All People's Party (UK)
The All Peoples Party (UK) was established in February 2014 by former Labour Councillor Prem Goyal OBE and Ade Lasaki, the former South Bermondsey Liberal Democrat councillor who defected to Labour shortly before the 2010 borough elections.
Goyal earlier missed out on selection as Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Bermondsey & Old Southwark where he was vice-chair of the party. The party has formed a group on Southwark Council by recruiting Althea Smith from Labour and independent councillor Stephen Govier. Govier was elected on a Labour ticket in South Camberwell in May 2010 but sat as an independent member after it became known that he had served a jail sentence in the USA for shooting and wounding an intruder in his Californian home. Smith was Mayor of Southwark in 2012-13 but was not selected as a candidate by the Labour Party in 2013.[1]
The party was described as consisting of "disaffected black and minority ethnic community members" by James Gill, a former employee of Goyal and prospective Labour councillor. Gill described how Goyal, who previously declared on his Twitter profile that he was “Labour through and through”, until he narrowly lost a selection process, suddenly decided that the whole thing was “racist”.[2] In response Goyal said that the 45% minority population in Southwark, which generates 70% of the Labour votes, got only 10% representation at the top decision-making table and that the party wanted "to provide leadership opportunities to community champions now, not in 2050".[3]
Prem Goyal stood in the 2015 General Election in Camberwell and Peckham. He got 829 votes
References
- ↑ "Two Southwark councillors join new political party". London SE1. 19 February 2014. Retrieved 13 December 2014.
- ↑ Gill, James (22 October 2013). "One more vote and Goyal may not have played the race card". Insider Croydon. Retrieved 13 December 2014.
- ↑ "Prem Goyal: “The All People’s Party is not about me”". Inside Croydon. 23 October 2013. Retrieved 13 December 2014.