Wes Streeting‘s local Labour Party in Redbridge already lost an election in 2025, but it could lose much, much worse in the upcoming local election. To find out more, we spoke to Redbridge Independents councillor Noor Jahan Begum.

People in Redbridge are sick of Labour, and independents are fighting for accountability

Begum ran in the 2024 election, becoming the main opposition to Labour’s Jas Athwal in Ilford South. Then, a year later, she won a by-election in the Mayfield ward of Redbridge.

She told us this victory came in part because there is:

a huge amount of apathy and distrust in politicians. People were saying they were fed up of Labour.

On top of Labour’s despicable support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Begum described the effect that countless local Labour failures have had as well. She explained her alarm at discovering the:

very poor state of our finances and our services … financial mismanagement, inefficiency, and very poor leadership at the top … very, very poor participation and lack of transparency…

The latter was especially evident through the housing scandal surrounding Ilford South MP Jas Athwal

Residents have told Begum that they “never hear” from Labour, apart from at election time. And on Streeting in particular, she said:

We’ve had Wes Streeting as our health minister and our local MP. And under his watch, you know, we’ve had £51m shaved off the hospital’s budget. That’s about 750-odd people frontline health workers who’ve lost their job. We need more health workers, not less.

Redbridge Independents, on the other hand:

are fighting for maximum consultation, engagement, and public participation.

And she promised she and her fellow candidates across Redbridge:

are going to be visible, we’re going to be responsive, and we’re going to be accountable.

You can see the full Redbridge Independents manifesto here, including its commitments on transparency, alleviating poverty, and dealing with the cost of living crisis locally.

Keep reading to see what Noor Jahan Begum had to say in response to questions from the Canary.

Why do you think so many people got behind you before your by-election win?

We have to look at the bigger picture. I talked to hundreds of residents every month, and what we heard on the doorstep was a huge amount of apathy and distrust in politicians.

People were saying they were fed up of Labour. And of course, the Gaza genocide from October 2023 was a huge catalyst. It was a wake-up call for very many people in our community.

There were so many issues locally that we heard from residents, whether it was child services, health, education, lack of access to GP services.

In Redbridge, we’ve had Labour here for over a decade, and people really were very, very upset about the poor service provision, council tax going up, the cost of living crisis. And of course, the BBC story about Mr. Jas Athwal and his licensing issues came to the fore.

All of that together really culminated in the community sending a very strong message in the Mayfield by-election.

How would you describe how Redbridge Council works at the moment?

Previously, I had been a community volunteer and organiser, and I’d been part of campaigns to do with health, housing, sleaze, anti-racism. And now that I’m on the inside, I’m actually quite alarmed at what I see. Two things, mainly.

One, the very poor state of our finances and our services. CQC [the independent health and social care regulator] have come and said that our adult social care is terrible – it ‘needs improvement’, that’s their term. Ofsted have come and said there are systemic failures, and very large numbers of disabled children, their families are being failed. They don’t have the support they need. We haven’t met housing targets for about five years plus. So we’re on the naughty step in terms of, we cannot respond effectively to large developments. There are 12 tower blocks due to go up, but no GP services additionally.

Also, the finances. You’ve probably heard that we’re about £71m overspent, and that we were eligible for a bailout. I think some monies were given, around £61m over three years. But what that shows is a level of, I would say, financial mismanagement, inefficiency, and very poor leadership at the top.

Redbridge Independents are fighting for maximum consultation, engagement, and public participation. We need a healthy democracy. And what I’m seeing from the inside is, for example, people being blocked from asking questions, people banned from council buildings. I know at least four local people whose only crime was that they went to ask a question at a full council meeting.

Also, Redbridge Independents and other cross-party activists have been repeatedly asking, through FOIs [Freedom of Information requests] and other petitions, that the council reveal what they have about Mr. Jas Athwal’s licensing – a legitimate concern. We’ve even actually gone to Keir Starmer’s office about this, but the council have failed to let us know what they’re doing, or whether there’s going to be an investigation. So really, very poor state of finances, poor state of services, and also a culture of very, very poor participation and lack of transparency, so I’d like to see a change.

What kind of change do Redbridge Independents offer?

We started off as Redbridge Community Action Group, which is a really grassroots, resident-led movement, and we’ve been involved in a lot of campaigning over the last two years. That morphed into Redbridge Independents, and we realized that, in order to bring real change, we have to be where the decisions are being made, so in the council chamber. And yes, we do need a majority.

We’ve done the work on the ground. We’ve been working with residents, activists, local organisations, community groups. All of our campaigns are based very much in the community on the issues that matter to people. We’ve done a whole lot of consultation and asking people what their needs are.

