Rowenna Davis, the candidate who missed out by 25 votes to stand for Labour in Croydon and Sutton in May’s London Assembly elections, says she will continue with her campaigning activism “to make a difference to people in… our capital”.
“You don’t need an elected position to do that,” she said, “so I’ll continue to do so.”
Rowenna Davis, second left, helping at the weekly soup kitchen organised by Surrey Street trader Jose Joseph (left)
The much-delayed selection process saw Patsy Cummings, a Labour councillor for South Norwood ward, narrowly win, from a poll of more than a thousand Labour members in the two boroughs.
For Davis, it is back to work in her teaching job on Monday after half-term. But from a social media post, it is clear that Davis intends to continue her campaigning on such issues as improving air quality and to eliminate school holiday hunger, something she has noticed to be a disturbingly growing feature in her classrooms.
“Some of you may have seen glimpses of this very special campaign on social media,” she wrote.
“Over the last year, we crowdsourced thousands of donations to local foodbanks each school holiday, which meant fewer families and kids going hungry. We used the campaign to fight climate change and push for better air quality, petitioning Sadiq Khan to commit to making our city carbon neutral by 2030 and crowdsourcing hundreds of locations for new trees in our neighbourhoods that can now be planted.
“We marched alongside mothers against knife crime and worked with local community groups and businesses to create safe havens for young people.
“It represented the very best of Labour campaigns: positive, practical, inclusive. The culture was beautiful and we made a difference.
“We always knew we were the underdogs, so we built a campaign that would be independently valuable regardless of the result. That, at least, we won.
Davis and her campaign team were often overwhelmed by the generosity of the Croydon public
“If you’re reading this as a volunteer, I trust you’ve seen this first hand.
“My heart struggles to take in the scale of the contribution you have made and the level of talent and passion our party has in you. I remember looking up during one of the last phonebanks – listening to dozens of you chatter on the phone whilst my husband was kindly cooking for us – I had to take in a breath at the scale of it all.
“I remember standing on icy street corners doing air quality surveys with you, seeing you drive through storms to pick up food parcels, talking to local business owners about knife crime out of hours, teenagers producing my campaign video over their weekends, ladling out rice at soup kitchens with you… and that’s before we get to the hundreds of Labour members who gave up their time on the phones to talk to us about what mattered to them.
“We may have lost, but those relationships we’ve built carry on. There are new leaders emerging from this campaign who will serve Labour at the elections this May and beyond. I am proud to back you as you have me.
“So, although it always stings to lose, this campaign has been a blessing.
One of the posters in the campaign against holiday hunger
“At its best, Labour enables each of us to join our individual lives to a bigger picture, to connect our lives with a wider social story. It enabled me to talk about my students’ lives outside of the classroom, to talk about how our education system is impacted by young people’s worries about security, housing, opportunities and inequality.
“It gave me a platform and a community to campaign with on those issues for which I am truly grateful. You don’t need an elected position to do that, so I’ll continue to do so.
“Our young people deserve Labour representation.
“No matter how involved you were in this selection, I encourage each of you to go out and campaign for Labour, Sadiq and for Patsy in the upcoming elections in May. We have precious little time, and the London Assembly becomes even more important in the face of five more years of Tory government.
“It is a place we can and must make a difference to people in Croydon and Sutton and our capital. I look forward to continuing to work with you to make that happen.”
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