Starmer is ‘just waiting for the US to tell him what to do’, says Collective candidate Ann San

In the twenty first of our video interview series #CanaryCandidates, we meet Ann San – standing in Liverpool against Labour’s Paula Barker

Ann San is a “longstanding senior nurse” and co-chair of the Merseyside Pensioners Association. She is running as an independent candidate in Liverpool Wavertree at the general election against the Labour Party’s Paula Barker, and has the backing of the Collective.

The morals and values of Starmer’s Labour “are genocide and murder”

Ann San has been part of the national and local protest movement over Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And she told the Canary:

It’s actually brought together our communities… We’ve really strengthened our ties here and… I don’t think those ties are gonna be broken with us.

And she said the lack of Labour Party figures in the movement has been highly visible:

I’ve been demonstrating in Liverpool and going on marches since October the 7^th and we have asked every MP in this city… to come and speak on the platform. Not one MP has come on the platform… These are Labour MPs and Labour councillors that have not come out.

She admitted:

I’ve voted Labour all my life. But never again… I didn’t leave the Labour Party. The Labour Party left me…

And she quoted someone who came up to her in the street and asserted that:

The Labour Party’s morals and values are genocide and murder

She added her own comment on party leader Keir Starmer:

I cannot stomach Keir Starmer. I think he’s one of the most deceitful people I can think of… He’s never ever gonna rock the boat, and we’ve seen that now… over what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza… He’s just waiting for Biden to tell him what to do. He can’t make a decision on his own. So for me, he’s not to be trusted.

Ann San: “we have to have ordinary people representing us”

Ann San is confident that a new movement is in the making, with links to the protests against the Gaza genocide:

We’ve got a new movement now, in the same way as… the demonstrations that are on every two weeks in London over Palestine and Gaza. They’re not going away, and they’re not getting any smaller. And the people who are going down there… I am convinced they will be part of a bigger movement… I just think a new party will be declared and it’ll be back to basics. It’ll be a grassroots movement.

She added:

We have to have ordinary people representing us. And I am just an… ordinary worker…

I’ve been a nurse for a long time and… it’s a privilege to be able to look after people. And it should be a privilege to represent the people… in the areas that you work and live in.

Speaking specifically about the NHS, she lamented:

What is happening now is we’ve got privatisation by stealth

Among her promises are that she would only take half of the MP’s wage, and that:

I’m firmly backing… renationalisation of the health service, and no more outsourcing to private companies. They should all be taken in hand. A little bit like the council really. The council should be building houses and it should have its own workforce to build those houses, like they used to have years ago.

In short, she insisted:

I wanna see a better future for people in this city so that people can grow up in a healthy and a happy environment, go and have an education… not be bogged down with huge debt…

For more on San’s comments see the full interview on our YouTube channel:

Watch and read all our #CanaryCandidates interviews here.