Palestine hunger striker Amu Gib is standing for election in the Finsbury Park ward in north London (Credit: Amu Gib for Finsbury Park campaign)
In Finsbury Park, north London, Amu Gib is running in the local council election from their prison cell.
Amu was arrested and imprisoned for their alleged involvement in a break-in at RAF Brize Norton, which facilitates flights to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. Surveillance drones from Cyprus have aided Israel’s genocide in Gaza and attacks on Lebanon.
They have been on remand at HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey, since July 2025 and await trial next January. Last year Amu risked their life by taking part in a hunger strike for 49 days.
A spokesperson for Amu Gib for Finsbury Park told Socialist Worker, “The election campaign has put the question of Palestine on the ballot paper in a very literal way.”
They explained that, in Islington, with a Labour-run council, “Voters have a clear choice. Do they back Amu, who is in jail because Keir Starmer wants to silence people who resist war and genocide? Or stick with Labour?
“We are also making clear that Donald Trump and Binyamin Netanyahu’s latest bombing campaigns, against Iran and Lebanon, aim at nothing less than the dismantling of both states. Israeli ministers have openly boasted that neighbourhoods of Beirut will soon look like the destroyed towns and cities of Gaza.”
The campaign demands welfare not warfare. It highlights how one in three children in the Finsbury Park ward live in poverty and a third of residents live in overcrowded housing. Yet there is always more money for war.
BAE systems made record profits of £3.3 billion last year. Its profits have been boosted by Starmer’s government buying nuclear-armed F-35 fighter jets.
One of the campaign’s demands is that the local Whittington Hospital should not adopt software from surveillance company Palantir or give the company access to health data.
Palantir technology is used by the Israeli military and in Trump’s offensive against migrants. The company charges public sector organisations £3 million per year to use its software.
The spokesperson said, “The campaign is fighting for homes with dignity, to end evictions, hold landlords to account and for real social housing.”
They explained that the campaign wants to open youth spaces and fund mutual aid. It wants to improve access to education for all including training more special educational needs and disabilities (Send) educators.
They said, “Anti-racism is also at the heart of our election campaign. We can stop the racists who want to rip apart our communities through deportations and division.
“We want to expose how the criminal justice and prison system is utterly broken. It destroys lives, fails victims of violence and abuse, and has criminalised thousands of people for political dissent.”
They added, “We have met many residents who are backing Amu’s campaign. They want to see real change and are sick of Starmer. People are furious that they are living in damp, overcrowded housing while the government spends billions on another war.”
A vote for Amu would be a blow to Western imperialism and the British state’s complicity in it.
Find out how to get involved and help out on the run up to polling day here
Strikers are demanding an unallocated €1.6 billion go towards workers' pay rise
London march on 27 October
Another day of mass resistance
Plus: 500 on Leeds unity march
