Politics
Grace Lewis in fight to keep her seat as she works to deliver real change
Local elections are coming in thick and fast, with just two weeks remaining in this highly polarised contest. We spoke to Grace Lewis from Coventry, who was elected as a Labour councillor in 2024 before leaving the party. Citing the party’s support for genocide and its clear intention to impose even more harm to communities through a continuation of the Tories austerity policies, Lewis does not remotely regret giving up on the Labour Party.
Now, determined to change the way local politics are done, Lewis leads an inspiring, people-powered campaign, drawing support from local donations and the help of dedicated volunteers. After initially hoping to stand officially for Your Party, Lewis has since received endorsement from YP as an Independent.
with the national CEC election complete, my local election campaign continues
i need all the help possible to help me beat Labour + Reform and put socialist policies on the agenda. so i’m appealing for any donations as I don’t have billionaire backershttps://t.co/cXKvmVoIY7 — Cllr Grace Lewis (she/her) (@Grace_Lewis18) March 3, 2026
Grace Lewis: ‘There’s not really been any support for Labour’
We spoke to Grace to hear how her local campaign is going:
Yeah, it’s going okay. We’re in the final two weeks of the campaign. All the round one leaflets are out. Postal votes have now dropped. Some of the supportive postal voters have got direct mail now.
In Coventry, we’re running 22 candidates under a socialist banner. We have all 54 seats up this May, across 18 wards. Some people are running under TUSC, Your Party or like myself, as an independent backed by YP.
Your Party MP Zarah Sultana helped with the launch, and we have been mobilising towards campaigning. We’ve been door knocking with her, especially in my ward.
We asked Lewis if she has committed to the Vote Palestine ’26 pledge, championed by the Palestinian Youth Movement:
Yes, I think all the committee candidates should be. As an elected councillor, I have already signed the councillors’ pledge, and that will carry forward.
So, how are you finding it on the doors? Are people quite receptive? How are people feeling about Labour and Reform UK?
Yeah, so I was elected under Labour two years ago. There’s another Labour councillor and there was also a Conservative councillor who defected for Reform at a similar time to my defecting from Labour. So, it’s quite interesting because you have the fully polarised spectrum on offer.
There’s quite a lot of support for Reform, most of it as a result of misinformation in the media as opposed to anything else. A lot of narratives around stopping the boats. So, I’m having persuasive conversations on the doorstep around how you have more in common with somebody coming over on a small boat than you do with Farage and linking it to Trump. People don’t seem to like Trump, even if they love Farage.
In terms of Labour, it’s been one of the best-selling points to be running as an independent. Some of my campaigners tell me that as soon as they say, ‘she was elected for Labour two years ago’, faces on the door drop. And then as soon as you say, ‘oh, she left because of all the stuff that was going wrong’, they are engaged again in the conversation.
There’s not really been any support for Labour. But you never know how people are going to vote on the day, especially when they have three votes.
— ACORN Coventry (@AcornCoventry) March 28, 2026
‘They just can’t trust Farage’
Are people more or less receptive to progressive politics on the doors:
I’ve had about five leaflets through the post from Reform, all sent from the regional office of Central HQ. That’s obviously something that I, as an independent, won’t be able to match.
Some absolutely despise Reform, whereas others have inclinations towards their politics but say they just can’t trust Farage. Those are the people that it’s really worth spending ten minutes with rather than just the usual ‘how are you planning to vote’. That’s really where you know persuasive conversations matter the most.
I also think it’s about how we’re framing it. Something that’s quite interesting on our leaflet, socialism is mentioned very few times, if at all. Instead, we’re actually asking, ‘Why would you want your council tax going towards all these private contracts?’, ‘why would you want the library closed?’.
Even if, more broadly, people understand anti-austerity or anti-imperialist politics.
Lewis also told us about how important it is to really offer an alternative type of politics to Reform and Labour, and is proud of her socialist credentials. Nevertheless, this can be challenging when the MSM and other parties have made socialism a dirty word in politics.
To address this, Lewis spoke of the need for safe spaces to navigate challenging issues so she can work to change minds:
That’s very much how I see my role, there’s already groups in the city like ‘Stand up to Racism’ putting leaflets out saying Reform are racist, but I don’t think it’s necessary to do that as it can alienate people where we need to be speaking to them.
Especially people who are disillusioned and don’t understand class politics in the way that we do.
Thanks to @Grace_Lewis18 for asking this question at @coventrycc full council meeting yesterday about Coventry council's role in strike-breaking and prolonging the #BrumBinStrike.
