Introducing June Tobin CEC Candidate for East of England

ABOUT JUNE: June Tobin has been a committed activist for over 40 years. Originally from London and as a young civil servant took part in supporting the miner strikes during 1985-86. Moving to Leighton Buzzard Bedfordshire to raise her family. June became active in the local labour party. In a Tory dominated region. June has fought against closures of public buildings, public services, and industrial businesses leaving our towns, along with the decline of our high streets, during times of recession that have created rural poverty. Rural Towns and their struggles are often overlooked by Westminster. June was an active member of the GMB union and now the Unite Community. Although June spent many years in the corporate world of motor cars and motorbikes for large manufacturers leading large teams, June was always pulled back to her community and her aspirations for a fair life for everybody. June spent a number of years in Elephant and Castle in the borough of Southwark, running a youth facility, adventure playground and community Centre. Managing teams of people, providing legal structure. Delivering the. Greener Streets programme, of community Gardens to grow food. Food programmes, and training and skills with accreditation for disadvantaged young people. Raising hundreds of thousands of funds to deliver these programmes. June is an NVQ trainer and facilitator and an ISO accredited auditor. It was during 2004 that June became an advocate for a Free Palestine. Locally she was a cofounder of a charity in her hometown and surrounding villages at the beginning of the pandemic. Delivering emergency services across the region in collaboration with the local authority’s resilience team. Providing a Foodbank, community fridge Social supermarket and community Centre. As well as volunteering with the local resilience forum supporting Homeless, veterans, elderly, young people, and refugees. Starting organisations from nothing with no resources is one of June‘s specialities. As she doesn’t take No for an answer and can mobilise people to run in the same direction. These charities still continue today. June is an accomplished Doer and organiser. With real boots on the ground experience leading teams of 300+ people. June will be one of the independents who will bring balance to the CEC if she is successful in this round of voting, ensuring that the members voice is represented, upholding the votes at conference.

JUNE ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS….

YOUR HOPES FOR YOUR PARTY

1. What does Your Party mean to you, what do you want to see Your Party members doing more, and how would you support that work from within the CEC?
2. What processes and safeguards would you want to see implemented to curb factionalism in the party and ensure that members remain sovereign when it comes to important decisions.

1. Your Party feels like its our last chance to build something honourable, honest and uncorrupted politics.  For me I call Politics, community support/activism.  It gives me hope that individual people like me, in our thousands, can change politics for the better and leave a better world for our children and our grandchildren.  I want to see YP members form People’s assemblies, free to support their communities because they know what their communities need better than westminster.  It will be the CECs duty to provide all the tools and finances to empower the branches and the assemblies.

2. The processes and safeguards to me are simple.  I have spent most of my adult working life developing these in various job roles and volunteer roles. Clear, plainly written, unambiguous policies need to be developed, with members.  Every member and member of the CEC must sign up to this programme. If people deviate or seek to undermine the party, there will be a clearly defined process, with recall face to face opportunity for discussion and resolution.  We must all pull together. 

LETS TALK POLICIES

On Disability

1. A disabled person’s care needs don’t end when a parent or carer reaches retirement age but the carer’s allowance does. What do you think the CEC and Your Party could do to address this injustice?
2. Are you committed to the social model of disability?
3. How do we ensure the rights of disabled people are taken seriously?
4. How will you ensure accessibility and inclusivity for disabled people in Your Party?

1. Carers Allowance should continue for as long as the carer is caring for a disabled person, and not finish when they retire.

2. I am most definitely committed to the social model of disability.

3. By having a disabled working group and forum.  They know whats best, they live it.

4. By continuing through legislation to make our transport, town, facilities, and workplaces more inclusive.

On Benefits

1. What is your vision for sickness, disability, carer, child and unemployment benefits?
2. Do you support a Universal basic income / Universal basic services?
3. Currently, Amnesty International calls the social security system in the UK ‘Consciously cruel’. What do you think needs to be done to tackle this?

1. It is my vision that we should stop calling them BENEFITS. That makes them sound like a perk.  They are not.  They are the collective social network that supports our most vulnerable when they need it.  Social Security should stay in line with VAT, and we should look to increase them in line with our European counterparts.  They need to be increased for decades of deliberate stagnation.  It is the poorest who support our economy the most.  They spend every penny just surviving, while areas of our society don’t spend their money in the uk or pay their fair share of taxes in the uk.  Poor people keep the economy going.

