Hackney councillor Zoë Garbett is the first Green to announce her bid to be the party candidate for the 2024 London mayoral elections. She spoke to Livia Giannotti about the ways her previous experience shaped her for the mayoral election campaign.

Recently approved relaxation of parking measures in Tower Hamlets is a “dangerous backwards step” in the action needed “to create healthy, safe streets for all” and build a greener city, said Zoë Garbett, the Green candidate for the next London Mayoral election.

Garbett is the first Green candidate to announce her bid to be the party’s runner for the 2024 London mayoral election. She told Eastlondonlines she is “committed” to take actions needed for healthier and safer streets.

Her campaign is starting as Tower Hamlets Council has introduced parking fees that encourage car use. The measures include allocated free-parking zones for each resident, 3 hours free parking in the entire borough for permit holders, and one-hour free parking for spaces within 100 metres of 9 markets. The council is also removing some car-free school streets.

In her plan to tackle such measures, Garbett said: “This includes actions like repurposing the Silvertown Road Tunnel away from private cars to buses & cycling, smart & fair road pricing, protecting buses & reducing fares and measures to make walking, wheeling, scooting and cycling safer and more pleasant.”

On November 2, Garbett declared she is seeking to be the Green Party’s candidate in the next London Mayoral election. In May, Garbett came second in the Hackney Mayoral elections, with 17% of the votes, almost doubling the party’s vote share in the borough.

She spoke to Eastlondonlines about the ways her previous experience shaped her for the mayoral election campaign.

Garbett has been a member of the Green Party for almost 10 years, and largely contributed to the development of the Green manifesto for the 2021 election, which was a valuable experience, she said. Through her work for the manifesto, she gained experience on “public hustings, policy launches, listening to community groups and residents”.

Garbett already used that “behind-the-scenes” experience when she ran for Mayor of Hackney. She said: “Having that experience of challenging the current administration was a really big part of the Hackney election this year (…) through my own presence, by highlighting failures and [times] when people have the power to make changes.”

In the Hackney election, Garbett addressed the 2030 net-zero target, which “Labour have now put into their climate action plan”, she said. She also asked for more action on cycle infrastructure, which “they are also now delivering on”.

“That’s the tradition of us [the Greens] influencing, through this kind of elections”.

Garbett has been a councillor for Dalston ward for 6 months. “I’ve learned about the power of information”, she said. “I’m able to access a lot of information and challenge [things], which is a huge skill that the current assembly members use.”

Garbett grew up in Somerset, then settled in Dalston in 2012. With a background in health psychology, she has been working in the public sector for over 10 years. She is currently working part-time for the NHS, mainly focusing on health inequalities, after working as a Children’s Health Commissioner.

She added: “I’ve really used my position to speak out when the council haven’t sided with residents.” 

Shortly after her election, Garbett saw a clash between police officers and delivery drivers, and has since begun campaigning against social injustices in policing. “The narrative that came out of the council was condemning the violence of the residents (…) I met with the Mayor and Cabinet members and challenged their narrative”, she said.

Garbett said she feels the “responsibility of speaking up for people” and raising “those issues that people would not like to be raised.”

What kind of London do you want to live in? “Obviously, one that is sustainable from a Green perspective. That includes taking care of our green belt, our green spaces and considering the carbon impact of what we do. For that, we’ve got really big decisions to make. And I’m not afraid to make those.” Garbett also wants to “enrich the local level community”, by protecting “the history and the culture” of London. “Small businesses, independent historical pubs, that’s also what people love about London (…) so how do we make sure we don’t lose those things?”. “For a Mayor, it’s about being able to have influence in those discussions”.

For her London mayoral campaign, Garbett knows the “big thing” will be the cost of living crisis. But she said she is “really looking forward” to tackling the issues she has been working on in Hackney.

“I feel like Sadiq Khan could have done a lot more within his powers. It’s really about shining (…) a light on that failure, where someone has a responsibility and a power to do something”, she said.

Garbett said she is confident her local experience in Dalston will be relevant to the rest of London. She told ELL: “there are local issues, and you work with local people, but a lot of that is felt across London, (…) the themes are kind of similar.” 

In 2019, she rewrote the Green Party’s drug policy. “I’ve worked on this in Dalston, but obviously, I related it to police violence, scrutinizing the police, which is one of the mayor’s main responsibilities.”

“It’s absolutely about listening to people and working with those community groups and with those local issues”.

Garbett’s focus is also on the “ignored voices” of London, she said. 

She also underlined that there were issues and communities that were disregarded “for too long”, such as the construction of the Silvertown tunnel, which she believes goes against the “mayoral narrative” on air pollution. She also mentioned the drug commission launched by Khan 18 months after he talked about it with the Greens, or social housing that is not being built “fast enough”.

She said: “As London mayor, you’ve got the responsibility of listening to those things and creating the conditions for those things to thrive (…) We’re done with hearing that things are going to change. We’re done with this being a journey. We need action now.”