Greens set to stand candidate in Richmond Park but remain open to Lib Dem discussions
The Green Party has decided to stand a candidate in the upcoming Richmond Park by-election but remain open to discussions with the Liberal Democrats about the possibility of standing aside.
At today’s meeting of the Richmond and Kingston Green parties and senior national Greens, the issue of whether to stand aside in order to give the Liberal Democrats a better chance of winning the seat was discussed.
According to a local source with knowledge of the meeting though, the position decided is that: “We are open to discussions however without Labour [standing aside] it [the Greens standing aside] probably won’t happen.”
While three Labour MPs (Clive Lewis, Lisa Nandy and Jonathan Reynolds) called today for Labour to consider standing aside, political journalists have been briefed that Labour will definitely be standing a candidate.
Bright Green understands that the Liberal Democrats have not yet approached the local Green party about a deal.
The bookmakers view the seat as a straight fight between the Liberal Democrats and ex-Tory MP Zac Goldsmith. Ladbrokes has the Liberal Democrats as evens to win, with Goldsmith slightly ahead at 8/11.
The Greens, Labour and UKIP are currently between 100/1 and 200/1 to win the seat. The Conservative Party is not standing a candidate against Goldsmith.
The byelection has been called because Goldsmith has resigned due to his opposition to Heathrow’s third runway, which was approved yesterday.
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Firstly on the local issue. Personally I think this is a Goldsmith vanity show, to show his constituents that he sticks to his word while at the same time enabling him to re-join the Tories (if he ever left them). I think we’d be fully justified to sit this out while at the same time supporting another candidate to make sure he’ll loose for this unbelievable behaviour.
On the wider issue of a ‘progressive’ alliance, as others have pointed out the LibDems are the problem. I’d feel uncomfortable with a proper alliance with them, but it would be equally stupid to claim a broad alliance without them. So I think the only way ahead is for us to unilaterally state that we won’t contest a number of key Tory-held Labour and LibDem targets and hope that they do likewise. I mean, doing so would cost us little.
The whole progressive alliance idea is, in my opinion, based on a serious misunderstanding of the situation.
The Liberal Democrats are not as progressive as they appear to be and have often found it easier to win over fiscally conservative (and often quite parochial) voters in normally Conservative seats, of which Richmond Park is one, than socially liberal voters in Labour seats. Also, not everyone who normally votes Labour/Lib Dem/Green will switch their votes between them in such a scenario, depending on the candidate, and many voters for these parties could end up just staying at home rather than turning out to defeat the Conservative. There is also the fact that the Conservatives’ prospects of winning over former UKIP voters could likely outweigh any gains from such a progressive alliance. Such a progressive alliance could also be seen as a stitch-up by voters.
Def the time for Greens to show a lead and STAND DOWN, don’t worry about what Labour does
its all a load of rubbish this progressive alliance but we in situation that if lab does it we would probably look stupid if we did nt given the new leadership teams embarassing pleading to labour. i consider myself on the left of the greens i am shocked the way the left as whole is being sucked towards labour a party i cannot in conscience vote for due to the record of the continued record of there local elected representatives in there northwest london and welsh strong holds. oh and its labour that need to be approached not the liberals, this only works as a good will jesture towards the liberals for green and labour, and only if both do it,
This is an ideal opportunity to make a gesture showing that we are serious about a progressive alliance. If we wait for all branches of all parties to agree then it will never happen.
If Labour are willing to stand aside we should definitely do that too. Having promoted the idea of a progressive alliance we have to walk the talk. But I would be uncomfortable if it was only us standing aside. Labour must start to cooperate too.
As to what Jammy says above I would hope that after Zac’s performance in the Mayoral election the Greens would be solidly behind getting rid of him. He may be an environmentalist with a little “e” but he will always be a Tory.
Agree Graham.
I’m understanding from this article that there is a value judgement as to who is preferable Liberal Democrats or Zac Goldsmith?
If we wish to support Zac (Given he is an environmentalist and a former member of The Green Party) then standing down will certainly help him.
If we wish to help the Liberal Democrats, then standing as a Green would certainly help support Zac winning as we would not be splitting the Green voters who the party has wished to pretend don’t exist.
The real question is how it would look to the public if the party that achieved the 3rd largest vote share across london steps aside for a party that came 4th, but helps the Conservatives.