One London was a small

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

formed on 15 September 2005 by Damian Hockney and Peter Hulme-Cross. They were elected to the London Assembly in June 2004 as

United Kingdom Independence Party The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), member ...

representatives, but in February 2005 announced the formation of the

Veritas Veritas is the name given to the Roman virtue of truthfulness, which was considered one of the main virtues any good Roman should possess. The Greek goddess of truth is Aletheia (Ancient Greek: ). The German philosopher Martin Heidegger argues ...

group at the Assembly. With the disintegration of Veritas after its poor showing in the 2005 general election, Hockney and Hulme-Cross formed One London, with Hockney as leader. One London became a registered party in November 2005 and de-registered in November 2008.

2008 London Mayoral and Assembly election

In February 2008 the party announced that Hockney would be its candidate in the 2008 Mayoral election, promising to reverse the erstwhile mayor's anti-motorist policies and to halve the GLA portion of the

council tax Council Tax is a local taxation system used in England, Scotland and Wales. It is a tax on domestic property, which was introduced in 1993 by the Local Government Finance Act 1992, replacing the short-lived Community Charge, which in turn re ...

over the four-year mayoral term. On 27 March 2008 Hockney pulled out of the race to become the mayor of London. He cited a lack of media opportunities for the candidates representing smaller parties as the reason but confirmed that the party would still contest the Assembly election. The party received just 0.14% of the London-wide list vote, coming last in overall votes and losing both its Assembly seats.

Ideology and policies

Although UK withdrawal from the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

was a central policy objective, One London concentrated its efforts on the

democratic deficit A democratic deficit (or democracy deficit) occurs when ostensibly democratic organizations or institutions (particularly governments) fall short of fulfilling the principles of democracy in their practices or operation where representative and l ...

within London governance and the discrepancy between levels of taxation and public spending in London compared to the rest of the United Kingdom. It also called for the abolition of the London congestion charge and claimed to be the first party to have predicted that the cost of the

2012 London Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

would exceed £10 billion.

Controversy

The naming of the party as 'One London' caused some comment as the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, had just started a public campaign under that name as an attempt to build closer relations between ethnic communities following the

7 July 2005 London bombings The 7 July 2005 London bombings, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists in London that targeted commuters travelling on the city's public transport system during the mo ...

References

{{UKIP Political parties established in 2005 Eurosceptic parties in the United Kingdom Defunct political parties in England Political parties disestablished in 2008 Political history of London 2005 establishments in England 2008 disestablishments in England UK Independence Party breakaway groups