London Election Guide – Don’t Waste Your Vote

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Next week, on May 2nd 2024, our London Mayoral and London Assembly elections will take place. It’s an important election. The mayor and assembly serve 15 million Londoners and have a budget of over £20 billion.

We will have 3 ballots to cast

  • London Mayor
  • London Wide Assembly List by political party
  • Local London Constituency Assembly member

The Resistance Kitchen serves three London assembly constituencies:

  • Croydon/Sutton (69% of our guests)
  • Lambeth/Southwark (22% of our guests)
  • Merton/Wandsworth (9% of our guests)

In this election guide we shortlist candidates for all three ballots – mayor and the London assembly members in the three constituencies we serve, on the basis of three criteria: 

  • Policies to fight poverty
  • Policies for equality for minorities
  • Policies to end genocide in Palestine

If you want to skip to our conclusions, please scroll down to to the end section.

Policies

At Resistance Kitchen, all our guests are victims of government policy targeting the poor. 93% are food insecure, 16% have not eaten for a whole day in the last month due to being unable to afford food. 48% are homeless, of which 14% are rough sleepers. 46% are in rented accomodation, nearly half of which have private landlords with no rent control. Nearly 1 in 3 has no access to a fridge (28%), 1 in 5 has no cooking facilities (19%) and 1 in 10 doesn’t even have access to a kettle (9%).

A Tory policy that punishes poor families if they have more than 2 children by cutting their benefits. It robs 1.5 million children of basic benefits, and has led to the abortion of wanted babies. Removing the 2 child limit would immediately raise 300,000 children out of poverty and a further 800,000 out of deep poverty. The Child Poverty Action Group says ‘if you set out to design a policy to increase child poverty, then it would be hard to do much better than the two-child limit’.

A policy designed to curtail support for those most in need. It disproportionately targets families with children and those living in London where housing costs are higher. The Child Poverty Action Group have calculated that it forces families to live on just £44 per week. Abolishing the cap would mean that about 300,000 children would be living in less deep poverty.

London rents went up by a record 11.2% (Mar 24), wages can’t keep up (6%). And yet more than half of privately rented homes have no mortgage attached to them — so clearly landlords are raising the rent knowing that their tenants have no choice but to pay these prices. Outlawing unaffordable rent rises is a must.

According to Shelter: “Over 1 million households are waiting for social homes. Last year, 29,000 social homes were sold or demolished, and less than 7,000 were built. In England, there are now 1.4 million fewer households in social housing than there were in 1980.”

We urgently need more council houses (social rent) built, so-called “affordable” housing is not affordable for most people. Buying a house is beyond the reach of most people – in 2000, a home cost 4 x average salary – in 2021, a home cost 8 x average salary.

Over two thirds of children in poverty are in are in families with jobs, wages are so low that they are still in poverty! Increase minimum wage (currently £11.44) to at least the Living Wage Foundation’s real London living wage of £13.15. Note that whilst the mayor doesn’t have direct power to do this, the mayor can push for it indirectly, for example via procurement conditions.

Free school meals in primary schools alone helps feed 270,000 children London, saving families about £440 per child per year.

Universal Credit is at its lowest ever level in proportion to salaries and cost of living. Its needs reforming. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has suggested an Essentials Guarantee embedded in the social security system to protect people from going without the essentials (at least £120 after rent).

Why?

Due to systemic racism, ethnic minorities are are disproportionately affected by poverty. The overwhelming majority of our guests at the Resistance Kitchen are from ethnic minorities – 40% Asian, 37% black. Black and Asian children in London are 2.3x more likely living in poverty than white children. A disproportionately high number of ethnic minorities are being made homeless – in Croydon 3 out of every 4 families being made homeless or threatened with homelessness is non-white.

49% of our guests at Resistance Kitchen are Muslims. They are the victims of institutionalised Islamophobia. In March 2024 the UN Human Rights Council warned that Islamophobia is rising to “alarming levels”, whilst in the UK our government doesn’t even acknowledge its existence as indicated by the Lee Anderson scandal (“If you can’t call Islamophobia Islamophobia, then how are we going to fix it?” – Baroness Sayeeda Warsi).

