Former Labour and independent North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll, is seeking to return to Monument as a Green Party councillor in the 2026 Newcastle City Council elections. He previously represented the ward in 2018 as a Labour councillor before his election as North of Tyne Mayor.
Jamie is hoping to be part of a Green Party controlled council, describing the contest as a “fight between the Greens and Reform”.
Goals for Monument and Newcastle
Community wealth building is a serious and immediate priority for Jamie Driscoll. Citing the lack of places people can meet where it won’t cost people lots of money, Jamie stresses the importance of the support of community businesses in helping with this.
Housing is another major issue for Jamie, not just in Monument but across the whole of Newcastle. The ward has a population with an average age of 29, with only 4% who are of retirement age. Around 80% of Monument’s population are renters. As a result, housing is something that will be prioritised by Jamie to make sure young people, as well as everyone, have the security of tenure so they can plan their lives as well as have proper protection, repairs and accessibility from landlords.
Despite wanting Newcastle to become a Green council, Jamie says that he’s “agnostic about the badge”, saying “it’s what you do that makes the difference”. “It’s not even about the policies you campaign for, it’s what you deliver that matters.” Jamie added that the city “needs to be run in the interests of its residents”, meaning significantly boosting the local economy.
Jamie also plans to take a “stand and fight approach”, accusing local Labour politicians of not standing up and fighting for their local constituents against national government cuts.
A fight between the Greens and Reform UK
Predicting a collapse for Labour and citing the fall in support for the party in South Jesmond during a by-election, where Labour lost the seat to the Green Party with a 20.3% swing, Jamie predicts the Greens will become the largest party in Newcastle. South Jesmond was won by the Green Party’s Sarah Peters in the August of 2025, the month before the ‘Green surge’ which saw tens of thousands of new members join the Green Party after Zack Polanski’s election as its leader.
When asked if competition between the Green Party and Labour could split the vote and allow Reform UK to win, Jamie called the argument, made by the Labour Party in Gorton and Denton, “pathetic” saying that it’s essentially saying “we’re really bad and we know we don’t deserve your vote but please vote for us for some spurious reason that we’ve invented on a bar graph”. At the time of writing, the latest opinion poll for the Gorton and Denton by-election showed that the Green Party was ahead by four points on 33% with Reform UK in second on 29% and Labour in third on 26%.
The upcoming Newcastle City Council election could prove an earthquake in local North East politics. With Labour’s drastic demise in Durham last year as well as their loss in South Jesmond, Jamie Driscoll sees an opportunity for the Greens to win, not just in Monument, but across Newcastle. But for him, the opportunity doesn’t stop there as he aims to use it as best he can to stand and fight for Newcastle and govern in the interests of the people of Newcastle and not politics.
