Opinion: What was it like to attend the Ealing Southall hustings – EALING.NEWS – The Voice of Ealing 7 towns

As a resident of Hanwell Broadway, Eric Leach attended the poll on 23 June 2024 for his Ealing Southall constituency to try and find out more about the candidates running.

“Sri Guru Singh Sabha Southall (SGSSS) organized a general election event at Norwood Hall on 23 June 2024. More than 100 voters participated. Six of the 12 parliamentary candidates for the position of deputy participated. But Ealing Labour’s candidate Deirdre Costigan refused to take part.

“Since the foundation of Ealing Southall in 1983, Labor has always held this seat. Even its predecessor’s seat had been Labor since its inception in 1945. Was this no-show just laziness or perhaps arrogance on the part of Ealing Labour? After all, at the last general election, his candidate polled nearly three times the number of votes as the Tories. (It is also true that Ealing Conservative candidate Georgie Callé was also a no-show).

“The organization of the meeting was somewhat chaotic. Online booking company Eventbrite has been engaged by SGSSS. Some voters did not show up because Eventbrite informed them that all seats were taken. In the event there were no door checks and there were empty seats!

“Six of the 12 candidates presented themselves. No written information or candidate identity or political party signs were used, and with an inadequate public address system, it was difficult for me to identify the candidates. Only four candidates made an impression on me:

• Neil Reynolds, Green Party, appeared knowledgeable and articulate
• Tariq Mahmood, LibDem, was impressive on NHS issues. Understandable as he is an NHS consultant
• Jaginder Singh, Independent, a Southall entrepreneur appeared passionate about helping the people of Southall
• Peter Ward, Rejoin EU, was good on his feet. Since he’s a lawyer, it wasn’t a surprise. It has a long local political history. This includes being a member of Ealing Labor when he was involved (he told us) in ousting controversial 85-year-old Ealing Southall MP Piara Khabra in 2006.

“There was a female candidate who kind of distracted me by standing up and talking with one hand in her pants pocket.

“There is clearly a demographic deficit in Ealing Southall. Of course the run was in Southall, but none of the candidates made any reference to any of the specific local issues in Northfield, Hanwell Broadway or Walpole Wards. That is 27,000 of the 75,000 voters ignored.

“One question left all the candidates. It was ‘tell us about your involvement in local campaigns including Warren Farm, Save Ealing Hospital and Southall Post Office’. It was very telling that most of them had nothing to say about these issues. This strongly suggests no involvement is that these huge campaigns have been going on for many years.

“Impartiality appeared only once when a member of the Indian Workers’ Association was allowed to speak from within the audience. He lectured the meeting for more than five minutes about Labour’s poor performance in Southall without the Speaker intervening. Other than that, the chair did a decent job.

“The SGSSS is to be congratulated for putting on this Hustings. It looks like it will be the only one held in Ealing Southall.

“I am not a member of any political party and live in Hanwell Broadway Ward.”

Click here for all Ealing Southall candidates.