Prevent was first introduced by the Labour Government in 2003 and turned into a legal duty under Section 29 of the Counterterrorism and Security Act by the Conservative Government in 2015. Its built on Islamophobia, and is used to terrorise the Muslim community, especially target’s children. Amnesty has described Prevent as “thought police” saying it’s “fundamentally incompatible” with the UK’s international human rights obligations. In the health sector Muslims are 8x more likely to be referred to Prevent than non-Muslims, even though 41% of terror arrest are of extreme right wing suspects.

Report after report shows that the Police are institutionally racist, yet nothing is done about it. Black people in London are 6x more likely to be stopped & searched. More than 60 children a week are being strip-searched by police in England and Wales, with those who are black, Asian or mixed race significantly more likely to be targeted.

Policing is also politically biased as is evident from the policing of Palestine protests, and is Islamophobic in the targeting of Muslims using anti-terror legislation.

Why?

As an organisation dedicated to fighting hunger and injustice the Resistance Kitchen cannot remain silent whilst our government arms a regime that weaponizes hunger to commit genocide against children. We cannot feed the hungry here and do nothing when our government colludes to starve children to death in Gaza.

Call for immediate unconditional ceasefire.

British arms are being used to commit genocide in Palestine. Call for arms embargo on Israel.

 

Support the Palestinian civil society call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions against the apartheid state.

Show solidarity with Palestine and supports local Palestine protests.

War Criminals. Prosecute British nationals who participated in Gaza genocide.

The mayor and local government does not have the power to implement some of these policies, but the first step is to at least support them at the national party level.

London Mayoral Candidates

The Conservatives having ushered in austerity in 2010, have subsequently double down to wage war on the poor. Their mayoral candidate has been accused of being an Islamophobic racist and in government the Conservatives have openly supported and participated in the genocide in Gaza.  For these reasons they have not made the shortlist.

Zoë Garbett - Green Party

Fight Poverty

  • She will push for a £16 London Living Wage ( £3 more than living wage foundation is campaigning for)
  • She promises free school meals for middle school children as well as primary school children.
  • She and her party oppose the two child policy and the benefits cap.
  • She will set up a rent commission that will start by freezing rents, and ultimately bring rents down.
  • She would bring in a single fare across all transport in London (like the buses currently are), this would bring down fares for people living in outer London.

Equality

  • She will lobby the government to end Prevent Duty.
  • Will challenge MET to end general use of Section 60 powers that allow suspiciousless Stop & Search. No strip searching of children by the police.

Palestine

  • The Green Party is the only national party in England that has consistently supported Palestine during this genocide.
  • Without delay on 9th Oct she and her party supported an immediate unconditional ceasefire in Palestine (and again on 17th Oct and 1st Nov).
  • As councillor in Hackney she has fought hard for the council to pass a motion supporting ceasefire in Palestine.
  • She and her party followed through with a call for an arms embargo on Israel on 11th Jan 2023.
  • The Green Party has actively supported BDS since 2014. This year it’s called for Israel’s exclusion from international sporting and music events (12 Feb 2024).
  • In Feb 2024 the Green Party in its statement on Gaza called for “the Metropolitan Police and Director of Public Prosecutions to pursue perpetrators of war crimes committed where UK citizens are the victims or where UK citizens are potential perpetrators.”
  • Disappointingly, during a hustings at JW3 organised by pro-Israel groups,  she said she personally would not chant the Palestinian freedom call “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” at protests and would urge people not to use it because it is hurtful.
Sadiq Khan - Labour Party

Fight Poverty

  • His party, the Labour party,  under Kier Starmer has ripped up practically every  Labour policy supporting those in poverty. Labour, along with the Conservatives, now supports the two child limit and the benefits cap. Sadiq Khan has registered his opposition to these deeply unpopular u-turns, but without criticising the decisions themselves.
  • Sadiq Khan has supported free meals for all primary schools children in London.
  • He will continue with a transport fare freeze across London which he has done during 5 of his 8 years as mayor.
  • Many of his policies promising to fight poverty are predicated on the assumption that a labour government will carry them through. Under Kier Starmer this is doubtful. For example his plan to end rough sleeping and to build 40,000 council houses by 2030.

