John Cronin is in his first election campaign ever, and he’s nervous. John works as a refuse operative in Lambeth – you know, he works on the bins. But in the election for the London Assembly, he’s mixing it with London’s political elite.
John is standing for Reform UK – the party that emerged out of the Brexit Party – in the massive Lambeth and Southwark constituency. He’s one of 11 Reform UK candidates citywide.
The elections take place on 6 May.
John is a working-class bloke – and he believes it’s time that ordinary working-class people like himself were represented in London’s politics.
John believes that other parties really don’t represent these working-class interests. Instead, they are politically correct, interested only in what the middle class want.
John is very concerned that post-lockdown the economy is in real trouble as are people’s jobs. He wants to reduce taxes on ordinary people to boost the economy and spending by increasing the threshold for paying income tax from £12,500 to £20,000. This would eliminate over six million low earners from paying any tax, explains John.
He thinks small businesses are vital to London and wants policies to help the many that have been hit by lockdown. Reform UK’s policy is to cut corporation tax to bring back local business better and stronger even after the furlough scheme has stopped.
Another key issue for John is where London councils have been introducing ‘low traffic neighbourhoods’. They say this is to reduce pollution and noise, and promote cycling and walking – but John doesn’t buy it. John argues that “LTNs” are causing massive delays for car drivers and isolating many residents. Some councils have even made millions by traffic cameras that rack up fines of millions – John did a video report on one such camera. John promises to end these LTNs to make traffic flow easier again and to stop the fines.
One of John’s main campaigns is to fix the cladding scandal. If you don’t know, the cladding scandal was discovered when flammable cladding in Grenfell flats in West London in 2017 ended up with 71 people killed. Since then many other residential buildings have been found with suspect cladding. But rather than the builders pay, many homeowners and leaseholders are being charged.
John believes “the contractors are to blame for the simple reason being that people have bought their property in good faith” and so should pay. John says “they expected the building built to a proper standard in the hands of the reliable contractors. It’s like if you buy a car and find that it’s got a faulty steering wheel, it’s up to the manufacturer to sort it out. It’s up to the manufacturers and the government to contribute to help these people out”. Reform UK is pushing the government to make sure that a builder’s insurance scheme is setup to foot the bill.
John promises to fight for all these new policies and to bring the London Mayor to account if he gets elected on the 6th of May.
John probably won’t win – this time – but he’s in it for the long term.