The dismissive answer from @CCCLeader, Labour's George Duggins, confirms that the party leadership… pic.twitter.com/0yXaZ3Y82M
— Unite For A Workers' Economy (@UniteEconomy) March 25, 2026
‘£750,000 contract with Palantir’
If voters re-elect Lewis on 7 May, she will fight for her local community and challenge the exploitative neglect it has suffered:
The Council doesn’t own any council housing. They outsource their social housing, so I am committed to pushing for building council homes, for fair rent and for action against rogue landlords.
For the past decade, they’ve been trying to bring in additional licensing, but due to the number of landlords on the council there’s backlash, so it’s not been possible. Even though the evidence is clear that it would materially change renters lives and students’ lives. So that would be definitely something to introduce.
Of course, that’s not going to make much difference in isolation. I also want to see public services run for people – not for profit. We’re ending outsourcing PFI contracts, working to restore accountability in the council. There’s currently a city centre redevelopment going on and through that, it’s quite clear that they want to turn it into another Birmingham, as opposed to a city centre that’s meeting the needs of the community itself, such as offering spaces for small independent businesses and for affordable housing.
Those developers are going to make loads of money out of this and at the end, we’re going to be left with another homogenous city.
She is also intending to get Palantir out of their local government, telling us:
Coventry Council also have a £750,000 contract with Palantir, even though they’ve been making cuts in recent years. This outsourcing and removing staff jobs at the council removes some level of responsibility. That needs to end.
In contrast to awarding huge contracts to billionaire-owned Palantir, which has been powering Israel’s genocide on Palestine, the local council has failed to invest in young people in Coventry. Lewis intends, instead, to fight for young people in her community:
There’s a massive deficit in youth opportunities. We have to ask: How do we get the youth involved? Why can’t we do things like free public transport or free school meals?
A lot of London councils have been more successful and making progress in that. Why can’t we do that in Coventry, as well? Why are we trying to downsize and close libraries rather than invest in them and in youth centres?
Kids deserve spaces to play that are safe and protected, and green spaces.
Grace Lewis: ‘It should be up to communities.’
Telling us about how she imagines local politics could change in how its delivered, Lewis informed:
Ahead of the general election, we want to work towards local groups and members choose who they’re standing in elections and it should be up to communities. It’s definitely made my seat more difficult and more precarious as a result.
I think it’s probably worth noting that, on a local level we wouldn’t necessarily be supporting the greens unconditionally if we don’t agree with their politics, but those candidates where we would we were quite open to looking at the bigger picture. Your Party hasn’t managed to get its act together we weren’t really in a position to contest some of the seats meaningfully.
Adding:
What has really stood out to me this time around has been that our campaign is supported and funded by local people, not a party machine. We have had large donors and it’s thanks to their donations that we have the leaflets to be door knocking. Moreover, those who couldn’t come out physically have been folding and stuffing letters into envelopes, and it’s due to them that the campaign for an alternative has been possible.
We’ve had a lot of support from people with varying levels of political engagement, who are either trying to deliver politics differently or to keep Reform out. When I stood under Labour in 2024, while the national picture was on the up, I was winning against my Conservative incumbent.
Solidarity and Courage
Just standing with courage and solidarity can deliver positive change, as Lewis proves:
Even if I don’t win this time around, I’m glad we are getting the message out there about how politics can be done differently, to give people autonomy in the political system. They currently just feel all politicians are the same, it’s not going to matter who they vote for. They just go to work, they have caring responsibilities, they’re earning minimum wage.
So, yeah, hopefully, you know, if nothing else, sparking those conversations, whether that’s against Reform or in putting forward a viable alternative to Labour’s cuts and their ongoing support for genocide.
Asked about whether she regrets leaving Labour and what themes she is seeing from her right-wing opposition:
I definitely don’t regret leaving Labour – I think it’s the best thing I could have done. It’s time to start focusing energy elsewhere.
I’d say there’s a couple, a lot of them are aimed at misinforming people around net zero, particularly from Reform, who have talked about council tax being reduced when we know other reform councils across the country have been unable to live up to that pledge when they walk into local government and realise that there’s a crisis.
Stuff around migration and sometimes it’s framed as ‘putting the British people first’, with racist undertones towards minorities. This area, at one point, had three Conservative councillors and now have none.
Lewis informed us that, yet again, Tories are attempting to distance from the party machine behind them and framing themselves as ‘community champions’. She points out that she has never seen them out and about in the community, making it clear that she isn’t remotely scared of the Conservative opposition.
So I would say the decline of their reputation nationally means they’re really not a contender here.
Best case scenario, they split some of the Reform vote.
We at the Canary hope Lewis is right and that the Tories sabotage Reform’s chances. After all, the far right already gains a significant advantage from MSM and right-wing parties pushing hateful, divisive politics.
It’s about time that came to bite them in the arse.
Featured image via the Canary
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