The enormous campaigns of Labour’s London mayor, Sadiq Khan, and Conservative Party candidate Shaun Bailey are, according to polling, odds on to emerge victorious at next year’s mayoral election. However, it is not uncommon for the race to see outsider candidates throw in a to highlight core issues.
Rapper Drillminister has relaunched a London mayoral campaign this week, pledging to address issues such as housing, law enforcement and plans to cancel the nation’s “racist and ineffective” stop and search policy.
In a statement on Friday, the musician, who also goes by the name of Yung Drilly, reignited his 2021 bid to be mayor of the UK capital, which he described as “one of the most unequal and corrupt cities in the world”.
Drillminister took aim at the nation’s leading politicians, citing the flouting of coronavirus restrictions by the “architect of Brexit and puppet master Dominic Cummings”, and the refusal to “feed the poorest children in society while discussing pay rises for themselves”.
He said his “grassroots” campaign would come “from the bottom up” and be based on interactions with “those who experience the worst” of the city’s current economic situation.
In a condemnation of the Conservative government and the “Blairite” Labour opposition in Westminster, he described the existing political binary as subject to private interest rather than the public, keenly indicated by the ongoing pandemic.
Yung Drilly outlined his major policy platform to address housing and London’s policing regime.
He proposed following the Finnish model for housing provisions, citing psychologist Professor Sam Tsemberis, who created a program called Housing First, which includes “housing the people most in need first without condition and then supporting them with mental health, addiction, medical care, income, and education”.
Based on a meeting with the former UN Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, Leilani Farha, Drillminister promised to make London an “inhospitable environment” for private shell companies based in tax havens that buy up housing in the city. He stated that he will seek to provide accommodation as a human right, instead of as a commodity.
The artist promised to tackle the “root cause” of violent crime, describing the city’s stop and search policy as “government harassment” that “robs you of your basic human rights”.
The announcement follows the release of the music video for Drillmaster’s song #BORISISAPUSSIO, which shows a mock-up blond-haired decapitated head, an apparent model for UK PM Boris Johnson.
Anticipating accusations of promoting violence, the rapper responded by accusing the UK government of daily practicing “corporate manslaughter” around the world.
New Inroads in the London Political Arena?
The issues Drilly addresses are supported by the numbers. Net income inequality in the UK capital has steadily risen over the last 20 years, seeing London’s Gini coefficient – a global measurement of wealth polarity- reach 0.43.
Economic inequality has long fed rising discontent in the city and the nation, with rising homelessness and high house prices a major contributor.
A 2015 study by the non-profit organisation Transparency International, using Land Registry and Metropolitan Police data, discovered that £122bn of property in England and Wales is held in offshore tax-havens.
The official data shows that over 40,000 London properties are owned by foreign companies, with nearly 90% assimilated in tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, where ownership can be kept secret.
While Drillminister’s mayoral bid is comparatively small to established campaigns of Mayor Sadiq Khan or Conservative challenger Shaun Bailey, the former’s message is increasingly accepted and suported.
The artist has in the past made reference to the 2016 campaign of US President Donald Trump, who was also written-off as a joke candidate.
In a recent video, Drillminister issued a direct response to the United States presidential election, where he criticised both Democratic contender Joe Biden and incumbent President Trump for being beholden to corporate interests and an “imperialist” system.
The artist accused the established political interests of sidelining progressive left-wing figures including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Democratic primary challenger Bernie Sanders. The artist’s signals of support for socialist firebrands on both sides of the Atlantic indicates that his political campaign could become a popular new addition to the rising global influence of the populist left.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
