South London Press guide to your constituency – Camberwell and Peckham
By Charlie Parry
Camberwell and Peckham was created as the successor to the Peckham constituency in 1997. Peckham has been a labour seat since 1945, and Harriet Harman has been the MP since 1983.
Harman became the MP for Camberwell and Peckham when the seat was created in 1997 and remains their MP today. She is standing again in the upcoming election.
It is considered a safe seat for her and for Labour, with Labour winning 77.8 per cent of the vote in 2017.
The constituency has one of the highest proportions of social housing of any other UK constituency, and overwhelmingly backing remain in the Brexit referendum, with 68.52 per cent voting to stay in the EU.
The other candidates will struggle to take the seat from Harman, but perhaps Labour’s neutral position on Brexit in a staunchly remain constituency will cause them to lose votes to the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats.
Candidates
The Brexit Party – Cass Jean-Claude Cass-Horne
Cass Jean-Claude is the Brexit Party candidate for Camberwell and Peckham,. He lives in Westminster and is a short story writer. He is attempting to crowdfund a children’s book to distribute to the community but has so far failed to raise any money.
He has had previous election experience in UK and South Africa during the Nelson Mandela era. He believes there is a “bigger more exciting world out there” and wants to “get Brexit done properly”.
Labour – Harriet Harman
Harriet Harman has been Labour MP for Camberwell and Peckham since 1997 when the constituency was created. She is the longest serving female MP in the House of Commons.
Harman is a qualified solicitor and has worked to provide legal services to various organisations and fought for women’s rights, prisoner’s rights and against government secrecy.
She set up the first Parliamentary Labour Party Women’s Group and has held numerous roles on Labour’s front bench including being Shadow Chancellor to Gordon Brown. In 2010 she became acting Leader of the Opposition until Ed Miliband’s election. She recently put in a bid to succeed John Bercow as Speaker of the House but lost to Sir Lindsay Hoyle.
Liberal Democrat – Julia Ogiehor
Julia Ogiehor is the Liberal Democrat candidate looking to out-remain Harriet Harman. She lives in Muswell Hill and is currently a Lib Dem councillor in Haringey, something she does alongside her day job assisting Luisa Porrit, the MEP for London.
Outside of Brexit, she believes Camberwell and Peckham needs someone who will invest in young people and “tackle rising violent crime.” She has lobbied for more funding for youth services and for a safe-haven scheme to prevent young people at risk of being mixed up in violent crime.
She has been the victim of racially motivated attacks on the London underground on several occasions and believes that “hate crime is under-reported” and wishes people would speak up more when they witness it.
Workers Revolutionary Party – Joshua Ogunleye
Joshua Ogunleye hopes to out-left Harman with his radical socialist programme for Britain.
He is the General Secretary for the Workers Revolutionary Party, and has previously stood in Camberwell and Peckham in 2010 and 2015. His best result was earning 0.5 per cent of the vote in 2010. He lives in Bexleyheath and works in the public sector.
He and the WRP call for an immediate withdrawal from the EU in order to bring about the “British socialist revolution” that will “nationalise the banks and the major industries, putting them under workers’ management.”
Conservative – Peter Quentin
The job of trying to turn Camberwell and Peckham from red to blue falls on Peter Quentin, a policy adviser and British Army reservist.
He studied politics at Cambridge then joined the army and went on to train recruits in Afghanistan, eventually ending up as an advisor to William Hague. He lives in Westminster but says he spends a lot of time in Camberwell and Peckham as he has local links to the area having lived there between postings with the army.
Green – Claire Sheppard
For the Greens, it’s Claire Sheppard, who has lived in Peckham for nearly 20 years and started a business with her husband there. She runs the Nunhead Rocks community group and set up the local branch of the Nunhead Women’s Institute. Sheppard has assisted campaigns for school dinners, healthy eating, and against drink driving and alcohol and substance abuse.
She believes its “time for a change and for real action on the climate emergency.” She is in favour of a people’s vote on Europe. One of her key policies is to defend the NHS, a system she got to know very well when diagnosed with cancer four years ago.