The Greens appear to have been first out of the blocks with a by-election pending in a council ward in Hove.
Party members were out leafleting in Goldsmid ward after the former mayor of Brighton and Hove, Jackie O’Quinn, announced her resignation.
Councillor O’Quinn was first elected in 2015 and held the seat at three successive elections, making her one of the longest-serving members of Brighton and Hove City Council.
But in February, she resigned from Labour and sat as an Independent – and yesterday (Friday 1 May) she said that she would be stepping down from her role as a councillor.
The last time a by-election was held in Goldsmid ward, in July 2009, the seat was won by Green candidate Alex Phillips who was 23 years old at the time.
Ten years later she became the youngest ever mayor of Brighton and Hove before stepping down as a councillor at the last local elections in 2023 after 14 years.
Her by-election win helped build the momentum that led the party to victory at the next local elections in 2011 when Brighton and Hove become the first green-run council in the country.
Last night, the Brighton and Hove Green Party said that it was aiming to win the Goldsmid by-election – whenever it is held, adding: “We will be selecting our candidate imminently.
“We are hitting the ground running, with our first canvassing session of the campaign taking place this evening.
“Following the overwhelming Green victory in Queen’s Park – the city’s most recent by-election – with a huge swing from Labour, we’re going into Goldsmid with real momentum behind us.
“What we’ve been hearing from residents across the city is that they feel betrayed by a Labour government that has consistently failed to offer the principled leadership this moment demands.
“After years of disappointment from Labour, both locally and nationally, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: people in Brighton and Hove – and across the country – are crying out for change.
“More and more people are turning to the Green Party because they want politicians who won’t shy away from confronting the crises facing the country and back real solutions – like taxing extreme wealth fairly to fund public services and tackle the inequality crisis.
“Across the city, Green councillors are working tirelessly for local people, standing up for local people and delivering real action on the issues that matter most.
“Residents in Goldsmid deserve a councillor who will stand up to Starmer’s Labour and will fight for residents every single day.
“We’ll have more to say soon about our candidate and campaign but one thing is certain: we’re going into this election ready to win.”
i360. You can never trust the greens to look after our city. Last time they cost us £50m.
Labour are not great nationally but miles better locally.
Which party watched the i360 fold into administration, then gave away the viewing tower for next to nothing, making no effort to recoup the outstanding debt? (Clue – it wasn’t the Green Party)
The i360 ended up being sold for a fraction of what was owed, but by that point the company was already in administration and the debt wasn’t realistically recoverable.
The key issue is what you do next. Continuing to prop it up with more public money would mean asking taxpayers to pour even more into a project that had already failed commercially. The Green Party were told it wasn’t sound when they pushed ahead with the i360. That’s exactly the kind of “throwing good money after bad” people are concerned about.
No administration is going to recover the full loan at that stage – the responsible approach is to minimise further losses to the public purse, not double down on them.
There is one party that is actually managing the city’s finances properly now. (Clue – it’s not the Green Party)
Zack Polanski is clearly a whack job.
The Greens are fruitcakes
Gang of loonies escape the asylum!
Locally, Cllr Marina, of Queens Park, led on protest actions, which got multiple vulnerably housed people evicted from their homes in Brighton. This do first, think later approach is exactly what caused many of the issues in Brighton we are still dealing with today.
By Baron Homes? Who are an awful organisation, I also had a meeting with mums from temporary accomodation, with Bella Sankey Labour Leader and A senior Council Officer Housing Harry Williams, in that meeting someone who was a baron homes tenant, who stayed a mums for a few days as was pregnant and had
A young baby also. And the place was full of mould and damp.
The young person, actually told Bella and Harry she was having a couple of days break, anyway why she went back. The whole flat had been cleared, it caused the tenant who has CPTSD significant stress. I’d not heard a cry like that before, they had not told her for 24 hours and it was left in a communal utility cupboard.
These were mums with children living with Autism. We were shocked someone from the council contacted baron homes after a confidential meeting and was only one officer in the room, and said the person abandoned her property, even though there were 6 witnesses in that meeting to prove not.
So your point whilst maybe right, but actually council officers and these landlords are two cheeks of the same backside, and in some cases these officers are worse.
All true. With the leader in the room, was shocked. I think she was too tbh, but she got a lesson that day by officers, but we have all the evidence to prove this. Coming soon!
I don’t believe they even think later! They certainly have not thought about the Muslim vote piggy backing on their party!
Or maybe they have, any votes will do to assume power but then they will have problems especially with the LBGT stuff of which most muslim’s really don’t dig!
