"On the Knocker" for Labour in EU elections 2019 - sunshine and showers

Picture collage is from a canvass last Saturday in West Ham ward (with local MP Lyn Brown) and from yesterday in Forest Gate North.

Local Newham Councillor (and my Cabinet colleague) James Beckles, is a Labour Candidate for London, while another Newham Councillor, Rohit Das Gupta, is a Labour Candidate in South East England standing against Nigel Farage!

We got pretty wet last week and retreated to our tower blocks to continue to canvass while yesterday it poured down with rain before and after our canvass.

Elsewhere in the borough there has been a number of other Labour canvass sessions and street stalls. Both days we had big turn outs of activists. Personally, I am not aware of any opposition parties campaigning inside Newham.

So far, the results have been pretty solid for Labour but there has been some negative reactions from residents who are pro Brexit and also those who are pro Remain. I suspect that like the local Council elections last week, that the Tories will do very badly on May 23rd and that Labour will not "cover itself with glory" either.

I had a couple of interesting separate conversations with middle aged people, who have never voted in their lives. They were not hostile, they didn't have any particular objections to voting, just that they had never got around to doing it. I don't think lecturing people on ....how important voting is, on how people died for the right to vote etc really works, no matter how true this is. Explaining what happens when you walk into a polling station, that you don't need to find your polling card, how it is really secret, and you can ask polling staff questions if you don't understand anything -is more effective.

I did finish by saying that "they" never wanted to give people like us the vote and if we don't use it, they will take it away from us.