On the surface, the South West appeared to offer some solace for Labour among the dire local election results nationally. Marvin Rees won re-election as Mayor of Bristol and Dan Norris became the new West of England Combined Authority Mayor, a gain from the Conservatives.

But dig a little deeper and the picture is a worrying one for Labour. The Party previously held 35 out of the 70 seats on Bristol city council, but after losing 13 to the Green Party over the weekend, has now lost overall control. Corbynism and the movement it brought about produced some of the Party’s best results in Bristol, but a meddling South West Labour bureaucracy and the lack of vision nationally is now pulling Labour backwards.

During the Corbyn era, there was massive growth in Labour Party membership and support in Bristol. At its 2019 height, my Bristol West CLP was the largest in the country with over 4000 members. The city is also home to one of the strongest local Momentum groups and hosts the brilliant Bristol Transformed, the strongest regional example of the World Transformed festival.

Our CLP sent hundreds of activists all around the South West during the 2019 election, even sending some to train members in canvassing in nearby cities and towns, and by all accounts succeeded in creating a buzzing activist culture of which any local constituency party would be proud.

But the last year or so has been marked by a Labour establishment counter-revolution that has suspended activists and interfered with local Party democracy in a way that has completely demobilised our activist core. After passing a motion in support of Jeremy Corbyn in the wake of his suspension, the South West Regional Office suspended myself, the chair of Bristol West, and the chairs of Bristol North West and Bristol East.

They then removed access to Labour technology and prevented the CLP and all of the branches from meeting or organising for the local elections between November and February—despite none of the branch secretaries being suspended—without explanation. When a branch secretary contacted Thangam Debonnaire to ask her to intervene with regional office and allow them to meet and prepare for the local elections, she declined. The result is that her constituency is now a Green fortress.

Our Bristol West AGM was then plunged into disarray when the Regional Office took over the running of the meeting last minute and botched it so badly that it went on until almost midnight, with hundreds of people left unable to vote. Labour Right bureaucrats also imposed Blairite candidate Dan Norris, despite the fact that Corbynite candidate Lesley Mansell received five times as many nominations from CLPs and affiliates, and had come within three percent of winning in the previous West of England mayoral race. There is a total disregard for local Labour Party members in Bristol.

Who could be surprised, then, when members subsequently refused to turn out to canvass for the local elections? Instead of hundreds of Labour activists crowding round boards and door-knocking whole neighbourhoods in a day, the pictures from the Labour doorstep were of very small teams of people – mainly staffers, councillors, MPs, and candidates. The campaign simply wasn’t able to drum up the required boots on the ground to get over the line.

Before I was suspended, the ward I was selected to stand in, Bishopston and Ashley Down, had one Labour and one Green councillor. I planned to contest the ward on an eco-socialist platform, looking forward to debating the best way to tackle the climate emergency with the Green candidates. Now it has two Green councillors, one of whom is 18-year-old Lily Fitzgibbon, one of the leaders of the Youth Strike movement in the city.

A hollowed out local campaigning machine clearly isn’t the only reason for our failures. The Greens were able to beat us in my ward because there is once again a clear distinction between the two parties on policy. Why should those who were drawn to Labour under Corbyn remain loyal to the Party if Keir Starmer offers them nothing? The Green surge we have seen in Bristol is likely to multiply in other cities unless Starmer changes course.

Labour did best last Thursday where it articulated a clear vision of what it could do in office. Marvin Rees in Bristol and Sadiq Khan in London both had much tighter elections than they hoped for, their lack of conviction punished with a reduced share of the vote. In Salford and Preston, however, left-wing councils stormed ahead by articulating a vision of municipal socialism in action.

Meanwhile, Andy Burnham increased his vote share in Manchester by making clear regionalist arguments against the Conservative government, staking a position quite independent of Keir Starmer and the Westminster Labour establishment, and vowing to improve local transport by bringing the Manchester buses into local control.

Labour must now look to those victories and start singing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to local government. While Burnham is bringing the buses into public ownership in Greater Manchester, Marvin Rees and Dan Norris in Bristol and the WECA region have been steadfast in their support for the privatised status quo in the South West. Ideological clarity, consistency, and courage in arguing for a municipal socialism, but also transformation on a national scale, is essential if we are to beat the Tories.

As the case of Bristol shows, we also need to value our members as the asset that they are. It’s obvious that a vibrant CLP with strong roots in the city, bringing hundreds out to campaign for a positive vision for society, would have given the Labour Party a far greater chance of holding on to its city council majority. If there is no clear change in policy and the treatment of members by the Labour leadership, the Green wave of last Thursday may soon become a flood.