Equality

  • Whilst campaigning for his first term as mayor, Sadiq Khan promised to “do everything in my power to cut stop and search” (1 Sep 2015), but it never materialised. After winning the election it was reported that he will “significantly increase” its use in an effort to combat violent crime (10 Jan 2018), and in Nov 2023 he was accused of  being “asleep on the job” when a FOI request revealed a study into stop & search promised by the mayor more than 3 years ago was never delivered.

Palestine

  • The Labour party under Starmer has consistently supported the government’s foreign policy in the middle east, from backing Israel in its war crimes and open genocide against the Palestinian people,  to bombing Yemen,  to military action against Iran in defence of Israel.
  • On many occasions as Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has had City Hall and other London monuments lit up in the Ukrainian colours and flown the Ukrainian flag, but never once during genocide has he allowed the Palestinian flag to be flown.
  • Sadiq Khan has tried hard to ban the oldest annually London protest in solidarity with Palestine – the Al Quds Day protest (going strong for 45 years) despite the MET police advising him that the ban would not be legal and the Tory Home Secretary replying to his petition that “peaceful protest is a vital part of a democratic society”.
  • He has also attacked projections on Big Ben that show solidarity with Palestine. He has opposed the Palestinian freedom call “from the river to the sea” as anti-Semitic depending on context.
  • During the JW3 hustings he complained that the Conservatives voted against his budget to give funding to pro-Israel groups, and to Solutions Not Sides (an organisation that targets Muslim students with workshops to normalise Israeli apartheid by falsely trying to equate the oppressor with the oppressed).
  • It took him 20 days and over 7,000 Palestinian lives including the slaughter of 3,000 children before he supported a ceasefire in Gaza (27th Oct 2023).
  • He has backed an arms embargo on Israel only after British Aid workers were killed by Israel (4th April 2024).
  • He opposes BDS.
Rob Blackie - Liberal Democrats

Fight Poverty

  • Having been a victim of a violent mugging, his priority seems to be policing.  He will cut the transport fare freeze to finance more policing.
  • The Liberal Democrats oppose the two child limit. But having been part of the coalition government that in 2010 unleashed austerity on the poor, many do not trust the Liberal Democrats on tackling poverty.
  • Their coalition government, for example introduced the benefits cap in 2013. In a legal challenge to the benefits cap in 2015 three of the five judges of the Supreme Court concluded that the benefit cap breached the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the UK is a signatory.

Equality

  • Liberal Democrats have called for an end to Prevent Duty (24th Nov 2023)

Palestine

  • It took over a month after the genocide started, that the Liberal Democrats finally called for an “immediate bilateral ceasefire” on 13th Nov 2023.Over 11,000 Palestinians had already been slaughtered by then.  But the call doesn’t seem to be unconditional – they also demanded for the last elected government in Palestine to be ousted. The Lib-Dem part leader Ed Davey said “It is important to be clear. Some who call for a ceasefire really seem to mean freezing the conflict. But that’s not acceptable. It leaves Hamas in place in Gaza… Hamas cannot, for the security of Israelis nor the future of Palestinians, be allowed to continue in charge of Gaza”.
  • After British Aid workers were killed by Israel the Liberal Democrats declared support for an arms embargo on Israel (3rd Apr 2024).
  • At the JW3 hustings Rob Blackie said that most people chanting “from the river to the sea” the purpose is anti-Semetic but there are some that are naïve.
  • On 22nd Apr Liberal Democrats wrote to the foreign secretary echoing the pro-Israel lobby call of proscribing Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. This follows their condemnation of Iran’s retaliatory strike on Israeli military targets and support for British military defending Israel (15 Apr). There was no condemnation of Israel’s illegal targeted bombing of the Iranian embassy in Syria which led to the Iranian retaliation.
  • Liberal Democrats supported British bombing of Yemen “so long as they remain limited” (24th Jan).
Mayoral Candidate - Conclusion

Based on the criterion we have outlined, our recommendation for London Mayor is Zoë Garbett of the Green Party. Some have suggested that by not voting for Sadiq Khan there is a real danger of getting a racist Conservative mayor, but looking at the polling we feel that’s just scare mongering to put people off voting for the policies that they actually support.

