Green Party to field record number of candidates at General Election

23 March 2010

The Green Party has announced plans to field over 300 candidates at the forthcoming General Election - more than in any previous UK General Election.

In Essex there are already 8 candidates selected with selections underway in more constituencies.

The Greens are also putting a big effort into the local elections which will be held on May 6th - the same day as the General Election is expected. In Colchester there will once again be a full slate of 20 Green candidates for the borough council elections.

In London, the Greens look set for an historic first-ever full slate of parliamentary candidates.

This year, the Green Party is pursuing the same targeting strategy that has seen the party treble its number of council seats in a decade. The three target seats, selected as having the best prospects of a breakthrough, are:

• Brighton Pavilion - Caroline Lucas, the party leader and the area's MEP since 1999, was favoured by 35% in an ICM poll in December 2009 by voters in the constituency, 8 points ahead of the Conservatives, with Labour trailing a poor third. The YouGov/PoliticsHome survey of marginal constituencies in October last year also predicted a Green win in Brighton Pavilion, where the Greens hold a majority of the local council seats and have outpolled all other parties at every election since 2005.
• Norwich South - Adrian Ramsay, the party's deputy leader, has built his local party into a powerful electoral machine. From 7 councillors in Norwich in 2005, they now have 20 councillors (13 on the city council, where they are the only Green Party group in England to be the official opposition group; 7 on the county council). The Greens have outpolled all other parties in the last three rounds of elections in the whole city of Norwich, and finished 3,000 votes ahead of second-placed Labour in last year's Euro-elections - increasing their number of county council seats in Norwich on the same day from 2 to 7.
• Lewisham Deptford - Darren Johnson, the party's trade and industry spokesperson, is the current chair of the London Assembly. Johnson has been elected to the London Assembly three times in a row. He has twice been elected to Lewisham Borough Council, securing the highest vote of all 54 Lewisham councillors. Lewisham is the strongest local party in London for the Greens, who now hold 6 council seats where in 2005 they held 1.

In Essex the Greens are not expecting to win parliamentary seats, but are looking to significantly improve their vote share in a number of constituencies. At the 2009 County Council elections, the Greens finished ahead of Labour in many divisions across Essex and in the new parliamentary seat of Witham, the Greens came second to the Tories in the aggregated vote across the 2 Witham County Divisions.

Cllr. James Abbott, Essex Greens Co-ordinator and parliamentary candidate for Witham said

"There is a greater need for the Green Party challenge than ever before, with the "main three" parties increasingly similar in their policies and none of them offering the right policies on issues like jobs, the NHS, public transport and pensions.

In Essex the Greens offer a distinctive local alternative to the other parties. Our long standing policy of supporting recycling and opposing waste incineration is increasingly finding favour with the public. Investment in the green economy is a key measure to secure sustainable jobs at a time when the economy remains fragile."

Peter Lynn, parliamentary candidate for Colchester added

"Our stance on NHS services has been popular in Colchester at a time when people do not trust any of the other three main parties. People are recognising that only the Green Party are standing up for public services."

More information about the Green Party's General Election Candidates is available here.

Witham and Braintree Green Party RSS Feed

Back to main page