“It’s not the issues that divide us, it’s the parties”, says independent Maddison Wheeldon in Warrington North

In the ninth of our video interview series #CanaryCandidates, we meet independent candidate Maddison Wheeldon – standing against Labour’s Charlotte Nichols

Maddison Wheeldon is standing as an independent candidate in Warrington North in the general election. Having lived in poverty herself, she’s committed to offering a powerful alternative to the out-of-touch political status quo in her community. She wants people in the constituency to lead the way. Via assemblies, she wants them to decide what the priorities are and what needs doing to deal with them – not Labour.

That’s why she told the Canary that she’s asking constituents to:

Vote independent to have a voice that isn’t going to be toeing party lines and will push back and will actually speak and push for the people of Warrington North.

“It’s always been the people that have led progressive change in this country”

Talking about her decision to stand in the 2024 election, Maddison Wheeldon explained:

I left Labour back in 21… as I saw just obviously the direction of travel, and… generally the dishonesty is something I find so offensive in politics…

I think we need to see more people that actually understand what people have been going through… I’m not going to hide it, we’ve been in poverty since the cost of living hit… So I know what people are going through with the struggle.

She first put herself forward as a Green candidate, but later heard that she wasn’t going to have their backing. She said this was because of her very outspoken position in support of Palestine and against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. As she highlighted, “there’s this bully atmosphere that we’re… seeing across the media – this intimidation atmosphere” that makes people want to hold their tongues on Palestine. But she isn’t one to back down. And this strength of character meant she had strong support after her break with the Greens:

I got a lot of pushes kind of saying… ‘will you stand independently?’ … All of a sudden, I have… this backing of Time to Assemble, and I’ve decided… to team up with them to try and bring bottom-up politics to my home town, so that it’s about the people deciding the policy rather than… this kind of top-down, you know, ‘we know best’…

Ultimately, it’s always been the people that have led progressive change in this country.

And she added:

I don’t back down to bullies. I am not afraid to do what is hard. And I think that, unfortunately, we’ve got so many politicians that are happy to… toe the line when, ultimately, if that’s not actually what your constituents and the people want to hear and the people want to see, then what is your goal? Is it power? … Because it’s clearly not the priority of the people…

I will always be who I am. And I’m very honest, very open, very transparent, which I know is kind of unusual in politics now… that’s just my point of difference… I will stand for what’s right even if it means it’s not easy.

Maddison Wheeldon: a strong, resilient, local voice in favour of “democracy in action”

Maddison Wheeldon is committed to empowering people locally. As she insisted:

We’ve all had our own experiences, we’ve all got a right to share those experiences. And ultimately… I can’t expect people to respect my perspective if I can’t respect others’…

The way the assembly works means that… it encourages people to lean in. I want politics not to be a dirty word anymore. I wanna get people engaged, and see that it’s our society ultimately that benefits from that… engagement.

The local assemblies in Warrington, she explained, would involve people coming together to “discuss the issues that matter to them” and then being asked:

How do you think we could address this? What do you think is the best way forward?

The assembly would then “take forward five of those policy ideas… to the front of the room, and then it goes to a vote”. And as she stressed:

that is democracy in action… It is actual democracy. People will see it… They can feel it. They can hear it… They can see it’s happening. It’s not someone down in London, or someone in an office somewhere, you know. They’re involved. And then that policy – you know, their decisions, their insights, their issues – is what guides my priorities, and guides what I’m raising awareness of.

She’s also interested in “having these active community engagements every week” to “make big community meals” on a “pay what you can afford” basis to really bring people together.

“It’s not the issues that divide us, it’s the parties”

She also took on what’s so wrong with our current political system. And starting with Keir Starmer and Labour’s positions on the genocide in Gaza, she argued:

They’ve enabled this from the start. It was an affront to me as someone who wanted to be a human rights lawyer… to see Keir Starmer at the beginning of this, when all of us could see that it was totally disproportionate and totally barbaric what was being done with the seige, and he… legitimised it. And it’s so irresponsible when you are someone with a legal background, with a past.

She added:

Our two parties are both right-wing. And… it is scary. And I think it calls on us to really push back with a hopeful, actual hope that’s tangible, that people can see… how it works, to really push back against that.

And she criticised the local Labour Party in Warrington, saying:

Given we’ve had a Labour council and a Labour MP for so long and the amount of money they’ve wasted in dodgy investments… I just think [constituents] really need someone that isn’t afraid to really hold that accountable and really ask the tough questions.

Thanks to the decades of Tory and Labour governments, meanwhile, she stressed:

The cycle is broken… Ultimately, wealth is generated on the backs and the spending power of the people of this country. It’s not just magicked up by someone at the top of the business. It takes work and labour and spending.

So if that wealth that’s been generated through all of that isn’t… coming back down to reinvest in the… infrastructure and services that keep our society going, then ultimately… is it any surprise we’re in the situation we’re in now?

And in a rallying call to voters to place their trust in a different way of doing things, she insisted:

It’s not the issues that divide us, it’s the parties, and it’s this polarisation in the media. Because ultimately, who does it serve if we’re all divided? It serves power and wealth to divide us and… weaken us, whereas ultimately… we are all one… It’s the same issues that affect us.

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