Zoe Garbett - Green mayor for Hackney

I wouldn't trust them with an allotment, never mind a council

So not just local councillors in Hackney thinking they are still sixth form revolutionaries.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y063yqlleo

Honestly, the lot of them remind me of Citizen Smith.

Hackney's got a big orthodox Jewish population if I remember? I think there was something about how they generally don't vote.

Hackney council greens were proposing to de twin from Haifa but it looks like they are back peddling

https://nitter.net/HeidiBachram/status/2082435391152414724#m

I think you will find the Jewish community is Hackney is very active, and in the parts of Hackney with the highest % consistently vote Diane Abbot back into office.

Obviously within that community there are different beliefs and religious practices, so not sure you can ever use the MSM manipulative idea that somehow the Jewish Community is a monolith.

Just as in voting for a Labour MP doesn't stop the fact that the few Tories who do get elected to the local council from that area are more likely to be Tories.

I think the back peddling is that they have stupidly continued to think they are still students, they have handed (just like the scarf nonsense) the opportunity for those who want to have a go at the Greens something to go on about.

In reality, the issue was already on the council agenda because since Covid, if not earlier the "twinning" basically didn't exist.

So I suppose it just shows the Greens are using their control of the Council to virtue signal to a group of people who already support Green policies, and not caring about what 99.9% of the borough thinks are the most pressing issues.

(Dont think this is unique to Hackney Greens but a lot of media people live in Hackney so easier to write a report about that one borough rather then do more in depth research.)

@IwantToRetire The Hackney Council wards where the vast majority of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community live are consistently Conservative. See here (Springfield and Stamford Hill West):
https://www.hackney.gov.uk/council-and-elections/mayor-cabinet-and-councillors/councillors/your-councillors

I live in Hackney. Have friends who voted Green this time who have no idea how mental the Greens are on sex and gender identity

Yes that what I said about why there are any Tory Councillors in Hackney because none of the other "diverse" communities would ever vote for them.

And in fact whether earlier in this thread or another one, whether in Hackney or elsewhere, the increase in support for the Greens had little to do with green politics or their other positions. It was about getting Labour out.

There is a long long tradition of only ever voting Labour.

The problem is that our political system, or use ourselves, have not created an alternative party, and why voters (particularly after Starmer) were happy to vote for whichever party would get rid of Labour.

Although as an aside, there really needs to be a discussion about voters! According to latest polls in less than 2 weeks Labour are now polling higher than Reform.

Are people in the UK really so gullible to clever marketing.

We seem to fall for all sorts of nonsense, and then blame the polticians rather than the fact we, well some of us did, voted for them.

https://x.com/daniel_sugarman/status/2082509738110034015?s=46&t=ZX_bLozRqm8etdGICMcAvA

I saw this tweet too. Not sure if it is covered in the earlier information but the date she is asking for the mayor of the city for a response - by 7 October.

Even allowing for green self admiring right on-ness I suspect this is just another example that the reality of their world is so limited by their narrow focus that she will (and still is) oblivious.

But also raises the question that the Mayor of any council is not a lone operator. So strange that she is writing this letter as an individual rather than whoever would normally follow up a Council decision.

Of course, it is just possible that someone drafted the letter for her. And just wonder if this inappropriate deadline is something others are aware of and somehow failed to point it out to her!

The council also provoked anger by scheduling a public consultation on its proposal to end on Oct 7, the third anniversary of the Hamas attack.

The authority, which was taken over by the Greens at the local elections in May, was forced to issue an apology and change the consultation end date after it was described as “shocking”, “insensitive” and a “new low for the Greens”.

Hackney votes to cut ties with Israeli city

The Mayor of Hackney has written to Haifa’s Mayor requesting a response on the borough’s intention to cancel its twinning with the Israeli city and specifically asking him to respond “by 7 October”, in a move which has been described as “appalling” and “sickening” by leading Jewish communal organisations.
from
https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/fury-as-green-party-mayor-requests-israeli-reply-to-de-twinning-motion-by-7-october/?fbclid=IwY2xjawTYOW1leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETBDQ2R1YVZHMlczRlh1dkZvc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHhs2TfHku4itimBzQTCyn85QqA7pHBTbKtWXqWEdRP0fLPdAHHe3N_hVMYTm_aem_5wJa0FxaQyaxLhk2B2j6oA

Apparently it was all a terrible mistake.

This behaviour is honestly sickening. Nothing like that in a large organisation goes through only one set of hands. Somebody or several somebodies set up the consultation period and okayed the end date. Somebody drafted the letter to Haifa's mayor, and somebody typed it up. Zoe Garbutt signed it.

And nobody noticed the date? They are all either spectacularly ignorant (which is hard impossible to believe, given that they've been so absorbed by this cause for so long), or they are deliberately trolling Jews and Israelis.

So they are either ignorant and do not deserve an iota of power, or they are absolute bastards and do not deserve an iota of power.

It's so depressing to live where these authoritarian teenagers are now in charge

As I posted up thread, this really is student politics crashing into blunder after blunder as they dont understand they are now in charge of the borough as a whole, and a council that has process and procedures. And without being ageist, because I was like this when I was young, you dont know what you dont know. But as councillors they have staff to advise them.

Complete muppets.

Look at the photo with what is now a cliched demo pic. Wow, holding flares. And all of this isn't about for instance widening the understanding of their view point or whatever. it is just self indulgent, puerile, virtue signalling to their own tiny group!

(In case anyone didn't read it, I did post a link to a later article that said someone had pointed out their blunder with the date, and so they had to write a letter saying sorry. Would love to see the text of that letter!)

Have now seen there is a link to the apology letter. https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/20260730-Mayor-Garbett-to-Mayor-Yahav-Haifa.pdf

Have just seen they have opened an online survey for people to comment on the decision. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/07/29/hackney-votes-to-cut-ties-with-israeli-city/

Sorry to add another post but I meant to ask this last night.

Can someone with good eye sight look at the picture in this article https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-903988

In the left hand picture what does the square sign at the top right hand side say?

@IwantToRetire

It says "If you are against co-existance, you are pro-war"

I see we have a transactivist in the left hand picture

There's an error in that letter. Garbett says it's a 'regretful' error, not a regrettable one. Ignoramus

She doesn’t strike me as the brightest spark.

Haha yes.

Sorry obviously didn't describe what I was talking about.

The left hand picture has a banner top right of that picture that says something like:

something Law
Hackney Council
** TransAction
4something Justice

????????????

Just wonder if this was a 2 for 1 protester !!

I noticed that.
I note that she's shifting the blame onto the officers...

I can't read the something law, but it's 'trans action for housing justice'.
I think.

Well that really is confusing.

I wonder whether the picture was from some other demo?!

You're not expecting logic and consistency from this crew, are you?