Meet the candidates for Hackney Mayor: Dave Raval, Liberal Democrats

Dave Raval.

The Liberal Democrats’ candidate Dave Raval says he is standing on a “More United” platform. More United, a political movement, says it wants to “give a voice to millions of open, tolerant people in Britain who feel the political system no longer speaks for them”.

His policies include paying all council staff, including temporary contractors, the London Living Wage, cutting pollution by “incentivising cleaner vehicles” and working with police officers to review use of stop and search.

Like the Greens’ candidate, he says he may try and scrap the post of Mayor of Hackney.

He told the Hackney Citizen: “I’ve gone on record as saying, when these posts were first brought in, that I didn’t see the need to bring them in for individual boroughs in London.

“I’m very open-minded as to whether it [the role] should exist at all, and perhaps we should have another vote on that.”

The chief executive of a green start-up company, Mr Raval stood as the Liberal Democrats’ parliamentary candidate for Hackney South and Shoreditch in 2010.

He said: “I want to send a strong signal that we can collaborate, that we can work together and that we can make much more of an impact by doing that.

“For example, I’ve said that if I was elected my Town Hall team would include deputy mayors and advisors from other parties.”

He believes that if he polls well it will send a “strong signal…that we are not just being tribal.”

He was joint borough organiser for the Remain campaign in Hackney during this year’s EU referendum and says he will use the position of mayor to “fight for our place in the EU”.

“This is a local election, but it is also the biggest election in the UK since the EU referendum, and its set in a context in which, I believe, our political system in this country is broken both locally and nationally,” he said.

Membership of the Liberal Democrats has “zoomed up” recently, particularly in Hackney, Mr Raval said, adding that he believes his party now represents the centre ground of politics.