2. I support Universal Basic Social Support with greater Services provided.

3. We must be more compassionate. Stop vilifying our most vulnerable people in society, stop funding private training companies on the gravy train for those out of work. Legislate to remove pre paid utility meters.  And I will repeat above, stop calling them BENEFITS. That makes them sound like a perk.  They are not.  They are the collective social network that supports our most vulnerable when they need it.  Social Security should stay in line with VAT, and we should look to increase them in line with our European counterparts.  They need to be increased for decades of deliberate stagnation.  It is the poorest who support our economy the most.  They spend every penny just surviving, while areas of our society don’t spend their money in the uk or pay their fair share of taxes in the uk.  Poor people keep the economy going.

On Jobs

1. How do we generate more well paid jobs in this country?
2. Do you believe the wealth gap between employers and employees needs to be addressed and, if so, where would you cap it?
3. Do you think the real living wage should continue to be voluntary or obligatory?
4. Do you think we should introduce a ‘back-to-work’ scheme in this country where people are given an annual allowance, instead of fortnightly benefits (for a period of time), so that they can become self-employed instead?
5. Do you think think the Employment Rights Act is adequate and, if not, why not, and how would you want to improve it?

1. Reduce business rates, particularly high streets which are dying. Tax breaks and grants to encourage more business to start up.  Small family owned businesses also pour their money back into the local economy.  Introduce more apprenticeships in our trade industries.  Build/develop more council houses, like we did after WWII. Creating jobs and tackling housing simultaneously.

2. There is massive inequality between employers and employees.  Eg wages for an administrator role in an office has remained the same for the last 15 years, in my region.  We must introduce a real living wage. and stop subsidising the big businesses, eg like Tescos, who made unprecedented profits in 2024 (3.182 million up 10.9 %) and then top up their workers wages with Universal Credit because they don’t earn enough. That Scam has to stop.

3. A real living wage should be obligatory.

4. I would welcome a ‘back to work scheme’ as previously stated, its small businesses in their local community who put money back into their communities along with the workers who spend their wages locally.

5. I know the Employments right act has been eroded over the last 2 decades.  I am no expert, and will answer the question honestly, I would need to research and speak to those more qualified than me, along with workers from all industries to understand how their working week is affected, eg Zero Hours Contracts.

On Housing

1. How do you think we can improve housing in deprived areas, so as to tackle the urgent issues of rising rents, unaffordable housing, shortage of social housing and, in some areas, Airbnb or developers taking over all free properties that could become homes for people? This issue is badly affecting young people who can’t afford the rent on their low wages and also older people 50+ who also can’t find enough work
2. When we win an election, and if it’s within your remit to do so, what measures would you implement to address the homelessness crisis.

1. We need a programme of building more council houses (not privately rented by the council and not housing associations (effectively private landlords)).  We need to remove the unfair and crazy system of “bidding” on social housing properties.  We solved the homeless problem during the Pandemic which shows it can be done.  I would like to see more innovative programmes like small housing villages, (1 person dwelling spaces) built from containers etc.  I think we should look at other countries. There is a great programme by TV Presenter George Clarke called “Does Vennia have the best council housing” for inspiration.

2. We need to address the mental health and substance abuse crisis in our country, we need to provide more free accessible help to this community and then get them into housing with continuous support to help them maintain their housing.  Working closely with Homeless organisations, Mental Health Organisations, Veteran Organisations etc.

On Inequality

1. Where do you stand on Trans rights and do you believe a woman’s place on the CEC should also be open to Trans women?
2. What is your stance on a youth/student wing, Disabilities group, BAME group, Women’s group or a LGBTQIA+ group within the party?
3. If it were within your remit, what measures would you want to see put in place to combat Transphobia, gender stereotypes, racism, religious intolerance and the general ‘fear of the other’ within our communities, for example in education, in health, in the work place and in negative media portrayals.
4. How do you think we can tackle the centuries-old culture of blaming poor people, and address the real causes of poverty?

1. Yes I believe there should be a place on the CEC for Trans.

2. We should have working groups for Youth/Student, disabilities, BAME, womens and a LGBTQIA+ within the party, without  doubt.

3. I would definitely like to see more educational programmes/services rolled out to our communities (education age appropriate) and workplaces.  Education is the key to this.  I think we should also introduce new legislation or enforce existing legislation to tackle mainstream media misrepresentation, non representation and outright lies.

