A WESTBURY railway depot worker who stood for election at the recent Somerton and Frome by-election has shared her experience of standing as an independent candidate in an election that received so much media attention.
Rosie Mitchell received 635 votes in the recent by-election that was won by the Lib Dems candidate Sarah Dyke. Rosie was initially a member of the Labour party, but she says she split from the party “due to their clear shift to the right” and recently stood as an independent candidate. She received a boost in her campaign as she was endorsed by the famous filmmaker Ken Loach.
The by-election in Somerton and Frome was one of three happening at the same time in the country which brought national attention to the Somerset town as the by-elections were seen by political commentators as a way to gauge national opinion on the current government ahead of next year’s general election.
Rosie says that compared to the other candidates, who were backed by parties, her campaign was made more difficult as she initially had to crowdfund for money to support her efforts.
She said, “From the get-go I was at a huge disadvantage compared to the other candidates, as we started with a budget of £0 and nobody knew who I was. Even now I’ve created public social media profiles, they don’t appear high in the search list so people were struggling to find even the most basic information about me.”
Rosie received more votes than the UKIP candidate (275) and the Christian People’s Alliance candidate (256) and, standing as an independent socialist, she says she even managed to take votes away from the Labour candidate (1,303).
She added, “I’m hugely proud of what my team and I achieved in just a few weeks. Really we’ve come from nowhere and therefore to beat two long established parties (as fringe and bizarre as they may be) is a huge achievement. It would’ve been extremely satisfying to beat the Labour candidate having left Labour due to their clear shift to the right but I certainly took a portion of their vote, and that is exciting to see.
“The whole thing was an intense, whirlwind experience, at times really enjoyable and others very stressful. I have learnt such a lot in a short space of time and it has served to build my confidence as well as reassure me that it’s something I’m truly meant to do.”
The BBC held a live hustings in Somerton before the by-election that featured only candidates from Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems and the Green Party. Rosie says she wasn’t invited to take part despite asking to be included.
She explained, “With the live Somerton hustings, I’d messaged them the week before after hearing it was happening and they are still yet to respond to my message. I believe it was a deliberate attempt, on their part to make it seem like there were only four ‘serious’ candidates. I was also not invited to a further National Farmers’ Union hustings.
“The overwhelmingly positive response I received from the Frome Town Council hustings only makes it all the more frustrating that I was excluded from other events. That, along with the wonderful messages and emails of support I’ve received since, and the encouragement from my wonderful team are reason enough to try again at the general election.”
Rosie says that one of the biggest disadvantages of her standing as an independent was that she was unable to door-step residents of Somerton and Frome due to her full-time job.
She explained, “It was hugely difficult to find the time needed to run a proper campaign whilst working full time and that definitely put me at a disadvantage. We weren’t able to go doorstep campaigning and I think when you’re entirely new it really helps when people can see you and speak to you and see you’re a real person with honest intentions. The response at the Frome Town Council hustings showed me how powerful it can be for people to hear a fresh voice, untainted by the party-political jargon and waffling.
“As someone who works on the front line in public services, I wanted to make that a clear focus of the campaign. I can see first-hand on a daily basis what is being done to our rail network, and this is the state of things across the board in our essential services. The closing of ticket offices is a scandal on a scale I don’t think people are truly aware of. I fail to understand how it is legal under the equality act and just goes to show how little our government really care about equality and access to transport. It’s not just about job losses, changing working conditions and real terms pay cuts for the workers – they are more than happy for the passengers to suffer a poor service too.
“That’s the main thing I hope I put across during the campaign; on the most basic level I just want people to have a decent quality of life, that is fair and future proof. And this is something I will never stop working towards achieving.”
Rosie will be standing as a candidate in the Frome and East Somerset constituency at the next general election. You can find out more about Rosie by following her on Twitter @IndySocialRosie, Facebook.com/Rosie4Frome, YouTube @Rosie4Frome and Instagram @Rosie4 Frome.
