Two more Lewisham Labour councillors defect to the Greens

Image courtesy Lewisham Council.

Two more Lewisham Labour councilors have today announced defection from Labour to the Green Party.

The announcement follows the previous switch of two other councillors last year.

Today’s announcements means Cllr Rudi Schmidt (Evelyn) and Cllr Tauseef Anwar (Crofton Park) will stand for the Green Party at the local elections in May. Cllr Anwar was civic Mayor between 2020 and 2024.

Recent polling has suggested Labour could be in for some major losses across London. Councillor Schmidt told Novara:

“I really respect my Labour Party colleagues and listen, there’s a lot of hard-working and caring councillors, but what’s wrong with the Labour Party really is the national party and the grip it has across local councils.

“There’s developed like a fear, a culture of fear, the fear of speaking out on injustice, as fear of speaking out against austerity, a fear of speaking out against the Labour Party’s complicity in Gaza, and I think that almost all authoritarian way of operating has filtered down to local councils”

Greenwich

In neighboring Greenwich some Labour councilors have also recently switched to the Greens or stood down and embraced the Green candidate, as happened in the Shooter’s Hill ward last year.

Labour threatened to suspend the sitting Labour councillor for raising resident’s concerns about land sales. In response the sitting councillor Ivis Williams stood down and backed the Greens in a by-election, which the Greens won. Labour’s candidate was accused of being misleading during the campaign and didn’t attend hustings.

Many of the same accusations have been heard about Labour in Greenwich as heard in Lewisham. That being the party is too centralised, cracks down on dissent and fails to allow a diversity of views.

Anyone who speaks up is ostracised and party self-interest comes ahead of resident concerns.

On that note since Labour lost councillors they’ve tightened up grip in Greenwich Council and this week agreed to ensure scrutiny from other parties is now made harder, with restrictions on scrutiny panel call-ins as well as rule changes on how many questions can be asked in full council meetings.

Recent actions

Labour recently recently forced through six per cent increases on various TfL modes of transport. That was after Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander insisted TfL must increase fares above inflation every year until 2030 in exchange for funding for projects such as replacing 50 year old Bakerloo line trains.

The government failed to support extending the Bakerloo line to Lewisham while enforcing that increase.

The announcement of defections today was made on the same day Lewisham Labour promoted their manifesto for the upcoming local elections. That’s one issue that’ll be covered soon.

One key point they make which will be looked into is in regards to building new social housing. The issue there is one of their biggest sites at Besson Street in New Cross includes zero proposed council or social housing under a public private partnership agreement. The council has around 2,000 households in temporary private accommodation at vast cost yet has opted for zero council homes on a substantial plot under their ownership.

It formerly saw social housing and businesses on site, who were evicted twenty years ago. The site has been left as a mass expanse of weeds and overgrown foliage ever since.