London Wide Assembly List By Political Party

11 members of ther London assembly are elected from the whole of London, with parties submitting lists of up to 25 candidates. For a party to be included, it needs to attain at least 5% of the vote across London. 

Based on the research carried out on each party for the mayoral selection, only Green Party from that list made this shortlist. In additional, we have included the Communist Party of Britain which didn’t run a candidate for mayor.

In the 2021 London assembly election they garnered 11.8% of the London wide vote giving them 3 seats from the London wide list.

This year’s London wide list includes Lambeth councillor Scott Ainslie (who fought hard to try and get the Gaza ceasefire motion passed in Lambeth council), and Croydon councillor Ria Patel, as well as local Green activist Pete Elliott who is a tireless campaigner for the homeless in Lambeth, having been made homeless himself.

The Communist Party of Britain are only standing in the London wide assembly vote.

Unfortunately we ran out of time so haven’t had an opportunity to look in detail at their policies. You might want to consider giving them your vote, please check out their website

https://www.communistparty.org.uk

for further information.

We did noticed that in the last London assembly election in 2021 they only received 8,787 votes from across London, 0.3% of the vote – well below the minimum 5% required for a seat on the assembly.

London Local Constituency Member

14 members of the London assembly are elected in single member constituencies with the candidate receiving the largest number of votes becoming the Assembly Member for that constituency.

Our kitchen serves 3 London assembly constituencies, here is our shortlist for those constituencies.

London Constituency: Croydon / Sutton

Whilst his speciality is renewable energy, he is fully behind his party’s position on Gaza, calling out Israel’s genocide: “It’s clear that the Israeli Government are committing genocide in Gaza. This isn’t a side-effect of trying to attack Hamas, it is a deliberate policy choice… I fully support the Green Party call for an end to arms sales to Israel, prosecutions of war criminals and targeted sanctions on Israel and its leaders until the killing stops” and when he talks about the release of Israeli hostages he always includes with it the release of Palestinian detainees.

Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition is a socialist electoral alliance that is standing 279 candidates in local elections, including in 4 London assembly constituency seats. One of them is April Ashley in Croydon/Sutton. Note that TUSC being an alliance, are not standing in the London wide assembly vote.

TUSC also supports other progressive non-TUSC candidates like Corbyn and Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain and many independent candidates. All TUSC candidates are committed to core principles of anti-austerity stop the cuts and stop the war (on Gaza). Apart from that each candidate is free to follow their own policies.

April Ashley is the TUSC candidate for Croydon/Sutton. She kindly answers our questions.

Fight Poverty

  • Free meals for all children, end privatisation in education.
  • Scrap 2 child policy.
  • Calls for a maximum 32 hour working week, end insecure work and zero hours contracts. Minimum £15 per hour wage, linked to automatically increase with inflation and average earnings.
  • End benefits cap. Housing benefits should reflect the real costs of renting.
  • Support crash programme of council house building; rent controls control in privately rented properties.

Equality

  • Calls for the scrapping of Prevent.

Palestine

  • Calls for an immediate unconditional ceasefire in Gaza.
  • Calls for targeted sanctions and divestment against Israel.
  • Calls for an arms embargo on Israel and is working within Unite trade union which represents workers in the defence industries to see what can be taken.
  • She says the IHRA definition of antisemitism is used to stigmatise pro-Palestinian activism and opposes its use as a disciplinary code or the unchallengeable final word on fighting antisemitism.
London Constituency: Lambeth/Southwark

Claire Sheppard – Green Party

In the last London assembly vote in 2021 Claire Sheppard beat the Tories and LibDems to come second after labour.

