Try, try, try again: Andrew Pelling, Tory MP, Labour councillor, now a LibDem candidate

CROYDON COMMENTARY: Yesterday we reported how a former Croydon MP is standing for election with his third political party.
Here, ANDREW PELLING explains why his days as an independent candidate are over

“All politics is local”. Tip O’Neill’s phrase has much merit when applied in Croydon.

Certainly, for me, my consistent political slogan over the years has been “Putting Croydon First”. For the good of Croydon, Labour needs replacing as the progressive choice for voters.

The local Labour party remains in “special measures” and continues to exhibit corrupted governance.

There was Labour’s involvement with the illegal hacking of Inside Croydon in 2021, then there were the independent reports into the collapse of the last council that “mislaid” £193million of Croydon residents’ cash, the deselection or expulsion of Labour councillors and candidates who spoke for reform, the more recent corrupted process in the selection of a Croydon East parliamentary candidate, and the continuing failure of the local Labour Party even to reconcile themselves to their role in bankrupting the town.

Croydon has not really benefited from being a two-party showdown.

Hustings hustle: as an independent in the 2022 Croydon Mayoral election won by Jason Perry, under-resourced Pelling finished fourth

After eight years as a Labour councillor, the party expelled me in 2022 for speaking up for having a Directly Elected Mayor and for daring to speak to Inside Croydon. In my time in the Croydon Labour Group, they spent more time in private meetings passing motions condemning Inside Croydon than discussing the council’s troubled finances.

During the subsequent Mayoral election, I found myself at hustings as an independent agreeing with Major Rick Howard, when he was the Liberal Democrat Mayoral candidate.

“I agree with Rick” became the refrain, on empowering communities through devolution of decision-making, a devolution of powers that would also save scarce council cash. That Mayoral campaign brought me closer to the Liberal Democrats and a dialogue has continued in the subsequent two years.

Having sat behind the Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons in my time as an MP, I can say that they are a different set of people with different values from Labour, who just can’t help betraying their authoritarian traits.

By contrast, the Liberal Democrats want a fair deal for people that gives everyone the opportunity to thrive and have real power over their lives with a fair and innovative economy intended to reverse the falling living standards of recent years.

They want a strong social safety net and a repaired relationship with Europe to aid economic prosperity. They want public-interest water utilities that don’t gouge money from customers for the benefit of private equity, all the time polluting our rivers and beaches.

Impressive: LibDem councillor Claire Bonham has consistently voted against Council Tax rises, unlike Labour and Tories

They want 8,000 new GPs and the right to see the doctor within seven days. Currently, the GP “front door” of the NHS in primary care is broken so badly that hard-pressed hospital A&Es takes the brunt of the diverted health demand.  Liberal Democrats promise a transformation in social care and in mental health, with mental health hubs and a mental health champion in every school to tackle the troubling increase in poor mental health among our youngsters.

These may well have been ideas that in the past would have sat easily with my views as a “One Nation” Conservative MP, councillor or Assembly Member.

But the Conservatives have moved well away from the centre ground. They have staged their own purges – of moderate Tories.

Today’s Conservative Party’s intolerance towards various communities is appalling.

As a Young Conservative, I joined a party looking forward to a new future for the country in the European Economic Community. In this century, Tories persuaded voters to leave the European Union on false premises. Ineptitude in Prime Minister Theresa May’s time in No10 led inexorably to the worst terms of Brexit exit.

In the Mayoral election two years ago, the Conservatives promised to fix the finances. Little did we think that this “fix” meant putting up Council Tax by 21% in the space of 12 months for Croydon to become the second highest in Greater London – in return for fewer services.

The local Conservatives have not taken the initiatives that could improve the council’s finances. Worst of all, they have not managed to persuade their own government to come up with long-term solutions to what they admit is the council’s unsustainable debt.

Croydon politics is different.

‘Steve Reed you can’t hide, We charge you with genocide’: pro-peace protesters outside a Croydon North and Streatham CLP meeting

Croydon’s one Liberal Democrat councillor, Claire Bonham, who is also the parliamentary candidate for Streatham and Croydon North, already provides such a superior service to residents in her Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood ward compared to Labour. It is a part of the borough where Labour take voters for granted.

I am taken aback that Steve Reed, her Labour opponent in that parliamentary constituency, just ignored requests from the Croydon Federation of Mosques to meet them to learn of their very serious concerns about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the conflict in the Middle East. Claire Bonham has met the Federation of Mosques.

Major Rick Howard, the impressive  Liberal Democrat candidate in Croydon South, who in his Army career saw active service in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, addressed the Purley Mosque about Gaza. In an informal end-of-meeting poll, the audience endorsed his party over others.

Croydon’s Muslim communities, once mainly Labour supporters, are looking for other parties to vote for and are impressed by Layla Moran, as well as the Liberal Democrats’ long-term policy on the Middle East and their unhesitating call for an immediate ceasefire, a two-state solution, the release of hostages and a ban on British arms sales to Israel.

Croydon’s Labour councillors have been silent on the issue – it’s a miserable life being a Labour representative when you speak for the party, not for those who you are supposed to represent.

I hope to be standing as the Liberal Democrat candidate in Croydon East when the General Election is called, some time this year.

Clearly, with a calamitous government to defend, the Tory party polling at historic lows, culture wars that don’t appeal in a tolerant Croydon and a candidate who, whatever his personal merits, pushed through the 21% Council Tax increase, the Conservatives are not going to be challengers in Croydon East.

Major medals: Rick Howard

I hope that with my past record as the Croydon Central MP, London Assembly Member and a councillor, that I can aid the Liberal Democrat cause.

Certainly, I have found it to be a challenge to get elected as an independent.

A solace is that every vote as an independent is a personal vote, and it was kind of 6,807 fellow Croydon residents to vote for me for Mayor two years ago. In 2010, 3,239 voted for me when I stood as an independent for the Croydon Central parliamentary seat. The vote shares were 7.1% and 6.5% respectively.

Gallant independents securing victory is rare, with just three elected this century, two of whom I sat with in the House – Dai Davies and Dr Richard Taylor.

But with that Mayoral vote concentrated especially where I was the MP in Croydon East (or where I was a councillor) the sum of my personal vote and the Liberal Democrat vote provides a base for a credible third-party challenge. In the Croydon East constituency and the Park Hill and Whitgift ward in the former Croydon Central, my percentage vote and that of Rick Howard’s in the Mayoral elections is mainly in the high teens but, in two wards, was over 20% and reaching as high as 23.4%.

Confident and robust Liberalism can thrive in a tolerant Croydon, to the borough’s benefit.

• Andrew Pelling was first elected as a councillor in Croydon in 1982. Since then, he has been a Conservative MP and Assembly Member and, from 2014 to 2022, a Labour councillor

Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
Read more: Party animal Pelling looks to run in Croydon East – for LibDems
Read more: Before you next vote, you must read this from The New Yorker

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