Mansfield Independents, previously known as Mansfield Independent Forum,New name but still the same to people first in Mansfield
''Chad'', Mansfield local newspaper, 5 September 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2020 is a local political party in the local government district of

Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market tow ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

, England. It was officially registered in 2005, having already successfully campaigned for the election of

Tony Egginton Tony Egginton (born 1951) was the first directly elected Mayor of Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, England. He was elected to the position on 17 October 2002, beating Labour's Lorna Carter by 588 votes, ending 30 years of Labour control. Egginton ...

Mayor of Mansfield The mayor of Mansfield is the executive mayor of the district of Mansfield (district), Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, England. A new appointment was created following moves made by a Mansfield-based businessman to change the governance of Mansfie ...

two years earlier. Egginton had stood for election after being convinced to do so by the leader of the pro-Mayoralty campaign, Stewart Rickersey.

History

The directly elected

was created following moves made by Mansfield-based businessman Stuart Rickersey to change the governance of Mansfield through a public referendum. Local newsagent

was encouraged to stand as an independent candidate in the ensuing election, and was elected to the position on 17 October 2002. Following Egginton's successful election as Mayor, Rickersey then recruited many ward councillor-candidates to challenge Labour's traditional domination at the May 2003 local elections, winning control of the council with 25 seats. Most of the newly elected councillors were new and inexperienced. Egginton formed his Cabinet mostly of MIF members including Rickersey as Portfolio Holder for Corporate Issues. The party was officially registered with the electoral commission on 14 July 2005, formalising the existence of a party that had unofficially existed since Egginton's election. Fellow Mansfield Independent Kate Allsop was elected as Executive Mayor to succeed Egginton following his retirement in 2015. In September 2019 the party was renamed to the Mansfield Independents.

Election results

The Mansfield Independent Forum has contested elections since Tony Egginton's election in 2002, first informally as an alliance of independent councillors in 2003 and then formally as a registered UK political party from 2005 onwards.

Mayoral elections

served as

from 2002 until his retirement in 2015. He was succeeded by

Kate Allsop Kate Allsop is a British local politician who was the directly elected mayoress of Mansfield from 2015 until the 2019 election when she was beaten by Labour candidate Andy Abrahams by two votes. She first stood for the post in 2002 as a member ...

, also of the Mansfield Independents.

District Council elections

Mansfield Independent Forum councillors held a majority on

Mansfield District Council Mansfield District is a local government district in Nottinghamshire, England. Its council is based in the town of Mansfield. The district is bounded by the districts of Ashfield, Newark and Sherwood and Gedling, as well as the Derbyshire dist ...

from 2003–2011. The party lost control of the council to the Labour Party in 2011 before regaining control in 2015.

County Council elections

Mansfield Independent Forum has been represented on

Nottinghamshire County Council Nottinghamshire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Nottinghamshire in England. It consists of 66 county councillors, elected from 56 electoral divisions every four years. The most recent election ...

since

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

. Following the 2017 election the party became the junior partner in a governing coalition with the

Conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

UK Parliament elections

The party fielded a candidate in the

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

election, coming third behind

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

and the

. In the 2010 general election they were reduced to fourth place behind the Liberal Democrats. The party did not field official candidates in the

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

elections.

References

{{Reflist, 2 Locally based political parties in England