London Constituency: Merton/Wandsworth

Pippa Maslin – Green Party

In the last London assembly vote in 2021 Pippa Maslin came third beating the LibDems.

Who To Vote For - Summary

Please note that the Resistance Kitchen is not endorsing any particular political party or candidate, our suggestions are purely based on the criteria we have outlined above as being important for the community we serve. Based on that criteria, we would suggest looking at:

LONDON ELECTIONS – VOTING SUGGESTIONS
London Mayor:
  • Zoë Garbett – Green Party
London Wide Assembly List By Political Party:
  • Green Party
  • Communist Party of Britain
Croydon / Sutton London Assembly Constituency
  • April Ashley – Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
  • Peter Underwood – Green Party
Lambeth / Southwark London Assembly Constituency
  • Claire Sheppard – Green Party
Merton / Wandsworth London Assembly Constituency
  • Pippa Maslin – Green Party
Questions & Answers

Update 30th April 2024 : Question Answer section added.

Thank you for your question. 🙏

Firstly if we ignore for a second Labours total support for genocide (right down to justifying cutting off water), and just focus on Sadiq Khan’s personal position on Palestine it hasn’t been good. From our page:

  • On many occasions as Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has had City Hall and other London monuments lit up in the Ukrainian colours and flown the Ukrainian flag, but never once during genocide has he allowed the Palestinian flag to be flown.
  • Sadiq Khan has tried hard to ban the oldest annually London protest in solidarity with Palestine – the Al Quds Day protest (going strong for 45 years) despite the MET police advising him that the ban would not be legal and the Tory Home Secretary replying to his petition that “peaceful protest is a vital part of a democratic society”.
  • He has also attacked projections on Big Ben that show solidarity with Palestine. He has opposed the Palestinian freedom call “from the river to the sea” as anti-Semitic depending on context.
  • During the JW3 hustings he complained that the Conservatives voted against his budget to give funding to pro-Israel groups, and to Solutions Not Sides (an organisation that targets Muslim students with workshops to normalise Israeli apartheid by falsely trying to equate the oppressor with the oppressed).
  • It took him 20 days and over 7,000 Palestinian lives including the slaughter of 3,000 children before he supported a ceasefire in Gaza (27th Oct 2023). (For Green it only took a few days)
  • He has backed an arms embargo on Israel only after British Aid workers were killed by Israel (4th April 2024). (Green supported arms embargo 3 months earlier when Palestinians were being killed by Israel)
  • He opposes BDS.

Secondly, this perspective is based on the premise that if we don’t vote for Sadiq Khan then the truly nasty Tory candidate will get in. We dont think this is true. Even in the most pessimistic poll Sadiq Khan has 46% compared to Susan Hall’s 33%, a comfortable lead (and in this poll his lead is much lower than in other polls because the methodology they used has changed).

The wider picture is that this is eactly what Starmer is counting on, he moves Labour to the right to court the Tory vote on the assumption the left and Muslims in particular will still vote for Labour to prevent a Tory victory. It reaches a stage that the two party’s become indistinguishable from each other (like their support for austerity and Israel) that it no longer matters…

If Starmer sees the left and Muslims are still supporting labour in the London mayoral elections he will feel vindicated at ignoring them and supporting austerity and Israel. He will conclude that Muslims and the left, out of fear of a Tory victory, will still continue supporting Labour no matter what he does. It will confirm that we have no red line – not even the genocide of 15,000 children will stop us from supporting Labour. He knows he has us in his pocket.

If on the other hand, if we don’t vote for Sadiq Khan and he wins by the smallest of margins, then that will send shock waves through Labour that their policies on Palestine and austerity will cost them the general election if they dont mend their ways.

UPDATE (30/4/24):

Latest poll (from today) shows Sadiq Khan has a huge 22 point lead over Susan Hall.

It shows that if people switch from Khan to Greens, they will NOT let Susan Hall in. Graph shows that Susan Hall is still on 25%, as she was last Nov. So even if Khan lost his 22 points lead overnight (highly unlikely) by people switching to the Greens then the Green will actually win the election with 29%, not the Tories!

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