In a London community garden, independent candidate Andrew Feinstein is telling me stories of his old colleague and friend, Nelson Mandela.
“Walking anywhere with him was a nightmare” Feinstein says in his soft South African accent. “If you walked through a restaurant, he didn't just want to greet every single person in the restaurant, he didn't just want to greet the people who served him,” he would also “insist on going to the kitchen to see who washed the dishes.”
Feinstein is not the only admirer of Mandela. Seemingly lost for an answer when pressed for his political leadership inspirations, Keir Starmer also landed on the former South African president. But Starmer and Feinstein don’t agree on much else.
Feinstein, who has a Palestine badge attached to his pinstripe suit jacket, got his start in politics as a student in South Africa when he stumbled upon an underground African National Congress meeting. He would go on to serve as an MP under Mandela’s ANC party. Now he is running as a left-wing independent against Starmer in the Labour leader’s safe seat of Holborn and St Pancras.
Feinstein’s campaign is centred on tackling injustice at home and abroad. “Our taxes subsidise the weapons makers who are, in my opinion, in violation of British and international law… rather than investing in our NHS, investing in affordable adequate housing, investing in our schools, investing in our care and benefit systems, investing in youth facilities.” He cites Starmer’s refusal to remove the two-child benefit cap, while committing to an increase in defence spending.
Feinstein says he felt compelled to run because of Labour’s lacklustre stance on the genocide in Gaza, which he argues is “far more violent, far more destructive” than the apartheid he grew up with in South Africa. Feinstein, whose mother survived the Holocaust, tells me that “it’s because I’m Jewish that I'm critical of Israel.” He advocates for an immediate ceasefire and an end to arms sales to Israel, and calls Starmer’s manifesto commitment to recognise a Palestinian state only when Israel’s safety is met “pathetic”. Starmer, he says, is “a human rights lawyer who has lost any shred of humanity.”
Starmer has been Feinstein’s MP for the past nine years. The Labour leader has been largely absent from his constituency, Feinstein says, and “seems to struggle to engage with ordinary people. He has found people willing to listen and “incredibly appreciative” on the doorstep.
Feinstein is part of an unofficial and growing independent movement of left-wingers, including Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North and Faiza Shaheen, running as an independent in Chingrod and Woodford Green after she was deselected by Labour. Feinstein sees himself and other independents as an alternative to the two main parties, both of which offer “permanent austerity and forever wars, and the climate catastrophe and socio-economic trauma that comes with that.”
He he hopes that his standing will put “pressure” on the UK’s sclerotic system and pave the way for “a new kind of politics”. Bookies currently have him at around 33/1. I'm not sure Starmer has lost too much sleep.