I don’t know what you are referring to but the only people who can be blamed for evicting vulnerable people are the landlords.
I am struck by the startling lack of diversity in that photo.
Lack of diversity? There’s at least one former Labour MP.
Agreed. The only diverse thing about the very apparent white middle class canvassers would be their university degrees.
Can’t see Goldsmid Ward’s large Jewish population having much time for the Green Party.
Something’s gone very wrong for Brighton & Hove Labour. This is the 7th by-election since the 2023 council elections, all caused by resignations of councillors who had been elected as Labour. All costing the people of Brighton & Hove a lot of money. We deserve better!
By my count three were due to health issues (Brunswick & Adelaide, S. Portslade, Westbourne & Poets Corner) which is fair enough. 1 due to to getting a new job incompatible with Cllr service (Queens Park) – again fair enough I think.
2 due to absolute dodgy characters resigning (QP and Kemptown) which yep Labour need to hold their hands up and apologise for selecting them in the first place. I don’t really understand why this one is happening maybe more than meets the eye jumping from Lab to Ind to leaving altogether.
So to make my point – I think 2 or 3 are suspect and can be blamed on Labour but not all 7
That’s a very generous interpretation. Something’s rotten in the state of Labour!
7 by-elections in 3 years, all of them the result of resignations from the same party, is highly unusual, both in Brighton & Hove and in other local authorities. Look at the stats if you don’t believe me.
Ay council by-election costs around £ 20k to adminster. In the totality of the councils budget its a rounding error.
You can’t force a councillor to stay in office if they no longer wish to be one. Resignations happen for all sorts of reasons – one byelection was caused by a change on job of the post holder for example. You can’t put a hold on a persons employment for 4 years just because they are a councillor.
But whats the alternative? Force them to remain in office? In which case you end up with them not doing case work or attending meetings. Would people be happy with that? It’s certainly not fair to the remaining counciilor(s) in the ward or the electorate.
BTW a councillor who doesn’t attend a meeting for 6 months and isn’t granted an extension (usually for health reasons) has their seat vacated anyway.
Or just not call a by-election? – in which case you’re still left with the above issues.
If you want to continue on the rapid downward spiral of affordability in living, increasing inflation, out of control government debt rapidly getting to a point of complete economic collapse, continued increasing state control of you’re life, loss of freedoms, small businesses unable to survive with regulation, taxes, net zero effect on energy costs etc etc, not to mention the catastrophe of the last Green-run Council, which you will know has taken B&H downhill over the past 15-30 years THEN GO AHEAD AND VOTE for these inept, ideological, virtue signalling politicians because that is what they stand for and they really don’t give a toss about your livelihood.
A quick lesson: most of the UKs tax revenue comes from the extremely wealthy, paying for social services. Increase their tax and they leave the country, meaning less tax for the UK and less money for social services. So the government have to then increase the tax on everyone, affecting YOU. This is happening fast and completely brain dead. The solution is to implement policies that help business grow to make more profit to pay more tax, WIN-WIN. Green’s policies are LOSE-LOSE.
Think carefully before you put your ideological foot forward before your desire for a more affordable life with less financial pressure. Both can happen at the same time and BOTH must happen to improve cost is living.
Genuine question. Are you allowed to canvass voters for a by-election before one has been formally announced, registered and it’s date has been officially set? Surely that would be a method of circumventing legislation regarding spending, regulated activities and use of resources that become restricted during an election period.
You can canvass at any time, no money has been spent so fat
The time when the spending laws apply is called the ‘regulated period’.
The regulated period begins on the day after the date you officially become a candidate and ends on polling day.
You will become a candidate if you or others have already announced your intention to stand. For example, your party may have issued a press release when you were selected, or you might have mentioned your intention at a residents’ meeting.
So the money clock starts ticking when the candidate is announced.
But those look to be generic ‘vote green’ leaflets so wouldn’t count towards expenses anyway as no candidate is named.
Political parties are well aware of the law on this and know the consequences of breaching it.
I’ll use your comment to respond but similar thanks also go to Katy and ChrisC who also responded.
Just to flesh out my point, whilst accepting Chris’ sharper eyed observation, I wasn’t sure if said leaflets were specific to any selected internally but not yet officially announced candidate. Or as it turns out simply generic.
Irrelevant of total cost. Had they of been promoting X candidate then I’d argue that something had been spent ( no matter how much or little) for an election yet to be officially announced. Ergo, imho, that would’ve constituted a directly linked spend in a way that could be seen as a way to circumvent said limit’s.
