Doncaster elections 2025: Andy Hiles says whoever is elected mayor is ‘on probation’ for 4 years in interview

The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) has offered one-to-one interviews with every single candidate for Doncaster mayor – offering them the opportunity to sell themselves and their parties to voters and getting them to answer important questions.

Andy Hiles told the LDRS: “I have been involved in politics in Doncaster and across the region for a long time. I’ve worked in Doncaster as a trade unionist for factories around the area.

“I cut my political teeth in the miners’ strike as a 17-year-old and never quite left it.”

Hiles, who helps run Benefit Buddies out of Askern Library, says he and his Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) colleagues will deliver change for Doncaster.

He said: “If people are not happy with Labour and want change, they need to look left of Labour on the ballot paper.”

The Labour government are said to be doing “no favours” to the local branch in Doncaster and Hiles focussed on recent cuts to welfare spending, including PIP payments.

“The attacks on disabled people was more than anything from the Tory government,” he said, “we haven’t seen anything like it since 2012.

“We are what you might call a traditional Labour Party. We hold those values. We believe in services and council housing; we want to freeze rents.”

He urged voters in Doncaster to give TUSC their vote, dismissing the suggestion that “little parties don’t stand a chance”.

He said: “When you have a party who assumes they will win without any effort… then it’s time for a change.

“[The election] will be a fairly low turnout and a 12-way split so whoever gets in is not going to have a huge mandate.

“Whoever gets in will be on probation for the next four years.”

Hiles stood in the 2024 General Election against Ed Miliband in Doncaster North and says TUSC has come a long way since then.

“It’s way beyond where we were last year,” he said, “It is the most councillors we have ever stood for election.

“Two candidates, Tosh and Nikki, have handed out 5,000 leaflets in town ward alone. It means some candidates have been inspired and are leafleting too.

“They are reporting that they are talking to people and getting a positive result… it starts building our confidence.”

The LDRS asked Hiles where the money to fund increased investment in services and council housing would come from.

He responded: “On a national perspective, we are the sixth richest country in the world but walking around Doncaster it feels like a third world country.

“If we lived in Russia, there would be a lot of roads to build but in Britain people walk from one end to the other for a challenge.

“The money is there… that money is in somebody’s private bank accounts.

“It is also about priorities… Austerity is a choice and it is a choice that has been ongoing since Thatcher.

“The City of Doncaster Council will give me my biggest ever budget, but I have dealt with budgets in the past. There is money and I think the people of Doncaster would like to see it spent more than 100 yards outside of the Civic Office.”

Hiles was asked why local business owners should give him their vote, as a trade unionist.

He said: “We have a very demoralised workforce… we are one of the worst countries in the developed world for productivity in the workforce.

“Human beings are people and not there to be burnt out and thrown out. If they are treated as people, businesses can improve their productivity.”

He told the LDRS that the Victorians figured out that giving staff time to go away from work on holiday improved productivity in their workforces and he would help Doncaster’s business sector to boost their growth in a similar way.

The LDRS asked Hiles, who has been a vocal critic of the Labour government, how he would manage his relationship with Westminster if he became mayor.

“I don’t like to have negative relationships,” he said, “I’m fairly easy to get along with. I can get along with people from all sorts of backgrounds… I don’t think that will be a problem.”

He said he has had good conversations with other candidates like Nick Fletcher, despite being politically opposed.

He told the LDRS he worked well with Fletcher’s office, when he was the MP for Don Valley, to settle union disputes in factories within his constituency.