By DK Renton
Our Local Elections Campaign
There are many things ICI did of which we should feel proud. We raised the profile of issues which other parties in Islington neglected, Peter Bedford Housing Association’s attempt to evict 69 tenants, the 43 redundancies at Capital City College. Amu Gib’s candidacy received positive media coverage. This is probably the single best thing we achieved, breaking the press silence around the Brize Norton case.
ICI candidates signed up to a manifesto which covered an extraordinary range of topics – from access to water to justice in Sudan. Over the five weeks of the extended campaign, and adding up everyone who participated, something like 200 people took part in our leafleting or canvassing. On Saturday, when we met up to debrief, there was an incredible feeling of collectivity.
Our worst-performing candidate secured 4.7 percent of the vote in her ward. Our best-performing candidate Amu secured 18.9 percent (569 votes in an election where 3016 voters cast three votes). For a new political party, which had never before stood in an election under the banner of ICI, these were satisfying results.
Canvassing made a difference. The votes obtained in our most-canvassed ward – Finsbury Park – tallied almost exactly with the pledges we received in advance. Those came from door-to-door conversations. We found several hundred people who were both angered with Labour and unsure what candidate best suited them. When we told them about Amu’s history, the Brize Norton protest, Prisoners for Palestine – voters were willing to put their trust in us. Our best chance of a breakthrough would have been an even larger group of canvassers.
In Finsbury Park, Amu’s achievement has been overshadowed by the success that the Greens had in getting two paper candidates elected in a congested election where 9 candidates secured between 500 and 1300 votes. We negotiated an election pact with the Greens, which that party’s local leadership was unable to deliver. Short of negotiating next time in public, signing it publicly, holding the Green leadership to a deal from which they couldn’t be overturned without securing great personal loss of face; I don’t know what else we could have done differently.
We had a decision to make in late January when we learned Amu was interested in standing for election, and after our AGM had approved them as a candidate. We were told: “Muslims won’t vote for a non-binary candidate”, that voters in Finsbury Park were only interested in “talking about potholes”.
Unfortunately, the decision to be principled and choose Amu cost us the support of the self-appointed Corbyn organiser in Islington, and then Corbyn himself. None of our 9 candidates were supported by Your Party (although YP backed 3 candidates who were urged to leave ICI and stand against us). Just two of our candidates were allowed to use Corbyn’s images in our material. Our candidates in Islington North had no access to the voter data gathered by Corbyn when he ran in 2024.
None of us, when we chose to join ICI, expected the negativity we faced from the Corbyn camp. The obstacles we faced in Islington weren’t any different from the national machinations. The only thing which marks them out is how incredibly self-defeating they’ve been, even from the perspective of standing Corbyn as a candidate again. Corbyn’s closest allies alienated dozens of people who’ve learned how to campaign and could have used those skills to help him.
Find out more about Islington Community Independents
(Previously published in Connections Newsletter issue no. 3)
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