Jo Bird selected as Green candidate for Birkenhead MP
I’m very excited about being selected as the Green candidate for Birkenhead MP.
And so are Wirral Green Party, not least because of the way I won re-election as Green councillor in May just gone in the local elections - along with two ward colleagues. We shifted the Green vote share from 20% to 57% in just one year. We overturned a safe labour seat and it became Green. People voted for us because they like what we do and they like what we stand for.
Birkenhead has many of the same issues to other towns, cities and rural places across the country: Labour Party neglect; the Tories are completely discredited - and the Greens are the only credible, viable alternative.
We are promoting decent policies that address the climate breakdown that we are in. The planet is burning and we have to take urgent action on this.
We also call for things like:
- The restoration of our NHS
- We want better buses and trains
- Better walking and cycling facilities
- Basic things like safe streets for our children
- Clean rivers
- Clean air
- More and better housing.
Greens are the only Party that would bring rail, buses, water and energy back into public hands.
For Birkenhead in particular, it’s my hometown, we deserve better. We deserve better than the Labour-Conservative coalition that we have at Wirral Council. We deserve a better Member of Parliament. I would be an MP that puts Birkenhead first not party bosses. I'd take home the average working wage and donate the rest to green projects in each ward. I stand with frontline workers and I work hard for residents. I work for justice and peace. I won’t vote for yet more expensive wars and the destruction of our beautiful, precious planet.
Birkenhead is part of Wirral and Wirral Council is not in any overall control. Greens have 13 Councillors, which is slightly less than the Conservatives and Labour are the largest. The two larger parties consistently vote together to do things like close local services and swimming baths, vote to deny the Real Living Wage to cleaners and caterers in our schools, and to deny Greens their fair share of places of chairs and vice chairs of committees. Last year, they stopped me being on policy committees, and now they’ve stopped all Greens being chairs of committees.
The Labour-Conservative coalition on the Wirral is an indication of what is to come anywhere. We’ve seen Labour Party abstain or vote with the Tories in Westminster on all kinds of issues. The message to voters is: if you vote Labour, you get Labour-Conservative coalition. If you vote Tory, you get Labour-Conservative coalition. The Greens are the only Party that is offering a credible and viable alternative. We have over 700 local councillors across the country. We’re going to win more MPs in the next general election, in maybe a year's time, and hopefully I’ll be one of them.
Greens are quite strong on the ground on the Wirral. We welcome your support. Anyone who can make it to the Wirral is very welcome. As the tweet from Stats for Lefties shows, in the last local elections over 9,000 people voted for Green candidates, which is more than voted Labour. In the new Birkenhead constituency, 10 out of 21 councillors are Green, 8 are Labour, 3 are LibDem and there’s no Conservative councillors.
There is no chance of the blue Tories winning in Birkenhead.
People like what we are doing. So the general election in Birkenhead is a two horse race between the Green Party and the Labour Party. Between Jo, that’s myself, and Alison McGovern, who has jumped ship from Wirral South into Birkenhead.\The Green Party has this brilliant thing called Open Selection. Any member can stand to be selected and it's democratically decided on the basis of one member one vote. It’s a great thing! Other Parties should try it sometime. We don’t impose or parachute candidates in. And it [democratic open selection] bodes well for the future. If you want to aspire to be in power, you have to model what you’re going to do in your own party first.
The Green Party are in the middle of selecting candidates for the next general election. Harry Gorman is selected for Ellesmere Port & Bromborough new constituency. We are in the process of selecting for Wirral West and Wallasey. The Green Party are planning to stand in every constituency across the country .
If you can’t make it to Wirral and you can afford it without hardship, we welcome your donations. We don’t have enough money to run the best possible campaign that we need to run. Every £250 pays for one leaflet for a ward. 7,500 households will get a leaflet that way. There will be a crowd funder in due course. Here is the donations link: https://wirral.greenparty.org.uk/donate/ .
Thank you