How the Lib Dems lost a council seat in Ed Davey's constituency

Last week the Liberal Democrats lost a seat on Kingston Council in a by-election. I've not seen much discussion of this in Lib Dem circles, but then with the closure of the party newspaper, the instinctive loyalty of Lib Dem Voice and the decline of blogging generally, it's hard to find much Lib Dem discussion at all.

But an article from the On London site tells us much of what went on in the contest in Green Lane and St James ward, though it omits the fact that this corner of the borough was safe territory for us until a former Lib Dem leader of the council was convicted of possessing indecent images of children.

Anyway, this is what On London says about the contest - KIRG stands for Kingston Independent Residents' Group:

The Green Lane & St James contest was easily distinguished from a ray of sunshine. On 30 October the Labour and Lib Dem campaigns issued a statement criticising what they called divisive campaign tactics, referring to a leaflet circulated by KIRG’s councillor Giles making allegations about Rafiq in his capacity as external affairs officer of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. The Conservative and local Green parties associated themselves with this denunciation.

The Ahmadiyya are a minority strand of Islam, who are targets both of Islamophobia from non-Muslims and denunciation from some Muslim bodies as not being properly Islamic. They are a familiar presence in south west London, being active in promoting the Quran to people in the streets.

On London, no doubt fairly, says the impact of this leaflet is hard to judge and that during the campaign there were also concerns about such local issues as cycle paths and green spaces, and a lingering ill-will about the council’s closure of the Kingfisher Leisure Centre.

It was also difficult for Lib Dems to make the argument that Kingston needed a 44th councillor from our ranks, when we so dominate the council already. (That's first past the post for you.)

But beware of getting the wrong impression of KIRG, As On London says:

In some ways KIRG is a classic localist party, trading on the rhetoric of being the authentic voice of the a community against the Westminster parties and picking up anti-Town Hall issues from every direction. But it is a bit different from others nearby, such as the long-established Merton Park residents or the Residents’ Association that runs Epsom & Ewell across the border in Surrey, which has a rather cuddly, even staid public image.

During May’s elections the KIRG attracted criticism for an aggressive populist approach to campaigning. Giles, a journalist, was manager of George Galloway’s rumbustious parliamentary by-election campaign in Batley & Spen in summer 2021 and has appeared on Galloway’s Sputnik programme on Russia Today (although he stressed to the Kingston Courier that he does not agree with Galloway’s anti-NATO views on Ukraine).