Editorials

By Croydon Labour member

[Editorial note: The website Inside Croydon has many commentaries and blogs, often humorous. This particular article is worth reproducing on Left Horizons because it demonstrates perfectly the democratic desert that the Labour Party has become under Keir Starmer’s leadership].

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Our Political Editor, WALTER CRONXITE, sneaked in at the back of Labour’s Zoom room last night to discover what the party’s 2026 mayoral candidates might have to offer to the people of Croydon, and found himself in a dystopian bonus episode of Severance

When is a hustings not a hustings? When it’s a London Labour Party hustings.

Rowenna Davis and Manju Shahul-Hameed, two Croydon councillors, last night appeared in a specially arranged Zoom meeting, supposedly to answer questions about their candidacies to be selected by party members to be Labour’s candidate for Croydon Mayor in the local elections to be held in 2026.

This would be the only party-organised appearance by the councillors before members get to vote. There is to be no in-person selection meetings at which the candidates can be asked questions directly by Labour members. And, indeed, no members got to ask a single question of Shahul-Hameed or Davis in this online meeting organised by Labour’s London region officials.

Since they managed to crash the borough’s finances in 2020, the Croydon Labour Party has been on the “naughty step” with their party nationally, not trusted to run their own campaigns or select their own candidates.

It’s not as if London Labour has a clean bill of health over Croydon matters, either: when they oversaw the parliamentary selection for Croydon East in 2023, they ended up being prompting a Scotland Yard probe for data fraud – an investigation which remains on-going, according to the Met.

Which makes last night’s sham of a selection hustings all the more uncomfortable for anyone with an interest in democracy, or grass-roots engagement, or even accountability.

It was all too much like a specially dystopian episode of Severance, where the “Outies” were never allowed contact with Labour’s “Innies”.

Questions were asked solely by a London Labour bureaucrat, not by members. There was no chance for members to interact with either candidate, no chance for interaction between the candidates, and no chance for follow-up questions, either.

London Labour had even disabled Zoom’s chat function. No data was provided on who was in attendance or even how many Labour members bothered to turn up to this hustings.

Such is the disengagement and disinterest in the selection process, Stuart King, the leader of the Labour group on the council, plus two ward councillor colleagues and MP Sarah Jones didn’t even bother postponing or cancelling a community meeting with the police last night. Maybe they all already know the result of the selection ballot?

The way selections hustings non-meeting meeting was organised, though, was none of the fault of either candidate. It was a prime example of the top-down, members-can’t-be-trusted culture of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, all firmly established by his former General Secretary David Evans.

Of the candidates, Rowenna Davis was fluent, articulate and effortlessly name-dropped her endorsement from Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, her meeting the Mayor of Malmo and guiding business leaders around the borough.

Manju Shahul-Hameed stumbled, was hesitant and much less polished, but she could speak of her record and achievements as a cabinet member, without actually mentioning that it was in the cabinet of council leader Tony Newman, which led to the council’s first two Section 114 notices.

On the housing crisis, neither candidate mentioned council housing, just some references to more “affordable housing” and working with housing associations.

Both made some dubious or questionable claims (not that any members were allowed to question them, remember…).

Davis promised to work with Transport for London and rail companies to restore pre-covid levels of public transport. With more people than ever working from home, that hardly seems likely. She also cited the Washwood Health Hub in Birmingham as a model for Croydon to follow. It has been praised by Wes Streeting, which of itself many Labour grassroots members might not consider to be a good thing, and is operated privately by Operose Health who were subject to an expose by Panorama, so hardly a recommendation.

According to one Inside Croydon reader, “With Manju it looked like the script she was reading from was reflected in her glasses.”

Shahul-Hameed had cabinet responsibilities under Newman for business in the borough, and look at how well that has all worked out. Reading from her script, she promised to bring in businesses leading on digital care (what that was supposed to mean, she never explained), and funding for voluntary organisations (she established a charity in her own name), as well as a pledge to establish a Croydon Culture Fund and numerous residents’ panels. These included connectivity panels, regular borough-wide panels and a residents’ accountability panel. Quite who would be on these panels and how they would be chosen and funded was not explained.

Shahul-Hameed declared the climate to be “quite central, quite important”, while Davis recalled it was Croydon Labour that declared a “climate emergency”. Davis said it was important to work with Croydon Community Energy. The London Labour apparatchik may have winced when Davis referred to Labour as “people on the left”.

Davis was not afraid to offend people, though. She declared later that the Scrutiny Committee “had a poor reputation when I took over”. The previous chair was Newman-appointee Sean Fitzsimmons, who may or may not have been in attendance on the meeting (we will never know). Perhaps Fitzsimons might now become Shahul-Hameed’s campaign manager. By goodness, she needs one.

Davis’ appraisal of Croydon’s finances was to the point: ”We need to get a deal with central government on the debt”. Labour’s problem in Croydon might very well be that the Labour government commits to such a deal sometime before the May 2026 elections, handing a massive political coup to Jason Perry, the Conservative incumbent Mayor.

Davis cemented her status as the frontrunner to be on the ballot to replace Perry next May, echoing the Fund Croydon Fairly campaign from 2023 when she said, “I will push for fair funding for outer London boroughs.”

It was announced by the Labour bureaucrat that ballots for voting would be dropping this Friday and that members would have until midday on Monday, April 14, to vote. The clear suggestion is that this is to be a voting process conducted entirely under the discredited Anonyvoter system, with Labour members without access to the internet or emails effectively disenfranchised by their own party.

It would have been helpful to ask for clarification, but no one could speak or put anything in the chat. Just as the Labour Party under Starmer and Lord Evans of Penge like it.

It was “all a bit underwhelming really”, according to one member after another evening wasted on Labour Party matters.

Croydon’s local elections, including the borough’s second mayoral election, alongside voting for 70 councillors across 28 wards, are due to be held on Thursday, May 7, 2026.

This is republished, with permission, from the blogsite, Inside Croydon; the original and other blogs can be found here. Feature photograph, showing a real meeting, is from Inside Croydon.