Labour candidate boycotts hustings and criticises residents’ campaigns

Labour’s candidate for the Shooters Hill by-election boycotted community hustings held over the weekend, claiming campaigns to stop council land sales in the ward had attracted little support.

Jummy Dawodu also used a letter sent to residents’ homes to  accuse the ward’s former councillor, Ivis Williams, of “siding with the Conservatives” in speaking up for residents who had signed petitions opposing the loss of the borough’s equestrian centre and Green Garth, a bungalow that Greenwich Council had been in talks about transferring to the Shrewsbury House community centre. 

Williams quit last month after being threatened with suspension by Labour for asking that the sales be delayed so that the community could bid for them. The council wants to sell the properties to fill a £33 million hole in its budget.

Labour said she had spoken against agreed party policy, something she denies. Williams is now supporting the Green candidate, Tamasin Rhymes in the resulting by-election, which will be held on June 26. 

Six of the seven candidates did make it to the hustings – at Shrewsbury House on Saturday and Barnfield Hub on Sunday. 

But Dawodu, an NHS worker, was nowhere to be seen, and her party had not responded to invites to attend. She was empty-chaired for the discussions, which attracted about 120 people in total across the weekend.   

In the letter, delivered to many residents on Friday, she branded the two events “not impartial”, claiming that they had been “jointly organised with the ex-councillor for Shooters Hill and people working on opposition campaigns”. 

The events were organised by Lara Ruffle Coles, a Shooters Hill resident who is not a member of any party. She told attendees at Shrewsbury House that it was “very disappointing” that the only engagement Labour had with the hustings was to criticise it in the letter.

Ruffle Coles said that Williams was one of 15 volunteers who had distributed flyers, which contained a QR code so residents could join a WhatsApp group.

“The publicly available WhatsApp group contains a cross-section of ward residents,” Ruffle Coles said. “Some have connections to candidates and have openly stated this. Some are completely unknown to group members and they have never messaged in the group. As far we are aware, impartiality has been maintained by ensuring the group is open to all. It has been operated on a transparent basis with the objectives of encouraging people to vote and engage with the candidates at hustings. 

“I would also like to note that Jummy is in the group and has been for about two weeks.”  

There was also bafflement at Dawodu’s claim that the petitions for Green Garth and the equestrian centre had attracted “very few signatures”. The petition to save Green Garth currently has 1,600 signatures; while the equestrian centre had two petitions, one online with 2,700 names, and a paper one organised by the next-door Woodlands Farm Trust with 380 signatures. “You can define that as ‘few’ if you wish,” Ruffle Coles said.

Dawodu dismissed the equestrian centre – a flagship council project opened by Princess Anne in 2013 as part of the borough’s  Olympic legacy, but which closed last year when the operator pulled out  – as “empty stables”, and said it would cost the council money to keep them open.

But Tao Baker, who has led the online petition to keep the equestrian centre, said the letter was “factually incorrect”.

“What we’re asking for is a community asset transfer, not for them to keep a riding centre open,” she said.

Dawodu also claimed that Green Garth was “full of asbestos” and would “cost £250,000 to refurbish”. Andy Brockman, who is on the committee at Shrewsbury House Community Association – which had previously been in negotiations to take on the bungalow – said the figure was “news to us”. 

“The community association is completely neutral in this debate,” he said. “However, we will be pursuing that and other things said in that letter in due course.”

Tom Bell, the chair of the Shooters Hill branch Labour Party, spoke at Shrewsbury House to defend Williams. “We’ve made it very clear to the council that we totally disagree with their position on Green Garth,” he said, proposing the attendees pass a vote “giving our full support for the continuation of Green Garth and the equestrian centre in their current form and our full support for Ivis Williams”.

Boycotting the hustings meant Dawodu was unable to take part in discussions about flytipping, HMOs, crime, the health service and bus services that made up the bulk of questions at both events. She was also unable to defend the council’s record, nor speak to a Barnfield Estate resident upset about smelly flytipping outside her window. 

The event was largely good-natured, with the only flash of controversy coming at Shrewsbury House, when Reform UK’s Paul Banks angrily denied his party planned to privatise the NHS when he was heckled on the issue.

Conservative candidate Tim Waters blamed the planned sales of Green Garth and the equestrian centre on past council spending, criticising the decision to spend £45 million on the Woolwich Works cultural hub.

“What has made me most angry over the last few years has been this council and its use of money,” he said. “We are talking about protecting local community assets and we are talking in terms of one million pounds, one and a half million, whatever it is for both of these assets.

“There is another community asset that’s called Woolwich Works, which is extremely euphemistic because it doesn’t work. The council has sunk £45 million, and counting, into Woolwich Works. And the result of that are the problems that we see today.”

Rhymes, for the Greens, also said she was angered by the issue.

“I do have a real problem with how a lot of our money has been spent,” she said. “A lot of the money that should be coming in from the developers building vast numbers of tower blocks across the borough. That’s not just Shooters Hill ward, but across the borough. I don’t think that’s going on local enablement projects.

“I think it comes down to mismanagement of that funding that we are not collecting what we should be as a borough and therefore we don’t have the funding there to spend on improving these things.”

Kirstie Shedden, for the Liberal Democrats, said the planned sales were “very, very upsetting”, adding that Green Garth could be used for “children’s services, we can use the building for the Scouts again. So it is very disappointing to hear that the council isn’t listening.”

Independents Arnold Tarling and Nazia Tingay also criticised the planned sales, as did Banks. 

Williams did not attend either hustings, although she did call in at Barnfield Hub before Sunday’s event and had gone out campaigning with the Greens beforehand.

Asked about the letter from Dawodu, she told The Greenwich Wire: “I know Jummy didn’t write it, so I’m not holding anything against her, but I think that was unnecessary.”

She said in a statement that she could “identify the style of writing in the letter”, naming an official that she said had “crafted” the letter: Julie Grimble, the secretary of Greenwich Labour’s local government committee, a body which is in charge of local campaigns.

Multiple Labour sources that The Greenwich Wire spoke to over the weekend also expressed disbelief that Dawodu would have written the letter herself. “That letter does not speak for Labour,” one insisted.

Williams said: “I am well-acquainted with the inner workings of the Greenwich Labour Party. The letter is riddled with falsehoods.

“What concerns me most is why the Labour candidate chose to sign such a letter. Integrity is our most valuable asset, and it must be safeguarded – this decision could be damaging to her credibility. Moreover, no one on the Labour campaign team understands the issues in Shooters Hill as deeply as I do.

“After stepping down, I generously briefed the Labour candidate on the challenges facing the ward. Those who know me well understand my character – I am always committed to helping others, and it is something that comes naturally to me. Many of the BAME candidates who joined the council in 2022 did so with my encouragement because I genuinely believe in the power of change.

“Politics involves people – who can be unpredictable at times – and setbacks, even betrayals, are inevitable. Yet, that will never deter me from continuing to support others.“I sincerely hope that residents choose to vote for an independent voice – Tamasin represents that voice.”

Last week The Greenwich Wire revealed that Labour’s 49 councillors had been warned not to praise Rhymes in conversations with residents or WhatsApp groups.

A London Labour spokesperson said: “This is a letter from our candidate Jummy Dawodu and no other Greenwich Labour member. We stand by every word.”

Updated at 2.40pm on Tuesday with a statement from London Labour.

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