Another council gets embroiled with London’s 'cult-like' church

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The Londoner turns one

The LondonerHannah Williams

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Topline: The mayor of Islington is under fire for paying a visit and appearing on the social media page of a controversial church, which former members compared to a “cult” and has links to serving Labour politicians in the capital.

Context: Back in January, we reported on the massive expansion of the UCKG (or Universal Church of the Kingdom of God) in the capital and the former members who worry about its influence. They told us how the church regulated everything in their life, from what they wore to the music they listened to, and coerced them into donating rent money or their life savings. Others said they underwent prayer sessions designed to stop them being gay or were told by church pamphleteers that the UCKG could cure them of their deafness through prayer. (The church denied many of these testimonies when we reported them in January.)

The ‘cult’-like church taking over London — and its links to Labour politicians

The UCKG has been accused of conducting conversion therapy, controlling members’ lives and coercing people to donate their life savings

The LondonerAndrew Kersley

We also exposed how several serving Labour politicians had links to the church — including Labour MP Janet Daby, who used their facilities to phone bank while trying to get elected, and Labour Lewisham councillor Kim Powell, who worked for the church. Powell later left her position on Lewisham council’s cabinet just a few weeks after the Londoner’s investigation.

The new controversy: Earlier this month, the UCKG posted on their social media page about how Islington mayor, Jason Jackson, had taken part in the church’s Community Open Event Day, held at their headquarters in the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park. The post, which included high-quality photos of Jackson meeting church leaders, giving speeches and walking around their huge converted-theatre church, has sparked anger among survivors of the church.

“What we are witnessing is an appalling institutional failure and a complete breakdown of trust,” says Rachael Reign, a former member of the church who now runs Surviving Universal UK, a group that advocates for survivors of spiritual abuse in marginalised communities. “UCKG survivors should not have to watch their abusers be celebrated by public institutions.”

The response: When Reign emailed the council to make a formal complaint about the appearance and to ask for an urgent meeting with the mayor, she was sent a statement on behalf of Jackson. In it, they claimed that the mayor’s office “routinely undertakes due diligence whenever the mayor is invited to an engagement” but stressed that the mayor has a “civic and constitutional duty” to attend events by local groups. Their attendance, they claimed, doesn’t reflect “agreement with any organisation’s beliefs or practices”.

The promotional videos: But for Reign and other campaigners, there was frustration with the fact that the visit was used as a promotional tool on UCKG’s social media. In their posts featuring the mayor, Jackson is videoed walking into the church’s main hall and saying “wow”, before becoming lost for words. Then a narrator jumps in and begins quoting bible verses and discussing the church’s amazing works over footage of the mayor walking around the building.

“I’m incredibly disappointed… There are active charity commission investigations over safeguarding for the UCKG — it's hard to believe that due diligence was done,” Benali Hamdache, Green party councillor and leader of the opposition in Islington, told The Londoner. “The church’s social media is now filled with content from the mayoral visit.”

Back in Lewisham: It’s far from the only development in relation to the UCKG in recent weeks. Back in Lewisham, councillor Kim Powell has been reselected as a Labour candidate for the upcoming local elections, despite her full-time job in the church. The move has sparked anger, including from Liam Shrivastava, a fellow councillor who recently defected from Labour to the Greens.

“[Lewisham Mayor] Brenda Dacres’ refusal to take my complaints about the UCKG’s relationship with Lewisham Council seriously was a key factor in me leaving the Labour party to join the Greens,” he told The Londoner. He added that the decision by mayors in both councils to engage with the church was a “dereliction of duty” and that “standards investigations must now take place”.

What the council said: When we reached out to Islington Council for comment on the story, they referred us to the comments already sent by the mayor’s team to Reign.

Your news briefing

🔒 A man who was used by Camden Council as the face of a campaign to combat upskirting has been jailed for sexual offences. Kevin Scarnell was sent to prison for two years and eight months for “arranging sexual activity with a child”. The news was particularly challenging for the council, reports the Camden New Journal, as the authority had featured Scarnell in a video urging people to speak up about upskirting. The video has now been taken down.

🚇 A Tube user was fined £558 for rollerskating through the barriers at Whitechapel Station. The case, apparently an infringement of TfL bylaws, was one of 748 taken by the transport authority in a week under the draconian Single Justice Procedure, reports the Standard, a system that has been accused of dangerously fast-tracking legal judgements (that usually end badly for the defendant). The judge managing the SJPs by TfL went through 150 prosecution cases in a single day.

