Lucy Hall: Meet the independent candidate hoping to click with her voters

She’s only 25 but Lucy Hall is standing to be an MP — and she has a secret weapon, she tells Susannah Butter
Politically engaged: Lucy Hall is standing as an Independent in Bermondsey (Picture: Rebecca Reid)

Lucy Hall’s friends have banned her from getting drunk in Bermondsey. “Every time I have a pint and a cigarette they tell me I have to be careful,” says the 25-year-old as she drinks Coca-Cola in a pub garden and pulls at her ripped tights. “Because the only other politician who is seen drinking and smoking is Nigel Farage. My whole point, though, is that the system isn’t working, so who cares if I rebel a bit with a cigarette?”

Like many people her age, Hall feels that the political system doesn’t serve her, but unlike her friends she is doing something about it and standing as an Independent candidate in Bermondsey and Old Southwark.

Her biggest weapon is an app. It is called Local Voice and will make her accountable to constituents who will be able to vote on every bill that parliament debates, through the app and a website. “There is a page with links to articles about the bills and an ‘ask your MP’ function.” So is it Tinder for voting? “We are keen to keep the format separate from Tinder as much as possible,” she says with a smile.

What’s more, Hall may yet join forces with a similar site called Note My Vote. “MPs aren’t bound to Note my Vote but it allows constituents to vote on bills and when the MP goes into the lobby you will be able to see whether or not they voted the same way as the people they represent. It makes them more accountable.”

Or her, if she manages a surprise victory on May 7. Having decided to run over drinks in Soho, Hall chose Bermondsey rather than her native Twickenham “because it is a Lib-Dem seat and I feel like they are the epitome of what I’m trying to address — broken promises.”

Simon Hughes, the area’s current MP, “hasn’t been representative. He abstained from voting on tuition fees, which a poll said 93 per cent of constituents wanted him to stop, and also abstained from the same-sex marriage bill. He did that on grounds of personal religious belief — he is Christian — which is fine, but why are one man’s beliefs deciding the fate of so many people? How is that representative of the 250,000 people that live here?”

Bermondsey has the sixth youngest population in the UK and Hall says: “Young people are the most disillusioned, with a voting turnout that is 20 per cent lower than the national average. Older people tend to think parties stand for stark ideals but now they have blurred and it’s unclear what the parties stand for. I don’t think they are all the same but their jargon is.”

Politics was always around when Hall was growing up. Her grandparents are South African anti-apartheid activists, who were imprisoned and exiled for their involvement with the ANC. “Their example made me realise everyone can do something to make a change.”

After studying history and politics at Manchester University and then taking a master’s in political theory at UCL, she worked on Ed Miliband’s leadership campaign. “We had T-shirts saying Ed M Team which, looking back, is embarrassing but at the time we were loving it.”

When she told friends about her app idea they suggested a collaboration with Russell Brand. “Jack [her friend and campaign manager] thought he was too divisive.” And of course there is the risk that Brand might fancy her, I suggest. “Exactly. But Brand is tapping into the way a lot of people feel. I don’t agree with his not-voting policy — people see not voting as apathy. If you are unhappy, spoil your ballot paper. It is nice to see celebrities standing up for something.”

As far as her personal political preference goes, she is broadly Labour — “I used to think Chuka Umunna was fit” — although she once had a fling with a Tory. She voted Lib-Dem in the last election because “Labour would not have got in in Lib-Dem or Tory Twickenham”. This time she is so annoyed at the Lib Dems she is voting red. “It will be a wasted vote. First-past-the-post has got to go. Its one advantage is that it can produce a strong parliament but we’ll pretty much have had two hung parliaments in a row after this election. There are so many wasted votes. The system is broken and Labour isn’t doing anything to fix it.”

With Local Voice, she’s offering a modern way of doing things within this old-fashioned system and she’s adamant that “Bermondsey is exciting because Simon Hughes might be knocked off his seat by the Labour candidate.” Her age has been more of a talking point than her gender — “I don’t see the world as divided into men and women”. So what about her chances?

She doubts she will get in but is still nervous about the count. “My mum is wondering how she will stay awake. The worst scenario is if I get no votes. Occasionally I’m like, ‘What if I won?’”

I leave her to go campaigning and she tells me, “I’ve become really good at knocking on doors.”

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