Education and career
Driscoll left school at 16. He worked as a nurse at the University Hospital of Hartlepool,at a plumbing factory,and as a trainee engineer making breathing apparatus in Blyth,Northumberland,among other jobs. [4] [3] [7] [8] At the age of 22,he secured a grant to study engineering part-time at Northumbria University,which he combined with work as a nightclub bouncer. [9] [10] [4]
After university,Driscoll worked as a project engineer in the electronics and information technology sector,and oversaw large company integrations. [7] [4] He became a manager and company director for a software development firm,and after selling the business he dedicated himself to political activity while homeschooling his children. [3] [11] He was a jiu-jitsu instructor for twenty years before retiring in 2018, [9] [8] and earned wine knowledge qualifications. [12]
Political career
Driscoll joined the Labour Party in 1985, [13] [14] and the Transport and General Workers' Union in 1986. [4] He later switched to Unite the Union. [4] He was an organiser for the Tyne &Wear Anti-Fascist Association, [4] formed in 1983. [15]
In 2015,he campaigned for Ed Miliband in Doncaster North during the 2015 general election and for Jeremy Corbyn in his Labour Party leadership bid. [9] Prior to Corbyn's election,Driscoll acted as his bodyguard during a visit to the north east of England. [9] After Corbyn's victory,Driscoll started the Newcastle branch of Momentum,trained activists and helped organise Momentum's inaugural national conference,Building to Win,in Birmingham in March 2017. [9] In January 2018,he founded Pits &Politics Festivals Ltd, [1] and in July 2018 hosted the first People,Pits and Politics festival in the days preceding the Durham Miners' Gala;the event,sponsored by the Communication Workers Union (CWU),featured Clive Lewis MP,Ken Loach,Paul Mason and Hilary Wainwright as speakers. [16] [3]
He was elected to Newcastle City Council in the May 2018 elections to represent Monument ward. He was a member of the campaigning group and the chair of the Newcastle branch of Momentum. [3] [17] He also served as branch secretary of the Labour Party in the East Gosforth ward. [3]
Mayor of North of Tyne
In February 2019,Driscoll stood for selection to be Labour's candidate in the 2019 North of Tyne mayoral election,defeating Newcastle council leader Nick Forbes in February 2019. [18] He ran being supported by figures on the left,including shadow chancellor John McDonnell,Noam Chomsky,Paul Mason,Clive Lewis and Laura Pidcock. He also had organisational support from Unite the Union,Momentum,RMT,Fire Brigades Union,TSSA and Aslef. [19] [20] [3]
Driscoll won the election ahead of the Conservative candidate Charlie Hoult. [21] The Green Party did not stand a candidate against him. [22] [23] He appointed Hugo Fearnley as his political advisor. [24]
As mayor,Driscoll led the North East devolution deal from 2019 onwards,striking an "unlikely political alliance" with Michael Gove, [9] who was appointed the Secretary of State for Levelling Up,Housing and Communities in 2021. [25] The deal was signed in December 2022 and resulted in the creation of the North East Combined Authority in May 2024. Driscoll was described in The Guardian at the time as "the most influential modern Labour figure you have never heard of". [9]
In June 2023,after interview by a panel of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party Driscoll was unsuccessful in progressing to a ballot of Labour Party members in the selection process to determine a Labour Party candidate for Mayor of the North East. Labour Peer Jenny Chapman defended the decision as "simply guaranteeing the highest quality candidates". Unite the Union and its general secretary,Sharon Graham,criticised the decision to exclude Driscoll. Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram described the Labour Party as undemocratic,opaque and unfair. Aditya Chakrabortty wrote in The Guardian that Driscoll was a "victim of McCarthyism". [26] [27] He resigned from Labour and later announced that he would stand in the inaugural 2024 North East mayoral election as an independent. [28] He was backed by the former chair of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs,Lynne Jones, [29] and received support from Green New Deal Rising [30] (a youth organisation with 5 Labour,4 Green and 3 independent MPs as patrons, [31] linked to the Green New Deal Group [32] led by Colin Hines [33] ). Driscoll finished second,58,399 votes behind Labour candidate Kim McGuinness. [34]
Driscoll joined the Common Sense Policy Group –an interdisciplinary research team organised ahead of the 2024 general election by the Northumbria University political scientist Matthew Thomas Johnson –as a contributor to Act Now:A Vision for a Better Future and a New Social Contract (2024), [a] a book-length policy proposal centred on universal basic income and modeled on the 1942 Beveridge Report. [35] [36] [37] [38] [39]
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