Labour lost control of Enfield Council at the local election but, with more coordination and cooperation, progressives could have easily taken even more seats from Labour.
Enfield Independent leader to Greens: ‘If we had formed an alliance, we would have won’
A strong independent campaign hoped to play a key role in taking overall control away from Labour. But while there had previously been talks with local Greens, the Green Party chose to stand across Enfield, including in wards independents were targeting. Conservatives ended up with 31 councillors, Labour with 27, and the Greens with 5.
In Upper Edmonton ward, for example, Labour got all three council seats. But if Enfield Community Independents and Greens had run a joint campaign, it’s very possible that Labour would have got no councillors at all.
Enfield Community Independents (ECI) leader Khalid Sadur stood in Upper Edmonton. And as he told the Canary:
If one of us had stepped down, we would have won. If we had formed an alliance, we would have won.
The lesson is clear, he said:
If we stand separately, we will lose, and Labour will get in.
Both progressive forces, Sadur stressed, had something different to offer in the election. The Greens had a big national media profile, especially considering the wave of attention current leader Zack Polanski has received. But ECI had been out in the community for years building connections with local people. As Sadur insisted:
We know the people on the ground… We are local residents – we came from a really grassroots approach, where we literally brought people along and got them to vote for the first time…
The people that we spoke to are the people who voted for us, and they absolutely bought into the idea that they needed local people to represent them on their local council — people who knew their area, weren’t taking them for granted like the existing Labour Party, who don’t have councillors who live in the ward.
He even added that, in the areas ECI was campaigning:
There was no one on the ground apart from us. We were out canvassing, leafletting. But we never saw any other party on the streets.
‘We have to put egos aside’ to stop Reform
In our current political system, many voters do depend on a national profile and vote accordingly. And partly on this basis, Greens made some gains in Enfield. But even without a national profile, ECI candidates got hundreds upon hundreds of votes from hard campaigning on the ground, and were a real challenger in some areas.
The point Sadur made was that the Greens couldn’t win solely with a national profile on their side, and ECI weren’t able to win on local campaigning alone (without a big national profile behind them). With this in mind, he said:
The goal really is to try and get us together, such that we can then come together and actually campaign together, bring the expertise that we have — in terms of the campaigning history and background and experience – together with the profile of the Greens, and form a challenge.
In a call for unity, Sadur said:
The battle lines need to be drawn for the next general election very clearly. It’s going to be left versus right.
There needs to be a single candidate on the left who’s going to be able to take on the right.
We cannot afford to split the left vote and allow Reform in.
We have to put egos aside and do actually what’s in the best interests of our residents, our constituents, and frankly, our country.
He added:
There needs to be a commitment to do this together. Because we’ve got three elections’ worth of data. So we know where our voters are, we know where the postal voters are. The Greens need our help and assistance on that. Together, we are a formidable force locally. We need unity, not division.
This is an important message not just in Enfield, but across the country. Because it’s clearly no longer time for party political games. It’s time to join together in a spirit of cooperation and mount a strong resistance to the fascists of Reform.
Featured image via Leon Neal/Getty Images
By Ed Sykes
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