Having a single independent in the chamber is not enough. We need a majority, or at least a healthy number of councillors to be in. From the responses that we’re getting at the door from residents, at our events, at our consultations, we are confident that we’re moving in the right direction, and that the community support is behind us.

Now we can never really predict what’s going to happen on election day. But our main focus is that people come out to vote. There’s a great deal of apathy and some indifference and distrust, so we’re trying to overcome that, raise awareness, make sure that every single person who is eligible is registered to vote, and they go out to vote on the 7th of May.

We want a big turnout. And we are hoping that Redbridge Independents have successfully put the message across – the need for change, the need for democracy, the need for openness and effective action.

What are the issues people have been raising on the doorstep?

I’ve spent about, probably since last March, every weekend – and we’ve been doing more than weekends, actually, in recent months – being out on the doorstep talking to people…

One of the things that residents say to me always is, ‘Oh, Labour don’t come to our door, we never hear from them, they just come during election time’. But one of the things that I’m hearing a lot about is, for example, that they’re fed up with mainstream parties, that they don’t trust politicians, that cost of living is really affecting people, and not just working people, every income bracket is facing some level of stress in terms of finances.

And then we have, of course, the usual: the bins, the potholes, the local school issues, the antisocial behaviour at the end of their street.

We also know that housing is a massive issue, as in other places. Affordability is an issue. Evictions. This borough has failed to build and acquire the houses that we should have done to meet need. We have over 3,000 people in temporary accommodation, so I get a lot of inquiries about that. People in B&Bs, people in emergency accommodation.

Also, health is massive. So every other door is people talking about, ‘I can’t get a GP appointment, I’ve been to A&E’, or ‘I’m scared to go to A&E because it’s a three-day wait’, or something like that. We’ve had, at our local hospitals, three emergencies recently in the wintertime, December time, because we ran out of beds, and people were sitting in the corridor for hours and hours at a time, waiting for care.

We’ve had Wes Streeting as our health minister and our local MP. And under his watch, you know, we’ve had £51m shaved off the hospital’s budget. That’s about 750-odd people frontline health workers who’ve lost their job. We need more health workers, not less.

The feedback I get on the doorstep from residents is that they cannot access GP or hospital services in the way that they need to. And that is having a real impact on people … and their ability to be economically active.

Would you say it’s important to send a message specifically to Wes Streeting here?

People in and around Redbridge should be going out to vote, and voting for independents. We need to send a strong message to Labour. And particularly, we need to stop Wes Streeting’s Redbridge Labour Party. Because what we are seeing is privatisation through the back door.

We are seeing and feeling the impact of budgets being slashed, GP and doctor and health posts being reduced. We’re seeing the poor conditions, the poor retention in the NHS.

And residents are very alarmed at the scandal of Peter Mandelson, and Wes Streeting’s close mentorship and association with Lord Peter Mandelson, who is linked to Jeffrey Epstein – very close association. This is really important. We have to clean up politics.

What people are saying to me is that they want to have local people making real change, people who they can hold accountable. And we really, really need to get out there on the 7th of May and make a different choice this time.

What would Redbridge Independents promise to do differently?

There’s two main issues for me.

One is to fix our public services, and make sure that people’s needs are met.

The second thing is to provide a level of local democracy, openness, transparency, and accountability. One of the things that we discuss at the door is that we are not beholden – like Labour or Conservatives – to a party in Westminster with a whip, and that we are accountable to the residents.

And one of the things that we, as candidates, are promising is that we are going to be visible, we’re going to be responsive, and we’re going to be accountable… If we can get the support of the community behind us on the 7th of May, we can turn the corner, stabilise finances, and move forward.

We’re all local people, we have day jobs, we’re not career politicians like some of our Labour counterparts. We care about the locality that we’re working in. We’re not about, ‘Oh, I want to be prime minister’… Redbridge Independents promise to bring local change, meaningful change, and be responsive to the needs of the community.

People are clamouring for change. After 14 years of austerity, and then more austerity with the Labour government, people are absolutely fed up. The fabric of this nation is so tired and tattered…

Is there a final message you’d like to add?

Over the last two years, I’ve met so many people who’ve said to me, I haven’t ever been on a demo, I’ve never written a petition, I haven’t gone knocking on doors, but for the first time, I’m getting involved with my community. I’m volunteering, I’m talking to people, I’m organizing events.

And that is fantastic. We are getting to know our neighbors, through all of these community engagement actions.

One of the things that we promise all of our residents is that on the 8th of May, we’re not going to disappear. We’re going to carry on campaigning and with our activism on the various issues that matter.

So everybody, get your friends and family, everyone, to come out to vote. Local elections are a bit subdued, but actually, this is your opportunity to choose the people who are going to work for you, speak for you in the chamber for the next four years. So yeah, please go out to vote, and vote independent.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

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