Amu Gib was arrested last July, along with five other protesters; supporters say getting elected to the Town Hall would ‘send out an extraordinary message’ [Amu Gib]

A PRISONER awaiting trial for alleged Palestine Action offences will be standing for the Islington Community Independents at local elections in May.

Amu Gib, who will stand as a candidate in the Finsbury Park ward where they grew up, was arrested last July along with five other protesters for allegedly breaking into Britain’s largest air force base and contributing to millions of pounds’ worth of damage.

According to the Prisoners for Palestine website, the base has links to surveillance missions over Gaza, providing intelligence to the Israeli army.

They have been told they must be locked up in prison until next year for a trial.

Since they were arrested, Amu has been held at HMP Bronzefield, where they also took part in a 49-day hunger strike calling for the government to stop supplying weapons to Israel and de-proscribe Palestine Action, which the then home secretary Yvette Cooper designated as a “terror group” last summer. This has since been challenged in a High Court case.

The election rules have been checked and because Amu has not been convicted there is no barrier to them standing as a candidate in the council elections.

They were selected by Islington Community Independent members who unanimously voted in favour of their candidacy at their recent annual general meeting.

Amu is facing 18 months at HMP Bronzefield without trial

Amu, a keen cyclist, went to school at City and Islington College in Angel, and had worked as a community support worker, bicycle mechanic and NHS patient transport driver before they were arrested last year.

ICI member and Amu’s election agent David Renton said: “If Amu were elected, it would send an extraordinary message – about what we are as a borough, as a place. That people can have the generosity to say: ‘There is that person in prison, they’ve done some very brave and dangerous things and I identify with them. I want them to be the one speaking up for me in the council chamber’.”

While Amu will be known for their support for Palestine, that is not all they would champion at the Town Hall, Mr Renton added.

“It’s actually about changing things in Islington. This is someone who is going to fight on behalf of the people they represent,” he said. “Amu is for the tenants, for the residents.”

Amu is due to remain in prison until a trial date of at least January 2027, but the recent High Court ruling that the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful means they could now be released on bail earlier.

“Our hope is that Amu is out in a few weeks’ time, knocking on doors like other candidates,” said Mr Renton.

In a statement recorded from prison, Amu said: “We have watched the genocide that the UK is complicit in, and benefits from, play out on our screens for two years.

“There are no words to describe the horror and loss in Palestine, and yet all there has been is talk. People who have acted have been slammed in jail, like an anxious hand trying to close over a burst pipe. Meanwhile billions go to the arms trade, as if Russia, not the climate crisis, were our greatest threat. Our homes, health, transport and education and communities suffer needlessly. So when I speak out against the government, it is personal. But not because I will have been remanded for a year-and-a-half before trial. It is because I will not allow this country to blame migrants while we bomb democracy into their homelands and steal their resources.”