Former Sheriff of Nottingham switches sides to join the Green Party’s campaign for social justice
On Monday 3 March, Shuguftah Quddoos, the former Sheriff of Nottingham, and elected councillor for Berridge Ward, announced her decision to join the Green Party, as her fight to save services in the city continues. Nottingham Green Party extended a warm welcome to Councillor Quddoos, and fully endorsed her call for the Council to do much more to prevent budget cuts impacting on the city’s most vulnerable residents.
A committed supporter of the campaign to save public services from cuts resulting from the Nottingham City Council budget, Shuguftah resigned from the Labour Party in November 2024 after being suspended for voting against the budget in March last year. Continuing to represent residents as an independent since then, the councillor today announced that she has joined the Green Party of England and Wales, recognising the Greens’ values of social justice, equity and community as those for which she has always advocated. In her statement (provided in full below), Shuguftah said, “To me, being Green is about caring for people and caring for the places that they live in. It’s recognising that saving public services and saving the planet are the same fight.”
During a rally on Monday afternoon, fittingly held at Nottingham’s iconic Robin Hood statue, Green Party deputy leader, Zack Polanski, enthusiastically welcomed Shuguftah to the party. Surrounded by local party members and supporters, Polanski, who is also an elected member of the London Assembly, said:
“I’m delighted to welcome Councillor Shuguftah Quddoos to the Green Party, the latest of a growing number of former Labour Party members. Shuguftah is a former Sherriff of Nottingham and knows only too well the high cost paid by our poorest communities from years of austerity imposed on them from the Conservative Government.
“We all hoped that Labour would usher in real change. It has utterly failed. That is why Shuguftah and so many other Labour councillors and Labour Party members have signed up to the Green Party.
“Together, we are offering people real hope and demonstrating that real change is possible. There is a choice between imposing drastic cuts on people’s services or raising a little more tax from the super rich to tackle inequality and help fund those services. Labour is actively choosing cuts. The Green Party wants the super rich to contribute their fair share to begin to reverse the burning inequalities in our country.”
Councillor Quddoos’s statement comes following her attendance at the Nottingham City Council’s budget planning meeting. Joining campaigners outside the Council House before the meeting, she then took her seat, seeking to put a stop to the proposed cuts and ensuring that the voices of vulnerable residents in Berridge and across Nottingham were represented during the discussions. Local democracry reporter, Joe Locker, covered the full breaking story, including the budget meeting, for Notts TV.
Co-chair of Nottingham Green Party, Ellie Jewson, speaking earlier, also endorsed Shuguftah’s commitment to continuing the campaign for a fair budget as a Green Party councillor. She said, “I’m really pleased to welcome Shuguftah to the Greens. Her dedication to representing her community with integrity and putting individuals before party politics is a breath of fresh air in today’s political landscape. It’s rare to find someone who is consistently striving for positive change, and her experience will be invaluable as we work together to create a fairer, greener Nottingham.”
As the party prepares to stand a full slate of candidates in the up-coming elections in Gedling and Rushcliffe, Shuguftah becomes the third sitting Green Party councillor in the greater Nottingham area, joining Councillors Richard Mallender and Sue Mallender who represent Lady Bay on Rushcliffe Borough Council.
Full statement from Councillor Shuguftah Quddoos
Today I am joining the Green Party and will sit as a Green councillor for the remaining two years of my term. This decision has come after a lot of reflection and countless conversations with the people who elected me. They, like me, feel that Labour has moved away from them, not the other way around.
I still stand for the principles I always have: dignity, justice and a good life for everyone. I will be able to serve my residents better in a party which holds these same values and that doesn’t sanction me for speaking up when it matters. As a Green I am free to use my vote to do what’s right for my residents. Their voice is my voice, their needs are my needs.
Nottingham has only ever had one Green councillor before me – John Peck, in Bulwell back in the 90s. He was a community man who knew the streets he represented like the back of his hand. In it for solutions, not status. That’s the kind of councillor I aspire to be.
I admit that once upon a time I thought the Greens were a single-issue environmental party and nothing more. What I’ve discovered is a party with a full range of sound policies like a new National Health and Social Care Service, replacing the broken model of council tax, and abolishing the two-child benefit cap – all things that would benefit Nottingham. Our city ranks 11th out of 317 districts in England for deprivation. Labour’s austerity 2.0 and performative cruelty aren’t the answer here, or anywhere.
Many people in my ward are living paycheck to paycheck, being squeezed by rising rents. First and foremost, our communities deserve the security of having their basic needs met, but they deserve more than that – to thrive not simply survive.
Cleaner streets, connecting to nature, breathable air and everyday beauty shouldn’t belong exclusively to the fortunate few who can afford to move out of the inner city. To me, being Green is about caring for people and caring for the places that they live in. It’s recognising that saving public services and saving the planet are the same fight.
I will continue to be a fierce defender of community centres, libraries, and local jobs in the face of this Labour council’s cuts. However, I don’t only want to be a voice of opposition. I want to be part of imagining new, better things for Berridge ward and this city. That includes supporting CN28. The Green Party’s spirit of collaboration will allow me to do that alongside vital grassroots organisations like Resolve Notts, the Pythian Club, Heya Nottingham and more.
People want alternatives. Having real choices and space for real criticism is part of any healthy democracy. And in the home of Robin Hood, it’s only fitting to have a splash of Green.