4. We need to stop calling them poor.  It’s a  working class war that has been raging upon us for decades now.  We need to change the public narrative through a balanced media and rid ourselves of foreign influence directing the narrative.  We need a public relations department that calls OUT any misinformation, deliberate lies and direct unwanted foreign influence. And they need to do it immediately, not days or weeks later.

The Environment + Green & Renewable Energy

1. Consider the challenges of building renewable energy. What is your view on how we should handle the trade‑offs between industrial growth, renewable construction, environmental impact, and the concerns of local people, for example, in the proposed Morgan & Morecambe Wind Farm?
2. What do you think should be done to tackle global warming and environmental degradation?
3. How do we achieve a just transition from the fossil fuel extraction industry to carbon neutral occupations?
4. How do you think we can tackle the lobbying power of the fossil fuel and animal agriculture industries?

1. We need to introduce new legislation that can also be retrospectively applied to all housing/industrial/ commercial builds.  They must have solar panels/ rain water collection for each property to sustain itself.  Every new large building programme must have an autonomous environmental impact study.  All large infrastructures must also have solar/water collection facilities.  Roads and busy walk ways can collect electricity too. We must look at simple readily available systems to start to tackle our energy and environmental crisis.

2. (see above).

3. (see above).

4. We must legislate against ALL lobbying of businesses to parliament.

The Economy

1. Imagine Your Party has just won the General Election. How do you think Your Party could best manage the hostile economic reaction of the capitalist markets and hostile hyper capitalist countries?
2. What is your view of economic growth versus de-growth, and what do you think the key economic policies of Your Party should be?
3. Do you support the Wealth Tax?

1. We need a dedicated PR Team and a dedicated economist team, to respond to scaremongering of the capitalist markets and countries.  Regular live TV news broadcasts, maybe from our own TV/Radio Channels. I would like to see the likes of Prem Sikka and Gary Stevenson on board.

2. I will answer question No 2 honestly, although I have managed million pound budgets in my various jobs  and fundraised hundreds of thousands over my working life, I cannot answer this question.  I would take advice from the likes of Prem Sikka and Gary Stevenson.

3. I absolutely support a wealth tax.  I support an asset wealth tax too.  It only needs to be 1 or 2% to raise millions, the duke of Westminster cannot pick up his properties and move them somewhere else.  It is a myth that wealth money trickles down.  It does not.  Wealth is hidden in trust funds, offshore accounts, and non domicile residency evading tax.  The rich will not leave the country and take their money elsewhere, it’s already not here.  It is the ordinary workers of this country that keep this economy going, not the Tax Evading Wealthy or non UK business like Amazon.

Foreign and Defence policy

1. Do you commit to a complete arms embargo on Israel and ending all military cooperation, and what do you think about the global militarisation of foreign policy generally, including the planned defence of Ukraine.
2. Do you believe the UK government is complicit in the Palestinian Genocide (named as such by the UN 9/25).
3. If it were in your remit, would you reverse the proscription of Palestine Action?
4. What are your thoughts on defence expenditure in general, but also in light of the fact that we’re going through a cost of living crisis in this country and our taxes could instead be used to ease the financial burden on households and support our public services?
5. What does a ‘free Palestine’ look like to you?

1. YES WE SHOULD STOP FUNDING, ARMING AND SUPPORTING ISRAEL AND WORK TOWARDS WORLD PEACE THOUGH NEGOTIIATIONS.

2. YES, THE UK GOVERNMENT CURRENT AND PREVIOUS GOVERNMENTS HAVE BEEN NOT ONLY COMPLICIT BUT INSTRUMENTAL IN THE PALESTINIAN GENOCIDE.

3. I would absolutely reverse the proscription of Palestine Action, commute all legal connected legal cases, all connected arrests, and free all those currently on remand.

4. There is always money for War but not for Welfare.  I would cancel the latest budget increases for our defence budgets to do with increasing our arms and weaponry.

5. A free Palestine looks like borders from 1947, a return of all stolen land, a repatriation of refugees.  Under one sovereign government that is not the current isreali regime.

