A strong democracy needs effective, local people to represent their community. But it also needs its politicians who are representative of their community. In a diverse area like Tooting, it’s crucial that people from all walks of life are elected as our local councillors, and that means having a number of councillors from the Muslim community.
Therefore I'm holding a 'Be a Councillor' event for local residents to attend and find out more about what being a councillor involves. The event is open to all religions and ethnic groups, but is being particularly promoted via Islamic groups and supported by local mosques to encourage attendance by Muslims.
I hope that holding this event will encourage a large number of applicants to step forward as we build up over the next 2 years to the 2018 council election campaign in Wandsworth. Having worked on a number of projects with the Tooting Islamic community in recent years, I know that there is a deep pool of Muslim talent in our area, many of whom would make excellent councillors.
We have a number of political leaders speaking at the event, all of whom work closely with the Islamic community in their locality:
- Dan Watkins, Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman for Tooting
- Ash Zaman, Conservative Muslim Forum
- Abdul Latif, Conservative Councillor in Merton
- Mina Rahman, Vice Chair, Ilford Conservatives
- Rt Hon Justine Greening, MP for Putney and Secretary of State for International Development
By invitation: Zac Goldmsith, MP for Richard Park and Conservative candidate for London Mayor
The event will be held at Mushkil Aasaan, 222 Upper Tooting Road, London, SW17 7EW on Thursday 12th November. Doors open at 6.30pm for informal networking before the formal event. The speeches will be from 7.30 to 8.30pm with an hour being allocated afterwards for the question and answer session. Doors close at 9.30pm.
This is a free event and all are welcome.