Hackney Greens must start preparing for the 2022 local elections now to have a chance of “smashing through the Labour stranglehold” on councils in north London, Green London Assembly member Caroline Russell has said.
Ms Russell, who in her other role as councillor for Highbury East is the only opposition councillor in Islington, dropped into the Hackney Greens AGM on Saturday to offer activists her encouragement.
She said that as a lone Green voice in Islington, and also the only non-Labour councillor, she finds it very difficult to force her ideas onto the council agenda.
“It would be so good to have a group of Green councillors in Hackney and a group of Green councillors in Islington. Once you’ve got two of you or more you can make a difference and really get stuff done,” she said.
“There are three-and-a-half years until the 2022 local elections.”
“One of the goals I hope London Greens adopt is that by next May we have got ourselves into really good shape, so that the two-year run up to the local elections allows us to just smash this kind of Labour stranglehold on local democracy in both Hackney and Islington and, frankly, all over London.”
Labour controls 52 out of 57 seats on the Hackney Council and holds 47 of 48 seats in Islington.
Ms Russell said as an “ungrouped” councillor with no party colleagues she relies on “fragments of opportunities to speak rather than having a proper Green voice”.
She claimed that in the final stages of the campaign for local elections in May last year, Labour councillors in Islington “abandoned” their wards to focus on seats where Greens had strong support.
Ms Russell was first elected last year with a majority of 666 votes after coming third in 2014 to first. Her fellow Green candidate in Highbury East, Benali Hamdache, narrowly missed out on a council spot, coming in fourth behind Labour’s Osh Gantly by 73 votes.
In Hackney, although the Greens failed to win a seat in 2018, Dalston candidate Alex Armitage lost out by just 21 votes and Hackney Downs candidate Alastair Binnie-Lubbock by just 90 votes.
Ms Russell said: “It would be amazing at the end of next year to feel that Hackney Greens are in a position where you’ve got a team of people who’ve really worked out how to get stuff done. Because if Labour work out that Greens are getting organised they then just pile in – and it is pretty grim.”
She added: “It’s heartbreaking the number of good Greens who don’t get elected every time we have elections – Greens who could be on our councils pushing Labour to do much, much better.”
