The Green Party has decided to stand aside their candidates in Richmond Park and North Kingston and Twickenham for the general election.
The members of the local party voted on this in a meeting last night. The Green Party are currently discussing a progressive alliance with other parties in both constituencies.
The Liberal Democrats currently hold Richmond Park after Sarah Olney won the seat in a by-election triggered by former Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith who stood as an independent. Goldsmith is standing again, this time as a Conservative candidate.
Twickenham is currently held by the Conservatives, who have a majority of around 2,000. The Liberal Democrats came in second in 2015 when former minister Vince Cable lost his seat. Cable is standing again in an attempt to win back Twickenham.
Richard Bennett, Richmond and Twickenham Green Party co-chair said:
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7 Responses to “Greens stand aside in Richmond Park and Twickenham”
Michael WALKER
>John Green
JC does not want to win elections.
He wants to turn the Labour Party into a Left wing party with policies which fit his personal beliefs. If if so doing Labour becomes a rump of 50 MPs , that will suit him as an outlet for his views.
That is my view but his actions fit such an aim: after all no-one in their right minds wishing to win an election would contemplate D Abbott as a Shadow Home Secretary before teh cmapiagn – and all she has done is prove her unsuitability go any role with any repsonsibility. But he keeps her .
So gaining power is not an aim..
If he wanted to gain power, he would be targetting sift Tory voters and UKIP leavers.. UKIP polled 4 million votes in 2015 – if they all went Labour, they would win by a mile.. But he is targetting neither so trying to hold what Labour have – at best..
In reality, a holding operation means you will lose some seats and gain very few.
It’s obvious. Labour are at risk of being turned into a narrow cult. UK voters do not like cults..(See the failures of Oswald Mosely in the 30s, the SDP in the 1980s and UKIP now).
It is unlikely Corbyn will resign when – not if – Labour lose badly. He needs to secure a similar successor. As a result, the Party will lose what credibility it has with voters… .and risk a split internally..
I may of course be totally wrong but I have been consistently negative on him as a Leader. His background makes him totally unfitted to be one.
Boffy
The reality is that the Greens, Liberals, and Plaid, if they want to prevent a hard Brexit Tory government, should all stand aside everywhere, and throw their weight behind Labour, which is the only party with a chance of forming a government.
Tim Farron simply looks idiotic claiming that the Liberals are the real opposition with his 9 MP’s. And he looks even more idiotic making that claim, after the Liberals actually lost seats in the local elections! That should also be a warning to all those who think a shift to the right by Labour would be a good tactic. It didn’t work for Kinnock in the 1980’s and 90’s, as he destroyed the party, on the way to turning it into a pale imitation of the Tories, and in the process facilitating a decisive shift to the right of British politics, and ultimately it didn’t work for Blair/Brown/Miliband as Labour steadily lost its core support as a result of the effect of those Blair-right policies. The Liberals are the embodiment of the kind of centre-ground politics the Blair-rights, and soft left propose, and the Liberals have continued to get crushed, partly because people see that politics as simply conservatism by any other name.
The same is true in France, where Hollande’s Blair-right programme has destroyed support for the Socialist Party, and led to the surge of the FN. Macron might win today, but millions of French voters will abstain saying a plague on both your houses, and as Macron’s celebrity proves to be all that he is offering, the failure and disappointment that causes will simply open the door for Le Pen or something much worse in five years time.
In the West Midlands Mayoral competition, its obvious that Greens and Liberals gave each other their second preference votes, rather than Labour, so that where there was more than enough Green and Liberal votes to outweigh the Tory/UKIP vote, the Tories ended up winning the seat. That is the effect that all these tiny fringe parties like the Greens, Liberals and Plaid are having in splitting the vote, and letting in the Tories. The sooner they realise thy are a dead end the better.