The United Kingdom faced a General Election on the 12th December 2019. This election was called following deadlock in parliament caused by Brexit, and the lack of a government majority. There were four candidates standing for election in the local Wimbledon constituency. I decided to ask the main candidates some questions about their plans for the local area, as well as some national issues.

Stephen Hammond is the Conservative prospective Parliamentary candidate. He has been the local incumbent MP since 2005, when he took the seat from Labour’s Roger Casale. In 2017, he attained a majority of 5,662 over Labour’s Imran Uddin. Jackie Schneider is a local teacher, and the Labour party candidate. She is backed by Momentum, a far-left grassroots movement supportive of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

The Liberal Democrat candidate is Paul Kohler. He is a local councillor for the Trinity Ward. He also owns a bar called Cellar Door and is a lecturer at SOAS. The Green Party candidate pulled out in support of him, forming a ‘Remain Alliance”. The Brexit Party candidate, Paul Campbell, a Gulf War veteran, pulled out from the race, and is now standing in Walthamstow, following leader Nigel Farage’s decision not to stand candidates in Conservative held seats. An independent candidate called Graham Hadley is also standing for election.

Candidates Jackie Schneider and Stephen Hammond agreed to take part in this article. I have also reached out to Paul Kohler, the Liberal Democrat candidate.

Jackie Schneider, who prefers to be called Jackie, describes herself as a teacher, mother and a campaigner. She was inspired to enter politics because she wanted to “put things right”. An example is when she was a teacher at Poplar Primary School and noticed the school dinners weren’t very good. She tried talking to the caterers and the headteacher but it turned out the problem was higher up, “So I went outside and spoke to the local authority and I started out just wanting to make sure that the children at my school would get lovely, quality dinners and as I started to find the problems and the difficulties with doing that, I realised it was about making things better, but not just for my children; it also turned out that children in other schools also didn’t have very good school dinners. I set about getting a solution for all of the schools in Merton, and I was able to do that by persuading the council to build a new kitchen in every school, and we got new caterers and rewrote the contracts. After I did that, I realised that’s Wimbledon, Mitcham and Morden sorted out, but there are also other parts of the country where children are still having problems.” Jackie got involved on a national scale, and as a result of that, Ed Balls, who used to be the secretary state for education, asked her to come onto a school board trust and help nationally. She said “For me, it started out really small, and got much bigger, and then I realised that the people in charge hadn’t had a school dinner, didn’t know what they were, and didn’t know what was going on, and I thought that they need to listen to people like me, who is a teacher and a campaigner in the community.” She believes that there needs to be more people on a national level of politics with lots of experiences of normal, everyday life for most people. She believes that bad decisions are made if people like her do not get involved in politics; she believes that citizens should get involved.

Candidates on the Environment

Stephen Hammond supports the government’s target of brining greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. To help achieve this target, he believes that there are a number of things we can do locally, such as using “cars which don’t pollute” and by “making sure the expansion at Heathrow won’t cause more air pollution.” He believes that people should not make unnecessary small journeys and should recycle better. Jackie is “absolutely!” in favour of bringing this target forward to 2025. She thinks that “2025 is far too late as we are hurtling towards a tipping point.” She believes that the state “has a very important role in tackling climate change”. Labour’s manifesto pledges to bring this target forward to 2030. If she is elected, she will continue to campaign to invest in “green new energy” . She compared it the war, where “you need the government to set the direction and set these things up”. Stephen Hammond believes that the way Extinction Rebellion have carried out their protests has not won them the most support. He found that a number of people supported the principle but did not support the style of the protests. He thinks that “they need to think very carefully if whether or not they have hurt their cause by the way they have protested”. Jackie is “absolutely!” in favour of the protests. She “genuinely believe(s) that all the change we’ve got today, such as maternity rights and equal pay for women have all come from a tradition of peaceful protests”. She believes that they have done a “remarkable job” and she is proud to stand with the things that they have achieved. She “understand(s) the frustration” of people disrupted by the protests, and she would like to point out that “having the planet wrecked is an even worse disruption”. She thinks that in the longer term we will be much better off if we address climate change. She is absolutely not in favour of a third runaway at Heathrow Airport

Stephen believes that Wimbledon is “very lucky” as “we don’t really have gang related crime”. His party has committed to hiring more police officers. He has led the local campaign to keep the local police station open. He would like to work with local schools and highlight crime prevention to show there are other alternatives to knife crime. He believes that the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has been “asleep on the job”. He says that “under his watch crime has increased” and “he really hasn’t done the sort of things someone would except in terms of working with the police (and) youth services”. Jackie would like to respectfully ask Stephen, “What do you mean by ‘asleep on the job’?”,. She thinks that “it is disingenuous for Stephen Hammond to say that, knowing full well that one billion pounds, I mean a billion pounds, was taken from the police budget”. When asked about the 20,000 police officers cut since the start of the conservative-led coalition in 2010, he blamed Mr Khan, saying “Crime was falling until 2016” and “the rise coincides with a mayor who has been asleep on the job.” He wants to see more neighbourhood-based officers.