General Questions on policy

1. What are the key policies that you would like to see in the Your Party manifesto for the next general election?
2. Imagine Your Party has just won a general election, what’s the first action or policy you would work to implement?
3. What do you think our taxes should be spent on?
4. What should, or should not, pension funds be invested in?
5. What are your thoughts on mass surveillance? Mandatory ID might be on ice but what about future attempts to reintroduce it, and what do you think about live facial recognition?
6. What are your thoughts on full public ownership of vital public services?

1. Anti Austerity, Policy, a Wealth Tax, take back key services into public ownership, remove all privatisation in our NHS.

2. I would immediately suspend all diplomatic support of Israel, expel their ambassador and implement an arms and intelligence sanction.

3. Our Taxes should be spent on the UK and its Welfare Systems, then our Economy and Business, then outside relationships and support relief schemes.

4. Our pension funds should not be in high risk programmes, nor should they be invested in any country that has apartied, genocide, war, oppression activities .

5. I do not want mass surveillance or mandatory ID introduced. We already have systems in place for forces that work against our country without targeting ordinary citizens.

6. I want a full public ownership of vital public services

YOUR PARTY RULES & MANAGEMENT

1. In your opinion, what would be the most effective and fair way for Your Party to decide on and write policy (i.e. proposed and written the by CEC, by branches, by individual members, or by Sortition Assembly, for example)?
2. What are your thoughts on how the CEC, and other Your Party structures, could be made to function more effectively and in the interests of its members?
3. Do you support dual membership and, if so, which other parties would you approve?
4. ⁠Will you ensure that ‘one member, one vote’ is enshrined into the party’s constitution?
5. Voters do not want to see discord in Your Party.  What processes would you want to see put in place to allow members to raise grievances, have them addressed fairly and expediently, and for lessons to be learnt?
6. Would you ensure the CEC provides members with a contact number and email so that members can contact you with suggestions and questions?
7. Taking cybersecurity concerns and obligations into consideration, at a time when there is serious concern  that member’s data could be hacked, leaving members exposed to harassment and other risks, what protections, other than those provided by cybersecurity tools, would you want to see put in place when sharing membership information with local branch executives?
8. How do you see Your Party operating in areas where people are fundamentally right wing and any kind of public street stalls can be very dangerous for those involved, and how should Your Party CEC and the party centrally support comrades in those areas?
9. Do you support the party investing, on a targeted and financially sustainable basis, in permanent and visible local spaces to enable branches to hold meetings, run public-facing events, and engage with citizens outside of election cycles? Please also explain why you support, or don’t support, this initiative.
10. Given the fact that politics is rife with self-serving careerists who priorities their own interests and the interests of their donors, over the interests of party members, and British voters, to the extent that they are prepared to lie their way into office and then break every promise they ever made, would you support a simple mechanism that allows party members to call an immediate vote of confidence in any Your Party elected official, including MPs, councillors and staff on the CEC (or other party structures)? Also, in the event that they lose that vote of confidence, that they are immediately removed from that office (ideally triggering a by-election in the case of MPs and Cllrs)

1. Branches first to nominate policies.  Then The assemblies worked well, even though the structure was a bit loaded.  I think assemblies and discussions with a vote on policies go forward to CEC, and then Membership vote electronically like we did at conference.

2. Please remove all of the unelected “management team and influencers” we do not want a Labour Mark 2.  Wales, Scotland and Ireland need 2 representatives not 1. then they need their own regional CEC to collectively meet to move all processes and policies forward.

3. Dual membership. This is a difficult one.  I definitely don’t want dual membership for any parliamentary party to be able to join. but we have lots of left groups out there doing great work and I dont think they should be excluded.  We all need to be a force to be reckoned with.

4. I will ensure the will of the conference and the members for OMOV will be constitutionally upheld.

5. A well plain english grievance policy with fast and fair timelines, with face to face resolutions.

6. We most definitely need to have several contact numbers and an email address with real people behind those named, with publicly documented response times for members to raise grievances or questions with the CEC. I have advocated for a monthly podcast available on all of our platforms for all members to access giving them full details of activities that month. Including publicising minutes in full where possible. Communication is key because not every member of Your Party will want to be a member of a branch. We must keep them fully engaged, unable to participate to the levels they want to.

7. Data could’ve been shared as soon as the website went live in the members area. As a member myself, I ticked a box on my profile that said “do you want your profile to be visible to other Your Party member members” and I ticked yes? It operates in the same way as Facebook does and that would’ve got us around GDPR and enabled us members to have access to other members to build our movement. But we must take this issue seriously and we really must have the strictest levels of security in place from those that are highly skilled. And the person that the date was given to at branch must be held entirely responsible for its security with enormous ramifications if that’s not followed through on.

