The Rainbow Warrior in a political lifeboat

The North East has a new Rainbow Warrior, none other than Jamie Driscoll. Today it was announced that Mr Driscoll, former mayor of the now abolished North of Tyne Combined Authority, has joined the Greens. Mr Driscoll has been on something of a political journey. The leftwing firebrand Corbynite beat a big name Labour centrist to the nomination for the mayoral candidate in 2019 and went on to win the election. He had done such a resounding job at being Mayor that the government abolished his authority. In 2024, along came the new North East Combined Mayoral Authority. Sadly for Mr Driscoll, he was blocked by Labour from standing for the new Mayoralty. That plum job went to Kim McGuinness. Jamie, it seemed, had a little too much socialist baggage to be allowed to stand for the Socialist-free Labour Party led by Keir Starmer.

So step forward the new Jamie Driscoll, now the self-appointed voice of people fed up with Labour. He then stood in the Mayoral election in 2024 as an independent and got a surprisingly good 2nd place. Freed from having to run half the region, and needing a political party to back him, he created the "Majority Party" in his own image. No one ever got to learn "majority of what?" And at the same time he seemed to be involved with the Your Party. "He was a director of a company which handled more than £800,000 of donations which Zarah Sultana was accused of withholding." (Chronicle 17th December 2025)

Perhaps he watched the antics and complete chaos of the Your Party and decided to wave goodbye to them. He resigned his directorship and apparently washed his hands of the Your Party. Time to find another political lifeboat. So today he turned up in the Green Party. Quite what his former colleagues in Majority think of this is unknown. A feeling of abandonment may be bubbling away.

So, from Labour to independent to Majority to Your to Green, Mr Driscoll is something of a Rainbow Warrior. It will be interesting to see how long he stays with the Greens before he jumps into another political lifeboat.