Alison Stoecker, a candidate running as a completely independent in the Hillrise ward, has criticized political parties for encouraging a “gang mentality” and has pledged to genuinely represent the needs of the community. Unlike most candidates, she has chosen to run without the backing of any larger party structure, even opting out of the Islington Community Independents banner.
Stoecker emphasized her belief in “unions” over party allegiances, arguing that this independence allows her to prioritize the concerns of her neighbors. She told the Tribune: “It gets to the point where the drive is the party winning and to accumulate power, and people get into power and then the same things happen. When they’re not in power they say ‘we’ll do this, we’ll do that’, and then the objective becomes maintaining power, by whatever means necessary sometimes.”
She added: “With people like me, because we haven’t got our hands tied, we can be transparent, we can be kind – our leadership is about people. I’m not beholden to top-down politics, I’m beholden to the electorate that elected me. If I’m not speaking loud enough or shouting loud enough then they’re going to come and find me, which they should do.”
However, Stoecker acknowledged the challenges of being an independent, including being shut out from decision-making at the Town Hall. She remains determined to engage voters by demonstrating that she listens to them. “The amount of doors I’ve knocked of people that say they won’t vote, don’t vote, have never voted before, are fed up, that I could go back to if elected and say come on let’s get some engagement here, tell me what’s going on,” she said.
Stoecker, whose daughter Tabby won an Olympic gold medal in the skeleton earlier this year, identified affordability as the key issue. “I’ve got an Olympic star champion that still lives hand-to-mouth,” she said. “You would have thought ‘oh brilliant’ all that hard work you’ve done for the country. We need to make a bigger table and get people round it. I’ve got an older daughter who can’t afford to live nearby and you lose that support network.”
She called for collective action: “We need to come together and use our collective voice to really push back, and come up with usable ideas. People who have been living on estates for 50 years, they know what’s good and what’s not good. We need to bring back community.”
