Greens begin final push for second Bristol seat
Support for party has fallen to about 5% since hitting 10% in some polls this year
Green Party leaders headed to Bristol in western England yesterday as they started a final push to win a second seat in the House of Commons.
“Greens can win in Bristol West” has been a party mantra since the start of this year. It’s a bold assertion for a party that took 3.8 per cent of the vote in the swing district in the 2010 general election.
“It gives people confidence to think that it’s not a wasted vote,” the Greens’ local candidate, Darren Hall, 46, said in an interview in the district last week. “If people think we can win, then we can win, because people will vote for us rather than vote tactically.”
Bristol West represents the Greens’ best chance to double their presence in the House of Commons, adding Hall to Caroline Lucas, who won in Brighton in 2010 and is favoured to retain her seat. Nationwide support for the party has fallen back to about 5 per cent since hitting 10 per cent in some polls earlier this year, limiting the Greens’ chances of any breakthrough in a British electoral system weighted against smaller parties.
Jenny Jones, a member of the House of Lords, Britain’s unelected second chamber, and Deputy Party Leader Amelia Womack used Bristol as the first stop on a cooking-oilpowered bus tour around England and Wales. Party leader Natalie Bennett was unable to A minority Labour government while in thrall to a nationalist party that has only 2 or 3 per cent of the total UK vote could test UK’s constitutional structures. attend because she is ill, the party said. Hall’s assessment, two weeks before the May 7 vote, was that opposition Labour Party candidate Thangam Debbonaire was “slightly ahead,” with the Liberal Democrat incumbent, Stephen Williams, “dropping out.”
Two days later, a poll by former Conservative upper-house lawmaker Michael Ashcroft put Labour at 38 per cent, the Greens at 25 per cent and the Liberal Democrats at 20 per cent in the district.
The Greens’ response in a press release was that they have “momentum,” with a 21 percentage-point gain in support since 2010, compared with 10 points for Labour. The diverse constituency stretches from affluent Clifton to the grittier inner-city areas of St. Paul’s and Lawrence Hill, taking in Stokes Croft, an area famous for its street art, including the mural Mild Mild West by Banksy.
“All the Greens in the local area have been going to Bristol West to help out,” said Dave Cutts, a lecturer in political science at the University of Bath. “It is a key target nationally for the party. They can win, but the strength of the Labour vote there is having an effect on them.” A nationwide Green Party survey of new members showed 47 per cent had voted Liberal Democrat at the last election, an indication of disillusionment with the UK’s traditional third party.