🚨 The families of Marco Gottardi and Gloria Trevisan, an Italian couple who died in the Grenfell Fire in June 2017, have spoken to the BBC for this heartbreaking profile of the duo and the influence their deaths have had on family, friends and former teachers in their close-knit hometowns in northern Italy.

🚗 Fancy cruising around London's famously difficult-to-navigate streets in a self-driving car? No? Well, if you change your mind, US robo-taxi company Waymo is attempting to bring its autonomous vehicles to London next year. Let's hope it goes better than in San Francisco, where the firm is currently battling negative PR after one of its cars tragically killed a beloved corner-shop cat, Kitkat (RIP).

In case you missed it…

• On Sunday, we celebrated our first anniversary by running through some of our biggest achievements in the last year — from mentions by the Prime Minister to saving iconic pubs from closure — and some of the best pieces from that time you may have missed.
• Hannah’s piece on Saturday explored the growing obsession over a 17th century plate. Discovered in a London cesspit, it’s now inspired tattoos, albums, literary journals and a level of devotion no other ceramics can claim to have.
• On Thursday, James Greig spent the night following around East End tour guides, in an effort to understand the growing cottage industry that has developed around Jack the Ripper.
• Our Wednesday read was a deep-dive into how London’s high streets got taken over by private equity and institutional landlords, who are now shaping the face of our high streets — from the arrival of Popeyes to the dominance of Blank Street matcha.

From our sister publications…

This weekend saw a tour-de-force of local investigative journalism, as several of our fellow Mill Media publications across the country pulled together to put together the collaborative reporting they’ve done on the flags that have been seen hoisted throughout England and Scotland. Read it at The Manchester Mill. 

The men who raised the flags

Nigel Farage says this summer’s movement was led by ‘ordinary people’ expressing their patriotism. That’s not what we found

The MillJack Walton

One perfect pub

With endless offerings and non-stop openings, we all know that deciding where to drink in the capital can be fraught. We want to make it easy — so every week we’ll give you our insider guide to the city’s best spots. 

There’s an area by the City Road, stuck in-between Islington, Old Street and Clerkenwell, that for many years I thought was the pub equivalent of a desert (made much worse for the lack of any truly good pubs in Angel and Old Street). Then one day, wandering in a stupor through the townhouse-filled backstreets, I stumbled upon the Wenlock Arms. There’s a lot of things that make it a great pub: its immaculate wood-panelled interiors; its huge selection of beers; its quiet serenity; its ability to persevere through the new-build redevelopment all around it; its dartboard. But I always say it’s the small details that give somewhere its soul. There’s a lot to choose from with the Wenlock Arms, but the main one I tend to tell is that by my count its the only pub in the capital that serves Tennent's on tap, the Scottish lager with an almost religious adulation in the Central Belt.

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Our favourite reads

‘They saved my life’: Grenfell Athletic create hopeful future despite pain of loss in tower fire — Donald McRae, Guardian
The Guardian have written about Grenfell Athletic, a community-football team started by survivors of the Grenfell fire. Every story about the fire is dripping with the inescapable trauma of survivors and the grief of those who lost loved ones to the inferno, and this is no different. But there’s also hope, and even triumph, in this upstart team’s ability to climb the amateur leagues and help a mourning community come together and process their grief.

Lessons in valor and its myths, from London’s memorial to heroic self-sacrifice — Brian Dillon, New Yorker (£)
Back during the pandemic, Dillon wrote about his regular trips to the Postman’s Park near St Paul’s Cathedral, which contains the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice. In this piece, he explores this commemoration of ordinary people who were killed saving others, and Victorian attitudes towards “picturesque death”. 

To Do List

1. North west London has been lacking for good music venues ever since the precipitous post-2000s decline of Kilburn. But this week pubs all over the area, local theatres and universities are hosting a plethora of free gigs to try and revive the music mile.

1. For fans of Parasite, Oldboy or Decision to Leave, the London Korean Film Festival starts on Wednesday and will see films being aired across the city, including live Q&As with directors. Our pick? Park Ri-woong's stunning The Land of Morning Calm, screening at the ICA.

From the archive

“I was always in trouble, always in disgrace”. Chain smoking in her tweed suit, Dorothea Woodward-Fisher was the only female barge-owner actively in the lighterage business when the BBC interviewed her for this 1972 documentary. Known as “Mother Thames”, she was the last of a dying breed — a remnant of the Thames as a working river, rather than a conduit for pleasure boats.