or in hospital or she’s making a cake for someone. It’s just how can I make the world around me a better place? That’s be kind to people who are in distress or be a friend to people in need. They were my example and that’s how I choose to live as well.”
After studying International Politics at Birmingham University, Mike started work as an aid worker. He explained, “Through friends of friends, I got offered my first job in Lebanon, working for a small charity who were just starting up. I worked there for a couple of years and fell in love with the country and the language, but I really fell in love with being active and able to make a difference to people’s lives.”
Mike later was able to work for larger organisations such as Christian Aid. He worked in and around Baghdad, and in Asia just after the tsunami. He said, “Literally the whole community was nothing, It was a massive privilege being in those areas that were devastated and very dependent on what we brought. I don’t think about it often but when I do I’m proud of that. Of course, it wasn’t all my work, but I’m very proud and very humbled that I had the opportunity to do that. I’m genuinely grateful.”
He says, the system that almost always makes wealthy people wealthier, in the UK and globally, is the issue and the solution to all that is better politics. He told me, “I did a lot of work in Syria (before the conflicts of the last decade) and Georgia. Georgia has no more natural resources than Syria, they are basically the same in terms of what they’ve got but what Georgia has, that Syria doesn’t, is a good, well-intentioned government that cares about its citizens. Georgia is a well-run country and incredibly prosperous compared to Syria, it’s peaceful. It’s not perfect, but they get a hell of a lot right. So I was aware then and I am now of just how important good governments are.” As a Labour candidate, Mike is keen to point out that, ”12 years ago when Labour left office, we had the highest NHS satisfaction ratings in its existence, now I don’t know the figures – but it must be awful because people can’t get a GP appointment, ambulances are not turning up on time because they have to wait for ages to drop people off at A&E.”
Mike returned to the UK in 2010 and got involved in politics because he believed that was his route to having an impact in the UK. In the last decade, he has worked with refugee migration centres, fighting for rights for asylum seekers and refugees, “Particularly to try and force the Cameron government, as they did, to allow refugees into the country.”
Mike has also worked with the Labour party on the Living wage drive, as well as working on the campaign against payday loans, Mike described these loans as giving mini loans to people at the bottom of the pile, with exorbitant interest rates which basically tied people into debt that was unsustainable. He said, “It was evil. We won on that and got George Osbourn to make that illegal.”
Mr Buckley has also campaigned locally to get Labour people elected here in Sheffield and across the country, and also worked on Andy Burnham’s leadership campaign in 2015. He is still a big supporter of Burnham and says “At times I wonder what the world would have looked like if Andy had won that election. He and Sadiq (Mayor of London) are great examples of different kind of politician. They say how can I use my role to make people’s lives better, I can’t say that the same can be said for any of the Conservative Prime Ministers we’ve had in the last 12 years.”
Over the last 5 years, Mike has worked almost non-stop on Brexit. He explains, “I believe in people working together at a grassroots level, at a national level and at a European level. I believe in collaboration and that we achieve more when we work together. We are a lot poorer because we’ve got the hard Brexit deal that we’ve got. You don’t see it because of course you can’t imagine the hypothetical where things are better. the hypothetical is Sheffield is thriving, there are more new businesses, there’s more building, more housing, more jobs, more taxpayers and more money for public services. There’s a lot in that hypothetical timeline that would be better, but we’re not there and I want to do something about that.” He added, “One of the ways I describe the impact of Brexit is this year we’ve all been talking about Russia’s war with Ukraine, and the western world has been putting sanctions on Russia; Sanctions ultimately, on their ability to trade, to make it harder for them to run their economy. Brexit is like putting sanctions on yourself. Normal countries don’t do stuff like this.
If we want our country to thrive, we’ve got to turn that around. Most importantly, are we going to be able to make the big changes we need to see to make our country fairer and more equal, to take on climate change and to get the public services we want. A significant majority probably recognise now that things haven’t worked out. We are saying we want a closer relationship with Europe. That’s not the same as saying we want another referendum, people don’t want that, and we’re not campaigning for that. What we are doing is looking at where we are and asking the question, is this where we want to stay? And if not, what do we want?”
If Mike is elected, he has pledged to make himself accessible, visiting not only constituency meetings but holding quarterly question times, where members of the public- not just Labour party members can go along and ask questions. He also plans to be on Radio Sheffield as often as possible so those that can’t go and ask him a question can at least hear someone else hold him to account. He insisted, “I want to make myself available. The only way people will trust me is if they can interact with me, or at least hear me interact with someone else on the radio.”
You can read the full article here – https://jasonholyhead71blog.wordpress.com/2022/11/01/sheffield-central-candidate-mike-buckley-long-read/
Jason Holyhead 