meet the indy candidate running against lisa nandy

In the second of our #CanaryCandidates video interview series we meet independent candidate Jan Cunliffe – who is up against Labor leader Lisa Nandy

Jan Cunliffe has long been a campaigner for prison reform with JENGbA. But like many other people in traditional working-class areas, she is angry at Labour’s sudden shift to the right under Keir Starmer. And she’s trying to do something about it in her home town of Wigan. Talking to Canaryshe said she was running against Lisa Nandy Labor in the general election because she was fed up with the Labor Party taking away the support of her community.

Her friends, she told us, all feel the same, regardless of age:

We are all fed up. Fed up with the Labor Party that no longer represents us. And Wigan has never been a Tory voting town. So what are our options now?

Jan Cunliffe: ‘best candidate’ for struggling people

Jan Cunliffe’s campaign work with JENGba also taught her a lot about Britain’s political system. She explained how she was in parliament and saw “how hard it is” to change things and “how lazy some MPs are”. And he thought “if I had the chance, I wouldn’t be half lazy.” She went on to describe how “most of them try to … ignore any major issue that doesn’t sound politically classy or sexy.”

Unlike most MPs, she insisted:

I’m more interested in the hard choices, the ones that affect people in a more difficult way… And the people who struggle the hardest are the ones whose voices need to be heard the most… I cut my teeth in the struggle … and campaigning and fighting. So I think if there’s anyone in Wigan who’s got a real fight and wants a real fight, then I’m probably the best candidate for them.

Nandy, Gaza and Labor are going against the wishes of the people

Jan Cunliffe explained that “Wigan is a very safe Labor seat, and always has been”, but that many people are angry at the way the party has treated them. Lisa Nandy’s positions in particular, she said, seem to have changed over time.

Nandy is a member of Starmer’s team who allegedly received money from pro-Israel lobbyist Trevor Chinn. And he acted accordingly, criticizing Labor MPs who broke ranks in 2023 to vote for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Speaking about Nandy’s recent positions, Cunliffe said:

It has become more of the Labor Party line as opposed to what the people of Wigan want it to do. And that’s really sad. Because as a working-class town with a lot of working-class people who are very proud of their working-class heritage and very proud to be members of the Labor Party, (people) feel they’ve been taken for granted and massively let down. in the last two/three decades.

Cunliffe also shared her position on Gaza, insisting:

I think we need to stop selling bombs and guns and guns to other countries… It’s the only industry we have now… to make bombs and guns to sell to other countries so they can kill other people in other countries?

People have abilities. We must not use these skills to create weapons that kill people in other countries. Let’s use those skills and transfer them to another industry – one that means we’re a country of peace rather than a country that supports war and, at this point, a country that supports genocide.

Opposing a ‘political machine that listens to no one’

Jan Cunliffe lamented that:

Both parties continuously make promises before elections, and then as soon as the elections choose who will be the next government, all those promises disappear. And we need freelancers like me to get in there and make sure those promises are kept.

I can make all the arguments on behalf of the people. I can ask that the people of Wigan have a fair chance and an opportunity to have a voice and not just get caught up in that… political machine that listens to no one.

One important issue she believes politicians have long neglected is social housing. Speaking about Wigan in particular, she said:

People need to have somewhere to live – affordable homes. We need some council houses… because they haven’t been built for a very long time… There’s a sort of demographic of people in Wigan at the moment, of… 30-45 year olds who they live in private rented housing, which is incredibly expensive.

They can’t get a mortgage, but still their rent is more expensive than if they had a mortgage. And they live precariously, and many of them have children and want that stability. And the only way they could get an affordable house and that stability of family life would be if they got a council house.

In a call for resistance against the working-class ruling class, she insisted:

Right now, we don’t feel like we’re living in a democracy… We don’t want two sides of the same coin.

For more of Cunliffe’s comments on the election and other issues, see the full interview on our YouTube channel:

Featured image via Canary