Politics
Waltham Forest Socialist Independents putting community first as they stand in Cathall
Cathall, London — A week and a half until local elections on 7 May, and communities across the country are seeing the widest array of candidates from across the political spectrum. With protest votes, apathy and anger becoming the main opposition to getting engagement from local voters, independent groups are making it clear they stand ready and committed to fill this void of neglect in their local communities.
One of those groups is Waltham Forest Independent Socialists, borne from the Your Party movement, who have been hard at work trying to bring people together and heal local divisions.
The Canary spoke to Connor Rosoman and Susan Catten who are standing for Cathall Ward. They told us about how it has been on the doors and how local people are feeling in light of the area’s traditional Labour heritage.
Cathall candidate Catten: ‘A woman said, ‘at last, a party I can vote for”
First, Susan Catten told us how local people are feeling about politics and how engaged they are ahead of the locals:
Well, actually, I have found it quite invigorating. We’ve had a lot of support. People resonate with the issues, for example, over housing, about stronger licensing laws for landlords, the issue about the lack of council tax support.
These things resonate with people on the doorstep so actually, although we are quite a new organisation and we have to explain ourselves. I think one of the turning points for me was when we knocked on a door and a woman said, ‘at last a party I can vote for’, because it represented all the things that she felt needed doing.
It’s been quite exciting.
Rosoman added:
Yeah, that’s right. The campaign has been really positive at this stage. So, I mean, the context of it really is that, you know, In Cathall, previously, Labour won 70 plus percent of the vote. It’s a very, very strong Labour ward. But the mood on the doors has been, as you’d expect, one where loads of people are really questioning who they want to vote for this time around.
A lot of people that have voted Labour and been very, very disappointed in the current government. And there’s a bit of soul searching going on. There’s a lot of apathy. I think, especially because, like Cathall, it’s worth kind of saying, it’s pretty much the poorest ward in Waltham Forest.
Waltham Forest is an area with some of the highest wage inequality in London, so it’s an area of extremes, and Cathall’s definitely on the poorer end and it has a lot of social housing. So, there’s a lot of people that are very disappointed, very angry and are either looking for something different or they’re just kind of like ‘oh well they’re all the same, it’s not going to change anything’.
Sometimes it’s hard to break through that a lot of the time. But then we’ve been able to come along and we’ve been able to say ‘we’re very different that’s the whole reason we’re here and we’re also trying to build something that’s rooted in ordinary people standing up for what we see that we need around here’.
That’s really broken through with people and it’s meant that we’ve been able to have some really good conversations and the response has been really positive so far.
Cathall candidate Rosoman: ‘Even if people haven’t heard of us, they’re open to us’
We asked both Rosoman and Catten whether Reform are a threat in Cathall. They then told us how people are feeling on the doors about the prospect of a Reform councillor getting elected, with Rosoman saying:
We’ve not had a lot of opposition, Reform want, i think, they want to think that a ward like this is the sort of place that they could stand and win, but they’ve not really got any ground. It’s a very diverse kind of community, lots of immigrants and so on who can see right through that so the response that we’ve had if it’s not being just like ‘oh well you know, i don’t care they’re all the same i don’t want to talk’
It’s been really positive I would say that if you know even if people haven’t heard of us, they’re open to us and they’re following what we’re saying.
Catten agreed, telling us:
Some people might be looking at Reform, some people might be deadly afraid of them. Actually, some people have said they’ve had some Reform leaflets, and they’ve just torn them up or put them in the bin. I don’t think I’ve actually encountered anyone who admitted to saying they would vote reform.
I think, you know, when people open the door and you’re engaging with them, yeah, they might say they’re voting green, but they certainly are not saying they’re voting Reform.
That’s not to say they won’t get some votes. Of course they’ll pick up some votes. But, you know, I don’t get the feeling there’s a groundswell of support for them. So, I don’t see them as a real threat.
And to be quite honest, on the doorstep, I’d much rather concentrate on talking about what we can do in Cathall should we be elected.
Catten: ‘People are tired of the same old, same old’
Discussing the appetite amongst voters for a different way of doing local politics, Catten told us:
It is a new way of doing politics because, you know, it’s not the same old, same old, is it? The thing is, people are tired of the same old, same old. And so our leaflets, our approach on the doorstep is about, look, give us a chance. You know, we’re a fresh organisation and we are committed.
And we’ve actually committed a policy of not taking the councillors’ allowances. That’s something no other party has done.
But actually, when we’ve had engagements with people, I think people are turning around. At the end of the day, we are a new organisation, but we are enthusiastic, we are committed, and I think that comes across well on the doorstep.
Going further, Rosoman also informed:
We’re registered as Waltham Forest Independent Socialists. What we’ve been saying is that we’re a new local political party. We’re rooted in these different community campaigns and local trade unionists and renters. And that does resonate with people.
I’ll use an example from yesterday that I was, like, so energised by. We were talking to this South Asian family who’d been clearly politicised over Palestine. We mentioned Starmer’s support for genocide as just an offhand thing. Their kids started chanting ‘free, free Palestine’. You could tell that they’d been out on the marches and stuff. And I think this is something that gets missed sometimes. Their politics didn’t end at Palestine. Even if Palestine was one of the things that was on their mind, they would be political people.
And I think that it’s hard not to, you know, look at what’s going on in the Middle East, in Gaza, and not draw, like, conclusions about everything else. And so, you know, they started then asking all these questions about, like, what would we do about, like, social behaviour and crime, homelessness, and housing and all of these sorts of things.
I think that people do join those dots. People see it from various starting points, don’t they? People are pissed off.