8. This is a great question for me. I live in a Tory and Reform dominated area.  It’s been Tory since 1986. And although we have a local labour branch, it’s never made any headways. I have been attacked repeatedly since last September online on social media. When I held our first Proto branch meeting in September and issued free tickets with a donation requested somebody selected all the tickets making the event look sold out so nobody could get in. My contact details were signed up to 3 porn websites and also Reforms head office 😂  just this week when I was advertising my election campaign my house was hacked and my telephone and Wi-Fi junction box on the front of my house was sabotaged. I know what I’m facing and so long as the CEC and the party make good on their promise that branches will receive a good proportion of the membership fees, we can arrange our own security at events. The one plus I have on my side is that I am well known and 90% liked in my area for my services that I have provided to my community in a charitable capacity for the last five years.

9. I wholeheartedly support the party investing on a financially sustainable basis in permanent visible local spaces to enable branches to hold meetings. Another part of the barriers I encountered was lots of places that rent their venue wouldn’t rent to a Your Party meeting. They definitely need to invest in public facing events and they need to absolutely engage with citizens outside of election cycles. We cannot turn up on the doorstep three weeks before an election and expect people to buy into what we’re trying to offer. We need to be running local community activities and campaigns so that people see us front and centre every day of the week.

10. I absolutely endorse a system where we can recall anybody from a working group, Cllrs. CEC or MPS to explain themselves if they have acted not in the best interest of the party or if they’ve broken any promises or if they have engaged in being influenced by donors. In fact, I would go further and say that we need to cap any money that can be given by donors including benefits and kind. Irrespective of whether this triggers a by election.

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1. How would you distinguish democratic socialism from social democracy, do you identify with either, and, if so, why?
2. Should there be an electoral alliance with the Green Party?
3. Please sketch how you would fight an election campaign paying particular attention to the voting base you would attempt to mobilise, the messages you would try to get across, and the means you would employ to promote such messages.
4. Do you think we should keep the Monarchy?
5. Do you think it’s important for Your Party to have strong animal rights policies? If so, can you provide examples?

1. I identify with Social democracy. I do not believe we should enforce things without the will of the people. But social democracy gives us other guarantees like a welfare state. It supports a balanced approach to the economy. That change comes by agreement and buying and not forced on us.

2. If our values and beliefs for the good of the country aligned with the Green Party, then we should absolutely consider an electoral alliance.

3. We should be fine an election campaign every day, not just in the months leading up to it. I like to call it community activism because if you’re doing this every day, it’s no longer a fight because the people see you and they see your actions and actions speak louder than words. We must use every means available to us to promote such messages TV radio press social media. But the biggest thing is being visible in your community and making small changes every day making peoples lives better or at least supporting them through the hard times that way when we come to knock on their doors they’re gonna remember you. ” you’re the lady that brought me a food parcel” “you’re the group that fought to get our buses reinstated” electoral campaigning is much easier when you do it every day.

4. We should definitely keep our monarchy. I don’t think we need to be like the French and guillotine them. But I do think they should pay for themselves. We don’t need to be supporting them to the financial level that we do. And all of their buildings and residences should have a place and  a time where they’re open to the public with funds going back into the government budget. I also think the Dutchie of Cornwall should stop earning millions out of that community. So yes, we should keep our monarchy, but they should pay for themselves.

5. We definitely need to have a stronger animal rights policy. To the way we farm animals slaughter animals feed animals treat animals and import them. E.g. Fox hunting that was banned should absolutely be enforced. Hair coursing should have far higher financial and legal ramifications. Mistreatment of pets should have far higher ramifications. The pesticides medication and food stuffs for animals should have a complete overhaul. Not only are we poisoning our animals but we are also poisoning our population through the food that they buy. We should respect our farmers more and have a Nationwide policy for homegrown food in the first instance. But obviously with imports for all of the wonderful foods from around the world that we like to enjoy. We need to be more responsible in how we treat other living beings on this planet. Including our wildlife forests open meadows, plants, rivers, and seas.

YOUR PARTY EAST OF ENGLAND HUSTINGS (8th February 2026)….

JUNE ON THE CRISPIN FLINTOFF SHOW (24th January 2026)….

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