Mr Hammond believes that “only the Conservatives would provide the necessary funding to rebuild St. Helier hospital.” Jackie responded to his claim by calling it “absolute nonsense” and “only the Labour party is the party of the NHS as the Lib Dems and Tories, in the co-alition government passed Andrew Lansley’s Health and Social Care Act 2012, which is absolutely hated by doctors, by nurses and by many of the patient groups. It was an act of terrible vandalism and is causing huge, huge discomfort and absolute chaos and a Labour government would spend time unpicking this.”

Candidates on Brexit

The Wimbledon constituency voted 70.63% to remain in the European Union in the 2016 referendum. Labour is promising a further referendum. The local Green Party and Liberal Democrats have formed a ‘Remain Alliance’, with the Green Party candidate standing down in favour of Paul Kohler, The Liberal Democrat candidate. The Conservative party wants to leave the EU. I asked Stephen if people believe that remaining in the EU is the biggest single issue, why should they vote for the Conservatives and not Labour or the Liberal Democrats. He reminded me that in 2017, he said “I will stand up and make sure no deal and a hard Brexit don’t happen.” He was one of the 21 MP’s which had the whip removed over rebelling against the government and allowed the opposition to take control of parliamentary procedure. Although he “regrets” the result of the referendum, he has always said that we need to “respect it” and “the way forward is some form of withdrawal agreement, and then to move on”. He reminded me that he voted for the withdrawal agreements. He believes that he is “the only politician, who locally has stood up for EU citizens’ rights” and that the Liberal Democrats are making an “undeliverable promise” when they say they will ‘Stop Brexit’. I asked Mr Hammond if had he not regained the whip, if he would have stood against a Conservative party endorsed candidate, as an independent. He didn’t think that this was a “particularly fair question and I've moved on”. Ms Schneider is in favour of a second referendum on Brexit. She thinks that “Labour will go out and negotiate a better deal very quickly, which would keep us in the customs union, and within six months put it back to the people.” However, she personally believes that “any deal we get is as good as the one we currently have, but because were acknowledging the referendum result, we would put it back to the people and that’s what Mr Corbyn will do.” She said he will say “do you want the deal we have negotiated, or would you rather have the current arrangement”. In a hypothetical second referendum, she will campaign to remain in the EU. She believes that the people of Wimbledon shouldn’t vote for the Liberal Democrats because she believes that it is a dangerous strategy, that could see us crashing out the EU with a deal”. She compared it to be a teacher and believes in “conflict resolution”, where she “cannot have a class with half of them absolutely delight and half of them absolutely distraught. She believes that the grown-up solution is to bring both sides of Brexit together, something she believes that the Liberal Democrats will not do.” She pledges to “sort Brexit out” and “be tough on the causes of Brexit”. She believes that many leave voters wanted control ( he Leave campaigns slogan was ‘take back control’), and she aims to “give people control, but control over their housing, control over how they travel to work and not being forced to pay extortionate amounts, control over public services, and control in being able to play a part in tackling climate change”. She thinks by “having a real vision for making this world better is the best way to once and for all deal with Brexit.”

Mr Hammond told me that “the biggest threat to this country is a Jeremy Corbyn led government.” Jackie responded by laughing, saying “that makes me realise that Stephen has failed to understand the reality of most people’s lives. Tell the man on the park bench that his biggest threat is Jeremy Corbyn, and not the fact that he is homeless, tell those doctors and nurses who are working tirelessly to make our for cuts that Jeremy Corbyn is their biggest threat, tell those people out on extinction rebellion protests who are absolutely distraught at what’s happening to the planet, that Jeremy Corbyn is bigger than climate change. Tell that to my friend whose daughter has a life limiting disease, whose terrified at what may happen to her child’s drugs if we may have had a Tory Brexit; she has 11 drugs coming from Europe, 9 from the UK and not being able to guarantee them all will make her child’s last year’s absolutely awful. Tell that to all the servicemen and women who have nowhere to sleep tonight. I think that shows how utterly out of touch Stephen is and I think that that tells you more about Stephen Hammond than anything else.”

