In the thirteenth of our video interview series #CanaryCandidates, we meet independent candidate Khalid Sadur – standing against Labour’s Kate Osamor
Khalid Sadur is taking on Labour’s Kate Osamor in Edmonton and Winchmore Hill at the general election. And the reason isn’t Osamor herself, but the Labour Party. As he insisted:
Labour should be the home of the oppressed… They should be the home of people who are vulnerable… And unfortunately, Labour have left those people and deserted those people.
The presence of so many independent candidates in the 2024 general election, he stressed, “a reflection of the mainstream parties”.
There’s no longer an excuse for left-wingers to stick with Labour
Khalid Sadur explained that “Kate was very much pro-Palestinian and a supporter”, but that her suspension from Labour meant that “there was a real fear that we would be put up with a Starmer-led candidate in Edmonton, as opposed to someone who was truly on the left of the party”. As a result, he said:
we started a group called the Enfield Community Action Group (ECAG)… and that group was formed on the back of Kate being suspended and us starting to think about ‘well… we should actually put people up against a Starmer-led candidate’.
He continued:
it really is just two-party duopoly… There was no alternative in terms of who to vote for if Kate wasn’t going to stand… So we formed this ECAG group to basically raise an independent challenge.
ECAG had told Osamor it “would back [her] if [she] stood as an independent”, but “there was no response”. Then Labour allowed her to stand in the election. And as Sadur said:
We had a meeting with her a week before nominations went in, and at that meeting we really wanted to know from her exactly where she stood in terms of being an advocate for left-wing policies… At that meeting it was very clear that she felt somewhat constrained by the current leadership in terms of what she could say and what she could do…
It really wasn’t the kind of the advocate that we wanted in terms of an outspoken MP… representing our constituency…
The members decided that… the best thing to do was to actually put up an independent challenge against her.
Building political muscle in the community
ECAG was “designed to be non-political, so it wasn’t politically affiliated with any political party… so we were completely neutral”. Because of this, it reached out to the Greens and the Workers Party to see if they could arrange together for a unified independent campaign. Khalid Sadur said he “would’ve loved to have worked” with them. But no response came. Nonetheless, he insisted:
As long as you don’t vote for Labour or the Tories, you know, it’s fine.
He stressed that the type of campaign ECAG has run “has not been done in Enfield”, because:
we’re bringing together the Muslim community, we’re bringing together trade unionists, we work with TUSC… and we’re building those community ties…
And he added that this is not just about the general election:
It was always about using this general election as a stepping stone for the local council elections in two years’ time… because we just don’t have the infrastructure. This election was about building the infrastructure, building the base, building the experience that people need canvassing, you know, outreach… It was about building that kind of political muscle…
For us, this was always a long-term goal and a long-term vision. It wasn’t about standing up against Kate Osamor as a headline. This was about building the community and giving them a real choice going forward, and really engaging youngsters…
One of the real passions that I have is to increase the level of civic engagement that we have in amongst our youth in Edmonton, really get them to understand that they can take part in local politics. It’s not something that’s for… a certain demographic or a certain class or a certain background… It is for you…
When youngsters see that an independent movement can grow, from scratch, from the ground up, that will hopefully enthuse them and encourage them to take part and then going forward…
We do see ourselves very much as part of the community, and building communities is part of our role.
You don’t have to vote for the lesser of two evils
Khalid Sadur is clear that tactical voting is not necessary in this election. He argued that:
Your vote does matter and it isn’t wasted and you shouldn’t just spoil your ballot paper or not turn up. By voting independent you actually can make an impact, and a huge strategic impact both for this election and for elections to come. So… our task is really about messaging and about awareness, and about telling the constituency that there is a… genuine challenge that they can take part in.
Speaking specifically about Gaza and the awful response from both Tories and Labour on the genocide, he said:
If you are angry and upset with what you’re seeing on your screen, by ticking a box and not voting for Labour or Conservative, you can also help… It’s trying to get across that that is part of the process. Going on demonstrations is part of the process. Giving… to charities helping Palestinians is part of the process… As is voting for parties that are pro-Palestinian…
It’s trying to build political muscle in Enfield… We’re not even at the gym yet… We’re trying to get to the gym. So it’s gonna take some time for us to really mobilise. But you’ve gotta start somewhere.
Community matters
The very fact of bringing the community together has been of great value, Khalid Sadur insisted:
We share these spaces that we live in, and yet we don’t necessarily engage with people that share our spaces. And I think this whole process for us has really pulled us together as a community…
The more we interact with each other… ultimately that is the cure… against any sort of discrimination, by actually being amongst people who don’t look the same as you… who don’t come from the same place as you, but you’re… working together with a common goal. And that really does defeat people who wanna divide us…
Ultimately, we wanna bring the community together. We don’t want any sort of divisiveness.
For more on Sadur’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
