Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas has praised local political parties for stepping aside in the general election in June to build a “progressive” alliance.
She spoke shortly after Brighton and Hove Liberal Democrats voted not to put up their candidate – Paul Chandler – in Brighton Pavilion.
At the same time the Brighton and Hove Greens voted not to run in Brighton Kemptown where candidate Davy Jones, who ran in 2015, was due to stand again.
Caroline Lucas said: “Tonight’s decision by local Lib Dems is welcome, particularly after Greens stood aside in Richmond.
“They recognise that I will be fighting this government’s extreme Brexit every step of the way and I thank them for their support.
“In Brighton something amazing is happening. People are putting aside party allegiances and working together so we have the best possible chance of delivering a fairer voting system and beating the Tories at the next election.
“Greens will be standing for election across this country and putting across our unique vision but in a handful of places members of local parties are taking brave decisions for the common good.
“It’s now up to the Lib Dem and Labour leaderships to sit down for talks about how we can make this movement for electoral alliances work.
“Let’s not condemn this country to five more years of Tory rule.”
And I assume that Phelim Mac Cafferty will similarly stand down in Hove & Portslade in order to help retain Peter Kyle and save the Green’s from wasting their election deposit there as well?
Perhaps the Greens should stand down in all seats where they have got less than 5% of the vote in the last GE, as they are only really concerned with keeping Caroline Lucas safe.
In fact, they really don’t stand a chance of winning any other seats so they might as well just have a formal merger with Labour now and stop wasting time with “alliances”.
with a tory majority of 690 over labour n kemptown and the greens getting over 4000 votes last time this should be enough to get the tories out.
That’s, of course assuming that the Green and Lib Dem voters will both switch to Labour – it may be that the Lib Dems switch support to the Conservatives (after all they were the previous alliance) rather than Labour (the alliance before that one) and hence give Kirby an even greater majority.
Poor old Lib Dems – for ever the bridesmaid and never the bride ?
It depends who Labour puts up. If it is a pro-Brexit candidate then Kirby will be a shoe-in.
Warren Morgan?
I disgusting perversion of the democratic process. One step away from gerrymandering. Any person who believes in the democratic process should boycott the candidate.
What a naïve statement. The Tories were elected on 24% of the vote last time thanks to a system where most votes don’t count and less than 100 swing seats decide the government. Economies which are far more successful than this one have a fairer system and don’t have the social exclusion and inequality problems which are overwhelming this country. If you value democracy, you should support a system where everyone can express their views and have a voice.
‘Progressive’? The abject failure both to understand and to respect the will of the British people is translated into some distorted alliance in a desperate attempt to claw at votes is called ‘progressive’ I think this is actually reactionary. For politicians to throw themselves behind recent changes and to grasp the opportunities they offer is progressive. Caroline Lucas, I’m afraid, is not extolling ‘progressive’ values but rather she harks back to the Past.