Six candidates will compete to be the Green Party’s London Mayoral candidate after candidates were formally announced today.
In what the party is describing as its “most competitive and high profile contest to date” after the Greens came third in the 2012 election, London Councillors Sian Berry and Caroline Russell, Party Spokespeople Tom Chance, Benali Hamdache, and Jonathan Bartley, and mentor and activist Rashid Nix [1], will now compete in a series of internal hustings before voting closes on 30th August [2].
The party is expected to announce the winner of the contest in the first week of September.
Caroline Allen, Co-Chair of London Green Party, said:
“The breadth of experience, skills, and knowledge amongst our six candidates is a testament to just how far the Green Party has come in London and shows that we are going to be a force to be reckoned with come next May, no matter who is our candidate. It’s my pleasure to wish each of our candidates good luck in what I know will be high quality and close-fought contest.
“Our priority is that we use the coming weeks to throw open our doors to the public and debate and discuss the issues affecting London and what it is we are going to do about them. With the right Mayor and Assembly in place, London doesn’t have to continue being the play-thing of rich investors and housing speculators. We invite everyone to get involved with our campaigns. Together, we can take back London for Londoners.”
Baroness Jenny Jones AM and Darren Johnson AM, the Green Party’s two current members of the London Assembly, have both already declared their intention not to stand either for Mayor or for re-nomination as Assembly Members.
Notes
1. Candidate biographies:
Jonathan Bartley:
Jonathan is the Green Party's Work and Pensions Spokesperson, and challenged Iain Duncan Smith over the suicides of benefit claimants during the Daily Politics Live General Election debate. He stood against Chuka Umunna MP, achieving one of the biggest swings to the Green Party in the country.
Jonathan was part of Jenny Jones’ 2012 Mayoral campaign team, when the party broke through into third place, and has successfully campaigned to save housing, where he lives in Lambeth.
He is an author, has worked in the House of Commons, including for one Prime Minister, and raised over £1 million for work in the developing world.
Jonathan is a regular contributor to television and radio including Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Programme and BBC1’s Big Questions. He is chair of a national disability charity, and also a semi-professional musician, receiving a nomination for Blues Drummer of the year at the British Blues Awards.
Sian Berry:
Sian Berry was the Green Party's candidate for London Mayor in 2008, running a successful campaign that took the Greens from 7th to 4th and winning the backing of the Independent and Observer. A former Principal Speaker, she has also served as the Party's national campaigns co-ordinator.
Sian was elected as Green councillor for Highgate in Camden in 2014. There she has won a £1 million fund to stop libraries and community centres closing, and is challenging cuts to social housing in the King's Cross redevelopment.
As a successful transport campaigner, she founded the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s, which persuaded then Mayor Ken Livingstone to introduce a higher congestion charge for the most polluting cars.
Sian's campaign for selection as Mayoral and Assembly candidate is backed by Caroline Lucas MP, Green Party deputy leader Amelia Womack and Sarah Cope, Chair of Green Party Women, among many others.
Tom Chance:
Tom is the party’s housing spokesperson, a campaigner for the living wage and less polluted air, and co-chair of the London party.
He is an expert in housing policy after nine years working at City Hall and in a sustainable construction company, and supporting people facing eviction or estate demolition. Tom’s interest in politics began when blockading an Esso garage at 18 with Greenpeace.
Since then he has lobbied in Brussels against software patents, won a campaign for Southwark Council to adopt the living wage, and helped establish London’s first Community Land Trust. Tom is a keen commuter cyclist and vegetable gardener, and contributed most of the data for Southwark for the community project OpenStreetMap. He has lived in London for eight years, and currently lives in Crystal Palace, Bromley.
Benali Hamdache:
Benali is currently the Equalities Spokesperson for the Green Party and chair of the LGBTIQ Greens. He was also the co-coordinator of the London Green Party during the European Elections.
Benali has a background in campaigning and mental health, having worked in the NHS in mental health treatment and research. He successfully led a campaign that overturned homophobic section 28-style PSHE guidance in a set of schools, as well as helping set up a charity for young people with mental health problems. He has also worked in migrants rights campaigning and anti-mental health stigma campaigns.
As the son of an Algerian migrant Benali is passionate about standing up for the diversity of London. He attended a state school in inner Nottingham before studying Psychology at Aston University.
Rashid Nix:
Rashid Nix is a housing activist, youth mentor, radio presenter, social commentator and father.
A south London native, and graduate of South Bank University, he originally worked in publishing.
He spent five successful years at Westminster REC as a mentoring expert, designing programmes for hard to reach young people and served as community representative training police officers as part of the Lawrence Inquiry recommendations.
In 2004 he trained as a cameraman at the BBC, but rather than pursue a corporation career, he took his skills back to the streets and ran film making courses for young people.
A passionate cricket fan he can often be found discussing the erratic form of the once mighty West Indies.
His political awakening happened when his estate was ear-marked for regeneration, thereby dividing a community. He mobilised community members, but it was the short-comings of local Labour politicians that led him to the Greens and to stand for office in local and national elections, significantly raising the profile amongst BAME voters.
Caroline Russell:
Caroline Russell was elected as a Green Party councillor in May 2014, the sole opposition member on Labour-held Islington Council. She is a transport campaigner and the Green Party’s National Spokesperson on Local Transport.
She played a key role in building the successful case for 20 mph limits on main roads, and has been a grass roots campaigner with Living Streets, Roadpeace and Stop Killing Cyclists. In the 2015 General Election she stood in Islington North, trebling the Green share of the vote to 10.2% - the 16th best result in the country, achieved without national party target status.
Caroline has lived in London since 1986. In her earlier career she practiced as an artist and lecturer, exhibiting widely in the UK and Europe, before re-training as a civil engineer and developing her interest in transport issues and community campaigning. Caroline is mother of three children, and a former school governor.
2. All members of the London Green Party will take part in its selection process and the final vote for the party’s Mayoral candidate will be conducted via a ballot of its members using the Single Transferable Vote (STV), a proportional voting system.