Anoosh Chakelian writes:

After weeks on the campaign trail, most politicians take a breather after the polls close. Not Magid Magid. The 29-year-old former Somali refugee – Sheffield’s outgoing Lord Mayor – was straight back out doing public events while waiting for the European election results.

We meet two days before Magid was elected as a Green MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber. He was one of a record seven across Britain, following the party’s highest European election vote share since 1989, and reflecting a “green wave” across the continent.

Magid is bounding around sunny Sheffield in a typically Magid outfit. There’s a slogan t-shirt (“CHOOSE HOPE”), skinny black jeans, gold Casio calculator watch and cherry red Doc Martens. Add to that a yellow baseball cap bearing a Yorkshire rose, worn backwards (the same he donned on Ilkley Moor during campaigning, subverting the Yorkshire folk song –“I wasn’t baht ‘at, I was wit’ ‘at!” [translation: “I wasn’t without a hat, I was with a hat.”]).

He has lived in Sheffield since the age of five, after settling there with his mother and five elder siblings as refugees from Somalia. Having hung up his ceremonial chain a week ago (“I’m currently unemployed – genuinely!”), Magid is addressing hundreds of schoolchildren who are on strike against our “climate emergency” in the city centre. Inspired by the 15-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, school strikes like this are popping up across the world. [Continue reading…]