With the Lib Dems predicted to gain 48 seats in Parliament, who are some of the rising star candidates?
The latest polling by YouGov has the Liberal Democrats on 10% of the vote, with the MRP projection that the party is on track to take 48 seats at the 2024 general election, a significant boost from the 11 seats they got in 2019.
A number of Tory Conservative figures are predicted to be ousted from their seats by the Lib Dems, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Education Secretary Gillian Keegan. With its projected influx of new MPs, here are three Liberal Democrat candidates to watch out for who are reckoned to enter Parliament.
Pippa Heylings
Last general election the Lib Dems missed out in South Cambridgeshire by less than 3,000 votes and now they are hoping for a win. Pippa Heylings is leading the race against the Conservatives in the constituency and previous YouGov polling had her tipped for victory.
Last month Heylings was recognised in the first ever national ‘power list’ of political environmental champions, for advocating for environmental causes and running her own business bringing community voices into decision-making, and for advising governments on climate and environmental issues. Her LinkedIn boasts an impressive array of experience working in environmental policy and on a global stage.
Heylings has spent years campaigning in the local area where she has lived since 2012, having been elected to the South Cambridgeshire District Council in 2018.
Victoria Collins
The Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Lib Dems in South West Hertfordshire is local entrepreneur and environmental campaigner, Victoria Collins. Collins told the Hemel Today in 2022 that she hopes to be the first Lib Dem MP of East and South East Asian descent and to represent a better form of politics.
She said to the paper: “Bringing my economic, environmental and entrepreneurial background together I’m here to be an active MP listening to key issues, taking action and advocating for our local communities.”
Collins previously worked for the European Parliament and as a tech entrepreneur but now works as an independent consultant for international companies on sustainability. In election campaigning she has drawn attention to fixing local health services, as well as cleaning up dumped sewage.
The party is again tipped as the main opposition to the Tories in the ‘blue wall’ seat.
Zoe Franklin
Zoe Franklin is running as the Lib Dems candidate in Guildford, part of the party’s ambition to break down the ‘blue wall’ in Surrey, which the Guildford Dragon paper said could see the area undergo its biggest political transformation in “living memory”.
The former borough councillor who has lived in Guildford for over 20 years, stood in both the 2017 and 2019 general elections and was a borough councillor for the Stoke area of north Guildford from 2008 to 2015. She came 3,337 votes behind the Tories in the last general election.
She is running her campaign with a push on local community issues, highlighting access to health and dental provision, action on cost of living and an end to sewage dumping in the River Wey.
According to her LinkedIn, Franklin was previously the manager of a local village hall and is currently the Development Officer for the Association of Liberal Democrat Councilors. Her work with local communities is highlighted on the Lib Dems website where it says she has spent 10 years fighting for a “fairer, stronger and greener future”.
Franklin will take on the previous Guildford MP, Conservative Angela Richardson in the general election.
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Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward
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