THE Coventry Green Party has announced its three candidates for the general election – despite calls earlier this week from its MP Caroline Lucas for tactical voting pacts with other anti-Conservative parties.
They are Stephen Gray in Coventry North West; Aimee Challenor in Coventry South; and Matthew Handley in Coventry North East.
A pact might have seen a so-called ‘progressive alliance’ in which the most like of its parties’ candidates in certain constituencies would stand unopposed by the other parties involved – to avoid dividing the anti-Tory vote.
The idea was quickly dismissed by Labour nationally.
Labour has held all three Coventry seats since 1979.
A swing to the Conservatives in Coventry in last week’s West Midlands mayor election has raised Tory hopes they could snatch Coventry South from Labour’s Jim Cunningham on a 3.65 per cent swing. A 4.98 per cent swing from Labour to Conservative would be required to defeat Geoffrey Robinson in Coventry North west.
The Greens saw a rise in support in the 2015 elections in Coventry, when their votes topped 1 million nationally for the first time.
Their progress was less marked in the city in local elections last year, when the party came second in Holbrook ward.
In last week’s West Midlands mayor election, the Green Party’s James Burn beat UKIP’s Pete Durnell in Coventry, Birmingham and Solihull.
Mr Gray said: “The Green Party is campaigning for a bold, positive future for our country.
“For the last seven years, we’ve had the opposite of strong and stable government.
“Unemployment, the housing shortage and NHS overcrowding is down to the failure of the coalition government’s, and now the Tory majority government’s, policies, cuts and severe underinvestment.
“The Green Party is opposed to the idea of a ‘Hard Brexit’ and a far-right immigrant blaming agenda for another five years.
“Our focus is on winning votes across the city. Our national Green Guarantee will be launched on the 22nd of May. We will offer voters a chance to back a politics which puts people first to deliver a confident and caring country.”
Warwick University Maths graduate Mr Gray has lived in Coventry since 1996 and works in customer service for HSBC bank. He is a member of Jubilee Church Coventry.
Ms Challenor was born in Coventry and grew up in Charterhouse Road. She studied photography at Henley College Coventry and is a trustee of Coventry Pride. She is the Green Party’s national spokesperson on ‘LGBTIQ issues’.
Mr Handley also ran in Coventry North East in the 2015 general election. He lives in the constituency, in Wood End, with two children who were born at Walsgrave. He works as a buyer for a builders’ merchant, and is a trustee of a charity that runs projects with youth from the Tile Hill area.
