In the 7 May elections, Socialist Alternative member Connor Rosoman will be standing as part of the Waltham Forest Independent Socialists for the Cathall ward, alongside local trade unionist Susan Catten. To help with the campaign for a socialist voice on Waltham Forest Council, get in touch with WFIS here!
We are Waltham Forest Independent Socialists
We are part of a national movement to build a new socialist party. Labour has deserted its traditional voters and turned its back on young people.
Connor Rosoman
“As a young renter in Waltham Forest, I know the challenges ordinary people in the area face. We have to deal with expensive housing and a cost of living crisis, and younger generations are poorer than those before them. All the while, the super-rich are wealthier than ever!
As a founding member of Leyton & Wanstead Your Party and a proud socialist, I’ve organised with working people throughout the borough, I’ve joined workers at the picket lines, marched for Palestine, and joined thousands of others to stand against the far right in Walthamstow in 2024. I’ll fight to bring our campaigns on the ground into the town hall.”
Susan Catten
“A Waltham forest resident for forty three years, I have been a union rep for forty five years representing members on grievances, disciplinaries in the civil service and am now a caseworker for 2 union branches in the public sector.
Having volunteered at citizens advice bureau whilst a law student, I have advised on benefits, debt, housing and landlord disputes. I am passionate about radically improved rights for private renters. I will not shy away from the enormity of the challenges facing electors but you need a feisty, committed, tireless campaigner and I am that person.
If elected we are both committed to not taking the councillors allowance instead donating it to food banks and the local community.”
What we stand for
Up and down Britain, dozens of councils are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Our vital public services, from social care to SEND (special educational needs), are on life support, starved of funding. New hospitals like Whipps Cross, promised under Boris Johnson, remain unbuilt. The cost-of-living crisis grinds on, and Londoners face rising unemployment and the worst housing crisis for decades.
All this in the sixth biggest economy in the world. We are told over and over again that “there simply isn’t the money”. But the gap between tax owed and tax collected is at least £50 billion per year, and well over £100 billion according to some estimates.
Housing emergency
Londoners are being priced out of housing – both buying and private sector renting are becoming more and more unaffordable. Half of young Londoners are planning to leave in the next decade. This is not sustainable.
We need:
- Section 106 agreements to cap rents in new-build properties at social rent and Local Housing Allowance levels
- Stronger landlord licensing to stamp out slum landlords
- To maximise the proportion of high quality, genuinely affordable council housing
Defend public services
After years of decline it’s time to restore our public services. If elected, we will use our positions as councillors to:
- Support every community that wants to organise against spending cuts that affect them, and we will stand with workers when they organise to defend their jobs and our services.
- Support every fight to bring these services back in house to stop the enormous waste of public funds flowing into private pockets.
- Support unions who call action to improve funding and declining public sector pay.
- Oppose cuts budgets.
- Stop the far right – no to racism
We must stop the far right gaining a foothold anywhere in Waltham Forest, and scapegoating migrants for the failures of successive governments.
When the far right threatened to march in Walthamstow in August 2024, thousands of local people turned out to block them. We will not let them divide our tolerant, diverse, multi-faith borough. We will oppose ICE-type raids to deport migrant workers.
Protect our environment
The council should seek GLA assistance to install more air pollution monitors in the borough, especially near schools and play areas.
Waltham Forest should withdraw support from The North London Waste Authority’s new incinerator under construction at Edmonton, pending an independent review of the incinerator rebuild with full resident consultation.
- Stop Thames Water pumping raw sewage into the River Lea and its tributaries.
- Make developers compensate for their impact by paying for improvements in the environment elsewhere with 20% ‘biodiversity net gain’.
- Improve public transport and reduce fares to improve air quality and get London moving.
- Support the Fare Free London campaign.
- Free Palestine – full divestment.
We call for an end to British complicity in the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza, and an end to the building of settlements in the Occupied Territories.
We support a free sovereign Palestine, and call on Waltham Forest Council to keep its promise to divest from arms companies and to review all of its investments in companies connected to human rights abuses.
Protect the most vulnerable from the cost of living crisis
We support initiatives like ‘warm spaces’. But the budget for Council Tax relief for our poorest residents was cut by £2 million last year. Under the Council’s latest Council Tax Support Scheme, some people with incomes of less than £6,000 per year will pay over £80 per month.
It is unacceptable that the Council’s auditors found “risks above tolerance level” in providing services to our most vulnerable residents in adult social care and housing, and that only 50% of SEND applications for children with disabilities are processed within the prescribed acceptable time.
