Image may contain: Worship, Shrine, Temple, Column, Pillar, Man, Building, Architecture, Face, Person, Human

Magid Magid is running to be an MEP

The Lord Mayor is stepping down in May


Lord Mayor of Sheffield Magid Magid has announced he will be running as the Green Party candidate for Yorkshire and Humber at the next European Parliament elections.

In a statement on his website, the Lord Mayor announced he would be standing as an MEP at the next European elections, after he recently announced he would not be running for re-election as the Lord Mayor.

The Lord Mayor said: "It was the rise of UKIP in the 2014 European elections and their fear-mongering anti-immigration propaganda that spurred me on to get politically involved. 5 years on, the landscape in the UK and across Europe is dire; the far-right, more barbaric by the day, freely parade streets throughout the western world and foster hatred within our communities."

In the statement he criticised Brexit and "Tory austerity", and went on to say: "The EU is not a haven of progressive ideas, it is run in the interests of the establishment. We must do more to challenge this. We must be more radical in our solutions to impending climate catastrophe and we must have more humanity in our attitude towards refugees and migration. We can only truly fight those struggles together, by building bridges, sharing ideas and learning from one another. We can only succeed when we think beyond borders and embrace internationalism."

Magid went on to champion young people, and highlighted his background as "an outspoken working-class black Muslim refugee millennial".

Magid Magid, a former SU President at the University of Hull, became to Lord Mayor of Sheffield in May 2018, having formerly represented the Broomhill and Sharrow Vale ward as Councillor for the Green Party. In 2018 he appointed Otis Mensah as the city's first poet laureate.

He has previously caught headlines regionally, nationally, and internationally, having described Donald Trump as a "wasteman" and banning him from the city, as well as stating "don't kiss a Tory" as one of his Sheffield Ten Commandments at the 2018 Tramlines Festival. He previously appeared on the TV series Hunted, and debated Love Island's Zara about Brexit.

He will step down as Lord Mayor in May 2019.