Councillor says Your Party needs ‘proper working-class people’ running for office – not landlords

Wakefield councillor Jake Williamson spoke at a Your Party rally in Leeds last week. And he was adamant that the new left party needs working-class voices running for office, not landlords.

Your Party candidates need to be representative of ordinary people’s interests

While he’s hoping to represent the new left party when it’s up and running, he said he’s happy for members to reselect him every time. As he asserted over Your Party:

We wanna be a campaigning force of proper working-class people.

And for that to happen, he stressed, the party needs to be representative:

All of us, no matter what we’re doing, know the problems that exist in our areas. We know the issues that people face. And it’s us who have to drive this party going forward – have to decide who our representatives for public office are.

I don’t mind putting myself forward and having to be selected at every election by the membership of this new party. And that should go for the MPs as well.

I think there are some questions that need to be resolved around landlords and things like that. I know what it’s like to rent privately, and I do not see how private landlords can accurately and genuinely represent the needs of everybody else in society.

He added:

I want to see this party putting forward proper working-class candidates, whether they are nurses, or binmen, or teachers… I want to see everybody represented – ordinary working people. Because if we have a party putting forward those people, we are gonna get the policies we all need.

Fighting poverty and “standing shoulder to shoulder” with trade unions

Williamson previously told the Canary:

I’m not joining something that’s a carbon copy of the Labour Party structures.

Instead, he wants a new party to focus on “engaging with the local community”. And he highlighted that “economic issues” are right at the top of the list of most people’s concerns, so addressing that needs to be a priority.

In his speech on 8 October in Leeds, he said:

I come from a normal working-class background. I’ve experienced poverty. I know what it’s like to choose between eating and heating.

That’s why, he added:

Tackling poverty is a key part of my politics. So is standing up for workers and standing with trade unions.

On that point, he asserted regarding Your Party:

there should be no difference between the struggles of workers and trade unions and the representatives elected into public office. There should be no difference at all. We should all be standing shoulder to shoulder together.

Williamson and several other councillors currently sit on Wakefield Council as part of a ‘Unity’ group. This has announced its intention to participate in Your Party’s project to build a new left-wing party.

Featured image via the Canary