Rosoman then told us about how, like many across the country, local residents feel like they’ve been continually lied to and let down:
They build affordable housing which everyone knows is totally unaffordable, it’s only affordable to those with money, and the people that need affordable housing can’t get it. People really resonate on what we’ve said about the housing crisis, and it connects them to these issues of community as well. Like, people struggle to stay in the area, they struggle to stay around people they know, all of these things.
And we’ve connected that to two local community centres that have been closed in recent years. One of them just stands empty. There not being used for anything, and we’ve been talking about, well, why not reopen that, so that we can actually use it and it can be part of the community and it can keep people together and kind of re-establish some of that social life that’s just been kind of crushed and atomized over the last few years.
These sorts of points i think really resonate because we’re connected to the local area, we’re able to talk about these issues that directly connect to people’s lives, i think that has helped.
Rosoman: ‘They really bloody hate Kier Starmer’
Labour will undoubtedly face a kicking due to their cruel policies and continuation of Tory austerity across working class areas. Moreover, Rosoman has encountered considerable hostility towards Starmer specifically within the local community. This can only underscore how unhappy people in London are with the Westminster political elite:
A lot of people are going to vote against Labour not just because of the local council but because they really bloody hate Kier Starmer, and that is also perfectly valid and it’s important.
If we want to send a message to Labour you know on the national level well, seeing them lose all these seats in the council elections is one of the ways that we can do that. That’s been something that’s really connected with people, so I wouldn’t say that it’s like just the local thing, but I think that we’re very well placed being the ‘new kids on the block’, as independent socialists, that are able to really connect to that.
Speaking of Your Party and local engagement in active campaigning, Rosoman told us:
We’ve been a really strong proto-branch, I think, from the beginning. And our election launch campaign, even, you know, a few months ago, had, like, 65 people present. And then, since then, last weekend, just as a standard weekend canvassing session, we had 11 people come out. A couple of weeks before that we did this mega canvas and we had 30 plus people come out so you know we’ve had a real groundswell of people that are keen on doing this.
We’ve got like a real base of people on the ground that are really outstanding local activists and that want to build something and are seeing this election as a chance to kind of plant this flag you know and so it’s not just because of the hard work of a few I mean it’s been hard work I don’t want to understate that but it’s definitely been this huge collective effort and the fact that we’ve really had something like fireball on the ground that has allowed us to really get around.
You know, we’ve hit every door in the ward now going back over roads and trying to get people that didn’t answer last time and that sort of thing.
And locally, there’s like a really strong tradition of organising. Rothenstone in 2024 was, you know, the site of those like famous pictures, right, when the far right racist riots were happening. 10,000 people from the local community turned out on Walthamstow High Street to prevent them showing up and that was just an out of the woodwork, groundswell of people.
Those are the traditions that I think we have in this local area and so, people will show up and they will fight.
The left vote is at risk of a split due to the Green Party’s national pledge to stand in every ward. Subsequently, this led to backsliding on electoral agreements made with the local Green party in Cathall. However, Catten emphasised how local people seem to have had enough of political parties and are particularly resonating with independent politics:
There are a couple of Green Party candidates, but they’re only paper candidates. They’re not really standing with any policies.
I think when we’ve gone out, our leaflets have been very well received because they’re quite solid. They talk about what we want to do, what we’re aiming for and what we stand for, and that’s what I think is doing us favours on the doorstep. People are actually responding.
Yeah, there are some people who say, ‘oh, well, you know. you’re all the same’, or ‘I’m going to spoil my ballot paper’.
Nevertheless, Waltham Forest Independent Socialists continue to push forward, as Rosoman explains while describing his conversations with local voters:
The point that we’ve been making on the doors is that the Greens are basically letting us have this ward. They’re not doing a campaign. We’re knocking, you know, we’re doing this big campaign, knocking the doors. You know, the main place to put your vote, if you want to stick it to Labour, is with us. If you’re in Cathall, in many other places, even our supporters are going to be working for Greens.
But here in Cathall, the only place that we are standing in the borough, we’re the campaign on the ground, and that actually really do care.
‘I’m looking forward to having some tense conversations with Calvin Bailey, if I win’
If elected on May 7th, Rosoman outlined his first priorities and areas he intends to specifically focus on in Cathall:
Yeah, well, I mean… I think I’ve mentioned a couple of these things – community centres and the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Centre. It’s one of the things we’ve really tried to point out. But also, as I say, this rent issue is hugely important. And we’ve got this specific issue in Walthamstow, where the council has announced a £30 million overspend – they’re looking to raise council tax and cut services. It’s the same picture you see everywhere, right?
I think that because we’ve been able to build a groundswell of support on the ground and so on, we’ll be in a good position, if we win, to come in and start speaking up about that immediately. That’s not something you can solve overnight, obviously, but the point we’ve been making is that every time you’re faced with a cut, you’re faced with a choice: do you just implement it, or do you try and fight it? And you can’t just fight it on your own – councils themselves have limited powers to do that – but we’re not coming at it as just me and Susan Katz and the other person standing in the ward. We’re coming at it with connections to local trade unions behind us.
Because we’ve got all of that behind us, I think we’re really in a position to speak against that, to connect with other people throughout London who are facing the same sorts of things, and to try and build a movement around it. And Starmer is going to be in such a weak position, if he even survives these local elections, so there’s a time to put demands on the national government for things like funding to councils. The government nationally will be in the weakest position they’ve been in yet coming out of these local elections, and that’s the time to keep up the fight, rather than say, ‘we’ve just been elected, so we can take a breather.’
Yeah, I’m looking forward to having some tough conversations with Calvin Bailey, if I win.
We at the Canary recognise that growing appetite for a new way of doing politics in our communities. After all, it is surely the only way to ensure that local people are truly at the heart of local policy.
We wish both Susan Catten and Connor Rosoman the best of luck for 7 May and urge local voters to choose candidates who actively show their commitment to really challenge the status quo.
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