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Aspiring Bermudian politician speaks at UK Labour Party conference

Jahdia Spencer, who addressed the annual conference of the Labour Party in Liverpool (Photograph supplied)

A young Bermudian who joined Britain’s Labour Party has described the excitement of addressing its annual conference in Liverpool.

Jahdia Spencer, 25, said her eventual goal was to return to Bermuda and get involved in the island’s politics.

Ms Spencer spoke on the topic of women and pensions at the party’s National Annual Women’s Conference on Saturday and addressed Labour’s national conference on Monday with a submission on technology and artificial intelligence in the workforce.

Jahdia Spencer takes the stage at the Labour Party’s national conference (Photograph supplied)

“The first day was a shock,” Ms Spencer told The Royal Gazette. “The conference is huge, spread across so many different buildings and two different main stages.

“I was with two colleagues struggling just to find things at first. Then we found our feet and got involved.”

She called the experience “inspirational” and traced her interest in politics to her childhood when her grandmother took her to a Progressive Labour Party rally in her home parish of Devonshire.

“I plan to go into politics in Bermuda, so I was looking at it from the perspective of what I can bring back to the island, from marketing to speeches.”

Ms Spencer, who has lived in Britain since she was 16 and now resides in London, became involved in party politics after the Labour council in the Royal Borough of Greenwich contacted her in September 2022.

She had contacted the council leader, Anthony Okereke, to congratulate him on his appointment.

“At that point, he reached out to his team and they spoke to me about politics — I said I was from Bermuda and had always been interested in politics.

“He encouraged me to come to meetings and join the Labour Party to see what it’s about.”

Ms Spencer, who works in marketing, was a student of politics, philosophy and economics at the University of Essex, and is nearing the completion of her master’s degree in strategic communications at King’s College London.

In May, she was voted to be one of three Labour Party delegates representing the constituency of Greenwich and Woolwich to attend the party’s annual national conference.

Ms Spencer said she was the youngest successful candidate.

An audience of several hundred heard her address the women’s Labour Party on women and pensions “from the perspective of being part of young Labour”.

“Although older women were putting this motion forward, in my speech I said that one day I will blink and be there, too.”

The speech took into account the gender pensions gap in Britain and the need for women to put aside more for their pensions to account for their longer life span than men.

For her second two-minute speech before the national conference, Ms Spencer talked about “the idea that technology and AI are not things that we should be afraid of — although I believe there should be legislation on things such as surveillance”.

Sir Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Labour Party, was among the audience of thousands at Liverpool’s Arena and Convention Centre.

Ms Spencer said she was not affiliated at present with any of Bermuda’s political parties.

“I think it’s a matter of me moving back to Bermuda when the time comes and reading through each party’s manifestos,” she said.

Her speeches did not touch on Bermuda but Ms Spencer said she had been able to discuss the island on an individual level with attendees.

She added that she planned to attend smaller Labour Party events that would afford her the opportunity to speak as a Bermudian.

“I will be going to more conferences to speak my story,” she said.

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Published October 11, 2023 at 8:00 am (Updated October 11, 2023 at 8:04 am)

Aspiring Bermudian politician speaks at UK Labour Party conference

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