Mrs Schneider is a self-proclaimed “great believer in not making your mind up ahead of time.” She does not know if she would support an agreement with the SNP if Labour couldn’t form a majority government, to “keep the Tories out”. She would have to look at the evidence before she supported an agreement with the SNP. She compared the situation to Churchill’s saying “jaw jaw is better than war war.” She believes that politicians should work together. She does not have a single political idol; she idolises the “unnamed people, who were heroes and heroines whose names we don’t even know who part of the Labour movement were, that stood up against things such as child labour.”

Jackie Schneider’s future plans for Wimbledon

When asked for her future plans for Wimbledon, Ms Schneider enthusiastically replied “Well, where should I start!” She wants “to see Wimbledon absolutely thrive, get rid of rough sleeping in the first 5 years of a Labour government so there will be nobody on The Broadway with nowhere to lay their head, make sure our schools, (which are fantastic!) in Wimbledon are freed from the political interreference of Ofsted and given an inspection service that actually helps make schools get better and make it easier for teachers to teach by taking away the tests that don’t help teachers teach or help the children.”

Ms Schneider wants to create more affordable homes in the local area. She

believes that “having a shelter is the most fundamental human right”. She thinks that “it is a disgrace that the sixth richest country in the world has citizens sleeping on our streets”. On a “trivial note”, she would some form of remembrance of Rose Lamartine Yates. “She was a suffragette that absolutely worked tirelessly in Wimbledon. She spent six years fighting to get the vote for women, went to prison and was amazingly successful. She went on to set up Wimbledon Labour and I would like to see a plaque, statue, road or school named after her to remember the work she did on getting the vote for women and the role she played in the community.”

Stephen Hammond’s future plans for Wimbledon

When asked for his future plans for Wimbledon, he responded by saying, “more police in Wimbledon”, “putting money towards the local health service” and “more and more jobs than we have ever seen before” He wants to make sure “we have a strong economy” and he will continue to oppose Crossrail 2 if it knocks down the local town centre. He will “oppose more noisy flights over Wimbledon” and campaign for better investment in our railway system”, such as “step free access at Raynes Park station”.

Why Stephen wants your vote

Stephen wants people to vote for him over anyone else because he thinks that “most local people will recognise that they can put their trust in [him]” as he has “kept the promises he has made to them in previous elections”. He is also “really ambitious for our future” as he believes that there are “lots of things to do in Wimbledon, Raynes Park, Motspur Park and Morden to make them a better place to live, and that’s why I am asking for their trust in this election”.

Why Jackie wants your vote

Jackie wants people to vote for her over anyone else because she “is a person of [her] word, I have lived here, grown up here and brought my children up here and worked here, and I. think I know from first hand experience the challenges facing young people, and I can also see the challenges facing my mum’s generation. I want people to vote for me because I absolutely promise to stand up for everybody, not just worry about the small minority but actually for everybody. I think my experiences as a teacher mean I am quite good at working with lots of people, and getting things done; I think that there is a lot of criticism on politicians that just talk a lot but don’t actually achieve anything, whereas I think I have a track record of not just this year, not just last year, but of the last thirty years of getting things done and I also want people to vote for me because I want to be the first women MP for Wimbledon, not just because I’m a woman, but because actually I want to represent a way forward, a change in how we do politics. I want to hark back to 1945 because then, the country faced a choice; either absolute ruin or a Labour government that built the NHS, that built council houses, that gave access to university, that created open university. I want a similar government today that will take the same approach of that 1945 government, but to climate change, to making big polices that will be radical enough to absolutely stop that tipping point [of climate change]. I want people to vote for me because I think that I am the sort of person that gets things done, and an honest person who is not doing it because I fancy a career as a politician. I’m doing it because I want to bring back the link between ordinary people and politicians. I think that the gap has been very very wide, and I think that I have more connections with people than the other candidates.”

This election will be very important. Its outcome will affect our future for generations to come. In 2017, Mr Hammond attained 23,946 votes, a majority of 5,622 over Labour’s Imran Uddin. The Liberal Democrats came third with 7,472 votes. This election will be closely contested by all parties.

This article was originally published on the 30th of November 2019 at https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/youngreporter/18071816.interview-local-parliamentary-candidates---labours-jackie-schneider-conservatives-stephen-hammond-hussain-zaidi-whitgift-school/