Richmond Park prospective candidate: It’s now clear that the Brexiteers lied to us

This article is part of a series of comment pieces by the shortlisted candidates for Labour’s candidacy for the Richmond Park by-election. You can read them all here.

In 2013 the members of Richmond Park selected me to be their candidate in the 2015 General election. From the first hustings to the last my confidence grew, I believe I found a good stride and was able to connect with voters from across the constituency. This was not only down to me: I was lucky to have such amazing support from the CLP volunteers who hit the ground and campaigned in any weather for me. I again thank each of you from the bottom of my heart.

Election night proved that the constituency party are a force to be reckoned with, we finished with 12.3 per cent of the vote, up 7.3 per cent. I mention this because at the time we had around 400 members – fast forward 18 months and I’m so PROUD to say that we have 1600+ members. Imagine the force we can campaign with now.

If you select me, I will be trying to get as many of the members out to show that we will not just stand aside and allow the Liberals a free run against the ‘independent’ Zac (who at the time of typing this has not ruled out re-joining the Tories).

We have a massive issue with Heathrow, I am against the third runway for many reasons, the main of which is the environmental impact on our city. Latest figure show that 9400 people in London die due to poor air quality, this simply cannot be increased. Another reason for the non-expansion is that London has five airports which you can reach within an hour from central London. If there is a need to expand airports then let’s look north, we have such a powerhouse in the south and we should look at building up the north where investment is lacking. We have great train links that can get people into these northern city airports and these train fares will be cheaper when Jeremy Corbyn and our party are back in power and the railways re-nationalised.

We face a challenge with Brexit, 72% of our fantastic constituency voted the same way as I and that was to remain. It has become clear the Brexit team lied to get the vote their way and there have been huge calls for a fresh referendum on the matter. If we didn’t get this and have to go through with article 50 then I would campaign for Labour to have a strong presence in the negotiations and I would not allow the Tories to sell us up the river.

How would I campaign? There was a nice press article on the BBC about the gentlemanly way Zac & I conducted business in the 2015 campaign, I would still be respectful but I cannot allow Zac to get away with an awful mayoral campaign, he has shown that he has not got morals and is easily influenced. He was happy to agree with me in 2015 that politics is not personal but policy. However, move forward to his 2016 mayoral campaign and the attacks he fired at Sadiq Khan were despicable. I would want to also highlight the Liberals track record, they had 5 years in joint power and allowed Cameron and his Tories to break our nation.

We are living in 2016 Britain where the Tories are happy to smile at the opening of food-banks, they are turning a blind eye to the tax dodgers, they are cutting the front line forces, they are cutting education investment and they are killing the NHS. The NHS that our party founded and made the jewel in the crown of our nation.

I am a trade unionist through and through, I was not brought up to be in politics and got involved because of my learnings through the union movement. When you grow up seeing your friends avoid university because of the costs, your friends having to work in bars when they’ve graduated as the markets are too competitive it lights a fire to want to make a change.

Finally, one of the most key issues that I have to touch on is mental health, some of you may remember but I’ve been open with my battles with depression. I am so proud to even be shortlisted for a party which has created a shadow minister for mental health. We have led the way in campaigning on the issue and no matter what happens on Saturday, I’ll always be a huge supporter of this area because I’ve been there and I know some amazing people fighting mental health issues now. I’m proud that the negative stigma is being broken by our party.