In the eleventh of our video interview series #CanaryCandidates, we meet independent candidate Cassi Bellingham – standing against Labour’s Sean Woodcock
Cassi Bellingham is standing in the general election as an independent candidate in Banbury. As a former Labour councillor, she told the Canary she is “deeply underwhelmed” with the Labour Party opponent Sean Woodcock the party has maneuvered into the candidacy of the neglected Oxfordshire town:
There’s basically nobody standing up for the policies I care about. So… I want someone on the hustings stage making the argument for socialist policies.
And as she insisted of Banbury:
We are a brand new constituency, so nobody should be voting tactically. It’s one of those unique opportunities to show all of the parties where our values lie as a constituency…
Don’t vote for a party if they’re not representing your values. We can afford not to vote tactically this time. We know we’re not facing a Tory government… We can make it really clear to all of the political parties where our priorities are, so that they… have to work for our votes.
Starmer’s Labour is “just a lobbyist’s wet dream” with “no value or purpose”
Having experienced the hope of in Labour under Jeremy Corbyn leadership, Cassi Bellingham also witnessed the deterioration of that under Starmer:
Well I think we all knew what Starmer was. You know, we all knew he was opportunistic… So for me, it was all about how much the membership still had a vote. And when it became very clear that motions that were being passed at conference were immediately being shelved or disavowed, that it was no longer a membership party, it was basically no longer the political arm of the labour movement, so there’s no value or purpose to it in my eyes at the moment…
It’s just a lobbyist’s wet dream.
She’s hopeful about the emergence of independent left-wing challenges to Labour, however:
One of the things the Corbyn movement did was pull all of those campaign groups into the political arena. And we’ve all been trained really well… The right of the Labour Party have trained us the game very well – they’ve taught us how to operate in this system by the way that they treated people.
And so, what I’m seeing is all those campaign groups reemerging again as independent entities but operating within the political sphere. And I think what we’re seeing around the progressive left candidates across the country operating together but independently is really exciting…
I think of the European Research Group… They were a small group of MPs on our backbenches that changed the direction of this country forever. Well if a small group of right-wing MPs can do that to… ill gain, surely a small group of progressive MPs can do the same for good…
One of the things we’ve seen very clearly through the Corbyn project is that the current system will not allow a left-wing government. But an organised voting block willing to play the game could actually get some real progressive gains. So I think the game has changed and I think people are getting savvy to that, and there’s opportunities within it.
She also believes that independent resistance to Labour is a necessary “wake-up call” for the party. Speaking specifically about the party’s response to the genocide in Gaza, she insisted:
I think it’s the most appalling betrayal of their responsibility there could possibly be. I don’t know that I can ever forgive them for this to be honest… This has been an area of… moral weakness…
Their actions on Gaza mean they… wouldn’t get my vote until every single member of their leadership team is not anywhere near the party anymore, even if that’s decades’ time, because it’s appalling…
The fact that our opposition voice is not only silent but complicit during this time is just unforgiveable, and I hope it costs them… their majority, because I think they need… that wake-up call.
Cassi Bellingham: you can’t appease the establishment
Talking about establishment resistance to the prospect of a left-wing government, Cassi Bellingham said:
There is nothing they will not do to ensure that doesn’t happen. And I think we saw that really clearly in terms of the personal attacks, the way that left-wing MPs were targeted to the measure of some of these big, long police enquiries that people were dragged through… pressuring our criminal justice system all the way through to that level…
It needs to be fractured from lots of different angles now. We can’t get through the front door on that.
Speaking about the coziness of the mainstream media with Starmer until the election campaign began, meanwhile, she explained:
it’s like this constant, low-grade conflict of interest”… You’ve just got this poisonous, toxic, comfortable bubble… It’s so damaging to our democracy… For the majority of it, it is just good old-fashioned class warfare.
In the face of smears and defamation, meanwhile, she has a clear stance:
Legal advice immediately, and let it be know that there’s legal advice. I don’t think we answer to it… They’d better be willing to stand up in court and defend the accusation… Do not entertain it at all…
Nobody likes to be unfairly represented and it’s our instinct to defend it. But my response is always ‘are you willing to back that up in a court of law, what you’ve just said? And if not, I’ll accept your public apology on Twitter tomorrow’…
You cannot appease those who are not coming to the table with honourable intentions, and certainly not coming with any care for any of the communities in our nation.
For more on Bellingham’s comments on the election and other issues, see the full interview on our YouTube channel:
Watch and read all our #CanaryCandidates interviews here.
Featured image via the Canary
