I’m taking a “really hard stance against landlords” – Hackney mayor Zoë Garbett interview

In May this year, the Greens made history by winning control of six councils in London. In two of those boroughs – Hackney and Lewisham – the Greens also won their first mayoral elections.

Zoë Garbett has therefore been the first ever Green mayor of Hackney for the past five months. At the Green Party’s autumn conference in Brighton, LFF caught up with Garbett to get a sense of how that time in office has gone so far.

Garbett is candid about the challenges she’s faced, having been elected as a left-wing mayor in the era of local government austerity.

She told LFF: “The obvious one facing local government is budget. I knew about the budget gap. I’ve worked in local government since 2010, so I’ve really seen how much local government has been shrunk and how difficult that is for us to deliver what we need to. But that’s been really stark.”

Garbett then went on to explain how she and other left-wing leaders in local government have been working together to seek to overcome the problems posed by austerity.

“That’s why we held our anti-austerity summit to bring together cross-party leaders and cross-organisational groups to push back against that. But as well, I think I do have a lot of power as a local authority leader, but some of the things I want to change are those bigger systems.”

She would later argue that collaboration between Hackney and the other Green-led councils in London can enable these councils to deliver for their residents in both the financial context they find themselves in, and against the framework from central government which restricts their powers.

Garbett told LFF: “It is exciting to have those six London councils where we’re working together on things like anti-austerity, on the EHRC code of practice. We’re working together on harm reduction, on housing. It’s really exciting to have those six councils to be able to work and share our capacity.”

Despite the challenges facing Hackney and local government more generally, Garbett has more things she wants to celebrate having achieved since being elected. Asked what her biggest achievement is, she doesn’t hesitate – telling LFF that it is her “taking a really hard stance against landlords”.

She said: “Taking a really hard stance against landlords is something that I think the previous [Labour-run] council were really failing on. We’ve been explicitly clear that we’re on the side of renters and are maximising our enforcement action, fining landlords where we know they’ve been acting unlawfully.”

Separate from her work as Hackney mayor, as one of the most senior elected Greens in the capital city, Garbett has been spending time on the doorsteps in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, campaigning for her party leader Zack Polanski.

Asked how that campaign is going, Garbett said: “I think it’s a great opportunity for us. I think coming off the back of May and some of our successes across London as well as in Camden, [it’s] really interesting to hear what people are saying. Lots of people I’ve spoken to are really excited about Zack standing and the opportunities for the Greens. I think it’s going to be really, really close. I’m excited to see what happens.”

She went on to add that she was “confident” about the by-election but said that “this last week will really make a difference”.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Image credit: Steve Eason – Creative Commons