It was announced today that the Green party are standing aside in a number of marginal seats in favour of Labour candidates, for example the excellent Chris Williamson in Derby North, in order to maximise the chance of toppling Tory MPs and preventing another disastrous Tory government. This is laudable and shows a concern for the best for the country.
However, the local Greens on Merseyside are crowdfunding to raise money to stand in the Wirral West constituency – a seat in which another excellent Labour MP, Margaret Greenwood, defeated the odious Tory incumbent Esther McVey by a mere 412 votes in 2015.
This almost certainly hands the seat to the Tories, as even a tiny share of the constituency’s left-leaning vote switching to the Greens is highly likely to be enough to allow the Tories to slip into first place..
The SKWAWKBOX understands that the local prospective Green candidate for Wirral West did stand aside but that a Liverpool-based Green decided to stand, for whatever reason.
The emergence of the Labour draft manifesto last night, with its incredible impact and reception across the country today, mean that the UK has a genuine electoral choice for the first time in years – and it’s one that the vast majority of Greens would also wish to support.
The SKWAWKBOX calls on the Green party leadership to get hold of their representatives in Wirral West. The Greens have no realistic prospect of victory in any of the four seats they plan to contest on the Wirral, or even get close. Labour is the party that can keep the Tories out – and a vanity project or PR exercise cannot be allowed to result in the replacement of a strong, highly-regarded Labour MP by a Tory.
Merseyside would not forgive or forget the Greens persisting in such a short-sighted course of action. The country desperately needs a Labour government and Wirral West needs its Labour MP who has received huge praise and respect for her performance and commitment.
Please share this post and let’s build a groundswell calling on the Greens to step aside rather than allow a Tory to benefit to the detriment of the area and of the country. Share it to new City Region mayor Steve Rotheram as well and ask him to intervene with the Greens’ leadership in whatever way is necessary.
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Labour can hardly expect the Greens to keep standing down to assist non Tory candidates, without reciprocating in any constituency e.g. in Brighton
I accept your point, but wouldn’t it be nice if Labour ever reciprocated.
About time Labour recognised that FPTP is no longer appropriate and time that Labour spoke up and demanded that the Green Party get some BBC airtime and were included in all debates.
I would not normally support standing aside But in this election It would seem sensible to stand aside where another candidate has a far better chance of beating the tories than a Labour candidate, The NHA party is standing against Jeremy Hunt so labour should stand aside. But the powers in the party have chosen to expel 3 people who dared to suggest such an action, Politically stupid move. This is part of the power struggle at the top of the party which is being seen by the electorate and is simply destroying the party. The Right of the party are hell bent on losing this election just to unseat Corbyn from the leadership. I hope they think it is worth it. They need to be prepared for the backlash and civil war in the party as it disintegrates. Sad but true.
Reblogged this on Perfectlyfadeddelusions.
Another problem here is we have such an abusive right wing Tory Labour council, led by lying council leader and West Wirral resident Phil Davies that scores of potential Labour voters are lost to the Greens every single day and not just on one day every five years.
This Tory Labour council leader has even been seen out and about in Wirral South, knocking on doors and jeopardising votes in Wirral South when he should be lying low and keeping his face out of public view.
We shouldn’t shy away from the real reasons why Margaret Greenwood has such a slender majority. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s banned him from Wirral West for the next few weeks and sent him scurrying to ‘safer’ areas.