Features / Politics
Bristol’s youngest councillor on activism, being arrested and humble brags
Izzy Russell has got two humble brags. The first is that the 22-year-old is Bristol’s youngest elected representative. The second is that she was elected into City Hall in May with the most votes of any councillor.
“It did help that I was standing in the biggest ward in Bristol,” says the new Ashley councillor, who received 3,763 votes. “But I’m still going to shout about the fact that I got the most votes. It’s very cool!”
Born and bred in Compton Martin, a small village in the Chew Valley between Blagdon Lake and Chew Valley Lake, Russell has lived in Bristol for almost four years since starting her politics and philosophy degree at the University of Bristol.
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Izzy Russell is the youngest councillor at City Hall – photo: Bristol Green Party
Russell says that she is proud of her efforts to engage the student voting population in Ashley, a ward that encompasses Montpelier, St Paul’s and St Werburgh’s.
“I think that’s part of the reason I got so many votes. It’s a group that, surprisingly, rarely votes,” Russell admits.
Russell’s ambitions as a councillor looking forward to the next four years at City Hall reflect the time she spent as an activist during much of her teenage years and when she became Bristol Student Union’s student living officer (SLO).
To reflect her experience, she will sit on the new environment & sustainability policy committee which has a wide range of responsibilities including recycling, street cleansing and air quality.
Russell also hopes to “bring in a rent cap or some kind of rent control” to tackle the housing crisis, as well as introduce increased collaboration with student bodies “to make the council more involved in university life”.
She describes one of her biggest feats during her role as SLO as commissioning research into student housing in Bristol.
The research addressed important questions of how housing issues affect the student experience and how the students’ union can support students more efficiently throughout the challenges.
As for transport, Russell has already been involved in work alongside the pressure group Reclaim Our Buses.
Their goal of fighting for buses to be brought back into public control draws inspiration from Manchester’s shift toward public ownership of buses, which has so far proven to be a highly successful measure in providing free, reliable transport around the city.
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So how does a 22-year-old end up running for the city council and getting elected?
For Russell, it was partly because she “met the right people” including Lily Fitzgibbon, who became Bristol’s youngest-ever councillor when she was elected aged just 18 in 2021.
Russell described Fitzgibbon – who has since resigned because she moved to be with her family Australia – as being “inspiring” for her own journey in local politics which began when she was elected co-chair of Bristol Young Greens.
Russell also sees former Bristol councillor and Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer – currently standing to be elected as MP in Bristol Central – as another inspiration, “seeing her go into mostly Tory-filled space, and standing up for people”.
Her role in the students’ union has seen her involved in different pro-Palestinian demonstrations as well as mediating communications between the student body and the university establishment.
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Russell says that her activism laid the foundations for her taking the step to enter formal politics.
She was arrested during the ‘kill the bill’ riots in May 2021, allegedly punched by a police officer and later held in a cell for 19 hours before being released without charge.
Russell says that these protests were a defining moment in her political trajectory: “That was definitely a learning curve, and it made me reassess where I was in activism because I love it so much, the communities that you build, and the way you can stand up for what you believe in.”
However, she does recall the experience of being arrested as highly traumatic, and as a point where she took a step back from activism to prioritise her own health and confidence.
Izzy Russell with her fellow Ashley ward Green councillors, Abdul Malik and Tim Wye, and Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer – photo: Green Party
Despite the peaceful ‘kill the bill’ protests turning into a riot, the movement still represents a meaningful time for Russell, “because it meant that I got to be involved with so many different activist groups… it was climate groups mixing with Black Lives Matter, vegan activist groups, anti-police… it was everyone working together”.
The councillor adds: “One thing I discovered through my activism was that there’s not one thing to be fighting for, it’s all related to colonialism, ableism and the structures in society that uphold them.”
Main photo: Green Party
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