Math teacher from Romania elected local councilman in Newcastle

Nicu Ion, a math teacher from Romania, established in Newcastle, UK, has been elected local councilman on behalf of the Labour Party at the local elections  held last week. The man is Roma and wanted to fight all prejudice and help the community.

Nicu Ion from Constanta, settled down in Great Britain nine years ago, together with his wife and daughter. He was accepted as math teacher at a college in Newcastle and decided to join politics two years ago.

He told Digi 24 that he wanted to raise the local authorities’ awareness over the strong Romanian community in Newcastle, mostly consisting in Roma people, who were misrepresented in the public life.

He chose the Labour Party, a centre, left-wing party, focused on social policies and that encouraged the minorities’ getting involved in the public life.

“I joined the Labour Party online (…) I filed my candidature to run in the local elections. I gave an interview at the party’s head office. I did not have the necessary seniority in the party to be selected as candidate, but the interview went very well and they gave me a derogation”, Nicu Ion recounted.

After he had been put on the party’s lists, he went electioneering door-to-door to convince the Brits to vote for him and they did vote for the Romanian in a overwhelming percentage. “66% of the voters in an area of the city where the Romanian vote is not decisive,” Nicu Ion said.

Another Romanian, Alexandra Bulat also won a city council seat in the Cambridgeshire county, also on behalf of the Labour Party.