Peter Babudu, former Labour councillor for Rye Lane, has announced he will run to become the next Labour candidate for Camberwell and Peckham.
In December 2021, Labour MP Harriet Harman announced she would stand down at the next election after almost forty years in the role, sparking a contest to stand in one of the safest Labour seats in London.
In a News exclusive, Peckham-raised Peter kicks off his campaign for the position, promising to fight for better housing, a way out of the cost-of-living crisis and a better future for young people.
Having grown up just off Friary Road, and educated at St Francis Catholic Primary School and later St Thomas the Apostle, Camberwell and Peckham is indisputably home for Peter.
“I lived a life pretty representative of here and that included the hard bits as well,” he says.
Although he speaks fondly of memories playing football in Burgess Park, it’s those “hard bits” that have shaped his political outlook.
“I was excluded at five-years-old for reasons that weren’t clear to my mum at the time and still aren’t clear to us now,” he said.
“For my parents it was tough. My mum had to go to work so there was navigating that. My mum said they found my behaviour hard to control. I can’t help but think that, at five-years-old, there have got to be types of prejudices that play into that decision.”
While a Labour councillor, Peter brought Ofsted, regional school officers and parents together to come up with a strategy to end school exclusions.
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In July this year, Southwark adopted the Inclusion Charter, pledging to stop excluding pupils except when “unavoidable to safeguard children”, a move which received national attention. Peter says education eventually became “a way out” for him. He received an education maintenance allowance, a new Labour policy which gave grants to sixth formers to encourage them to stay in school.
Peter says receiving that support from the government “was one of the things that politicised me” and he has carried that ethos into office. So, while a councillor, Peter launched the Southwark Pioneers Fund which brought millions of pounds to women and minority-owned businesses in Southwark.
As a Philosophy Politics and Economics undergraduate at Oxford University in 2001, his first trip home was because his cousin Nana Osei-Agyapong had been fatally shot.
Today, a father-of-three, all of whom live in the constituency, Peter helps lead the Youth Endowment Fund. Its aim is to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence.
Asked what Harriet Harman might have done better, Peter said: “I think Harriet Harman has been a fantastic representative for Camberwell and Peckham over the last forty years.
“As an MP I would look to establish a constituency office so I could have a firm local presence and get to people before they reach crisis point.”
“I think that at times it [not having a constituency office] has made it harder for people to be heard. If I became MP, I would be looking to establish one within the first 100 days,” he added.
On his priorities for Peckham and Camberwell, he said: “I think the big priorities for the area are ‘how do you make it through the cost-of-living crisis?’”
He said he would back freezes on energy bills, support the use of renewable energy sources, and push for a long-term strategy to protect businesses. He also picked out housing as a vital issue, pledging to “push developers and hold them to account so they do developments that focus on the community”.
Peter said: “I am standing because I believe representation matters. Not just people that look like you, though that’s important. But people with lived experience of the problems you face – people who understand what it’s like.
“And although we share many common experiences, it’s not enough. Listening is vital. And I promise to be an MP who truly hears the community. That’s why today I’m launching a community survey to dig down into the issues facing people in Camberwell and Peckham.”
Visit his campaign here: https://peterbabudu.com/