As you’ve all been so kind as to clarify both that and my other questions there’s nothing to see.
As it’s sadly also so rare for public discourse to remain civil and/or for others to selectively interpret what someone’s actually said and their intent so as to go on the attack or blindly cheerlead I thank you all for taking the time to take what I said as it was intended and for sharing your own knowledge so as to educate rather than anything else.
Clayton
The regulated spend for a by-election in the ward is about £ 2k – approx 13k electors @ 8p each plus £ 960.
These aren’t high spending elections.
*far
Wow the right wing crazys are out in force. Sun’s out folks, go enjoy our beautiful city.
Vote green. Vote Islam.
Two cheeks of the same bottom as Labour. What is the actual difference between them apart from the Greens wearing more clownworld clothes and believing prisons should close? Only those born yesterday could forget the damage the Greens did to the city last time round.
Unfortunately all the students who vote green were not around the last time they ruined the city and probably will not be around to see the all the problems they will cause in the future. The greens think we were all born yesterday!
The £51MILLION loss making i360; a terrible record on recycling; graffiti everywhere, weeds all over the place and worse. The shambolic record of the Greens.
THe Tories share the blame for the i360 as they also voted for it giving it a majority.
Labour and greens both rubbish council options.
Rubbish everywhere. Drugs everywhere. Public areas all vandalised. Serious crimes up. I haven’t seen a police officer for months on the beat. Is a free for all and greens would probably add some recycling points and a a few more cycling lanes and Labour would blames tories and Iran war
Police aren’t the councils responsibility.
Blame Katy Bourne the Tory police and crime commissioner.
They are the Labour governments reponsibility. Oh wait no tories fault. Free breakfast clubs. Train fairs frozen. Return of the sausages
It’s a bold stance to say that you’re against feeding children in poverty; I can’t imagine there are many who’d agree with you.
For me, the biggest impact on people’s affordability of living is housing. Greens have blocked at least 42,000 new homes, of which 13,000 were affordable homes, since 2018.
What – there would have been 42,000 more homes in Brighton if not for the Greens?
Really?
Across the country, obviously. Zack Polanski also claims he is “proud” of this fact.
Source?
The launch of the Greens’ local elections campaign last month.
Were these houses going to be built on Green Belt land, by any chance?
All 42,000 across the country? I mean, I haven’t counted, but I doubt it?
Remember the affordable property that was going to be build at the top of Whitehawk which was ditched because it could lose labour support at the imitate election.
The old Brighton hospital site that remains vacant, the site next door to it where the flats burnt down still not built on. The gas towers near the marina ? Labour run its election on building homes but is yet to be seen.
Labour have a large impact locally on people’s affordability of living in the city. The rent cap that Labour rejected would have help. If you are going to bitch about the Greens at least have some achievements to back it up. This is why you lost in Queen’s Park.
Always happy to back that that up with figures, considering Labour have been buying back and building well over target every since year since they’ve been in a majority, close to a thousand properties so far, as reported in the Housing Management Report with a full breakdown.
There’s more to do, absolutely, which is exactly why we should be voting local Labour so they can continue with that positive trend.
Greens have a terrible track record on housing in Brighton, and that’s the thing that will hurt people the most, especially in their wallets.
I live in Goldsmid. Had a leaflet from Labour about 3 weeks ago. Thought it was odd given no elections in this area, but would make sense if they knew Jacqui was poised to chuck it in.
So the Greens weren’t first out of the blocks, really.
It seems almost inevitable that Reform will win nationally. Their new policy is to house asylum seekers in detention centres in Green controlled areas like Brighton as their view is if Brighton votes for open borders which is the Greens policy then these are the best areas to house them. This seems reasonable. The question I would like answered is where the Greens would like to see the new asylum seeker detention seeker facility in Brighton and how they will also accommodate unlimited numbers of immigrants with their open border policy. It is easy having policies but what would be good is to see what practical policies they have for implementing them.
It is not ‘almost inevitable’ that Reform will win the next general election, which is not for another three years. The lead is already shrinking. And the Green policy is not ‘open borders’.
You are right that is is ‘easy having policies’ – particularly when they can’t possibly be implemented. All this one does is demonstrate that Reform offer nothing except nasty, mean-spirited grievance-mongering and a desire to divide and rule.
Perhaps the detention centres should be built in Dubai, where most of the Reform top brass seem to live?
It doesn’t sound reasonable Jane. That sounds like a threat.
“Vote for us or we’ll purposely do things that we think is to your detriment.”
Fascism?