Six Green councillors quit after election, leaving councils facing by-election costs

The Greens are like village idiots. Vaguely interesting for a while, but not to be trusted with anything.

I used to vote Green,though not invariably, was a Green Party member and thought Caroline Lucas was terrific. I remember when the Green Party was the Ecology Party. As it is now, I have little respect for it. I do respect Rupert Read in Norfolk, but I don’t know how active he is currently.

You’re no doubt just as outraged at all those Reform councillors doing the same thing?

I think the Green party are at risk of ruining their reputation with their push towards populism. I've never voted Green, but always felt that it was good that they had some voices in parliament and on local councils and would have been happy to give them my vote as a tactical vote if necessary. The antisemitism that's creeping in with some of their candidates is very worrying and I'd be fuming if I'd voted for them only to discover they were a paper candidate who had no intention of standing.

The scale of Reform's selection of odious and incompetent candidates is staggering, but I really don't understand what their voters are looking for. Maybe racist misogynist bigots are a lure rather than deterrent to some voters.

Yes, sorry, I should have made that clear

The Greens candidate for Makerfield is Sarah Wakefield, who is a councillor on Manchester city council.

She would have to resign from that role if elected.

Robert Kenyon, the Reform UK candidate for the Makerfield by-election I believe? What a charmer.

An account linked to Robert Kenyon - who is running against Andy Burnham in the crucial vote - wrote that women can’t “ref, drive or give directions” and declared: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am.” Posts made on an online rugby fan forum in the 2010s objectified European women’s bodies while saying English women “don’t care” and “just walk around with their fat bellies and odd shapes pushing a pram at 16 in their PJ’s”.

The user also said in an RLFans forum: “European women…all have really good figures and are good looking”, and responded to a post with links to images of women saying: “Wouldn’t get me off any of those with a bazooka.”

In 2019, responding to a discussion over women presenting matches on Sky, they wrote: “The women on the panel’s aren’t up to the job and only there to tick a box” and said women’s super league players are “no where near the standard” to be commentating on games.

The remarks were made by an account under the username ‘post’, which says in other comments that their Twitter handle is @robkenyon1 and promotes Mr Kenyon’s book, The Blood Waltz.

In a now deleted post on X in 2019, the user also suggested he would “rank higher” than a female presenter and former player because he had “won the Champions League with Accrington Stanley on FIFA Career Mode”. The comments come days after other offensive X posts were highlighted by campaign group Hope Not Hate.

A spokesperson for Reform UK did not dispute the latest resurfaced comments but instead dismissed them as “locker room banter”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-uk-robert-kenyon-comments-misogynistic-b2983146.html

Oh yes. Of course that’s the reason why Labour didn’t want local elections 🙄

Try and perform some critical thinking and imagine that these other parties have suddenly come into contention because Labour and Conservative have been so bloody terrible. If we had some actual decent politicians then we wouldn’t be in all this trouble.

Can you imagine voting for a person who says this?

"English Women don't care about their bodies and just walk around with their fat bellies and odd shapes pushing a pram at 16 in their PJ’s."

Astonishing that actual teachers hasn’t bothered to read the election guidance and work out they were n eligeable to stand. What a shocking waste of money for the local authority.

It was worth saying twice!

Oops, sorry for the double post!

The rapid rise of populist parties has created a demand for candidates that can't be met effectively. Neither Reform nor the Greens have the strong local infrastructure that other parties have built up over decades, so they don't have the pipelines of experienced volunteers who can then come forward as candidates. Loads of candidates therefore have no clue what local councils do or what the role of a counsellor entails etc. Plus the vetting infrastructure just isn't there.

It's a mess, frankly.

The rapid rise of populist parties has created a demand for candidates that can't be met effectively. Neither Reform nor the Greens have the strong local infrastructure that other parties have built up over decades, so they don't have the pipelines of experienced volunteers who can then come forward as candidates. Loads of candidates therefore have no clue what local councils do or what the role of a counsellor entails etc. Plus the vetting infrastructure just isn't there.

It's a mess, frankly.

How about people who want to be elected taking responsibility for finding out what would be involved and reading up on who is and isn't eligible before putting the rest of us to the time and trouble of a completely unnecessary bye-election? If a person hasn't got the time and the literacy levels to find out if they're eligible to stand I can't see how they will make a decent councillor. Frankly, I wonder what sort of teacher they must be.

Perhaps it would be sensible to require occupation to be stated on the nomination form so the returning officer could reject applicants in LA jobs.

The Greens are a ridiculous party, led by a strange man. Can’t imagine why anyone voted for them. 🤷‍♀️

The ineligible ones to stand should have had their nomination rejected.

Rejected by whom? The Returning Officer? That would involve the RO having to research every nominated candidate.

The nomination form puts the onus on the candidate to ensure that they are qualified to stand.
"You must not sign the form if you are disqualified to stand. Make sure that you read the Electoral Commission guidance on standing for election as well as the legislation included on the consent to nomination form. If you are not sure if you are able to stand you should contact your employer (where relevant), consult the legislation or, if necessary, take your own independent legal advice."
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/guidance-candidates-and-agents-local-government-elections-england/nominations/completing-your-nomination-papers/nomination-form

Six Greens.

Not good, but compare it with Reform which is much worse over the last year.

The ineligible ones to stand should have had their nomination rejected. The nomination forms should list all the reasons someone cannot stand.

What price is democracy ?

We could have election insurance for candidates I suppose. But then the insurance companies would select the candidates.

Isn't there a governing body that would check the validity of people running?

There's obviously a conflict with the teacher for example - isn't there any kind of oversight that would pick that up?

This sounded attractive when I read it.

But now I've had time to mull, I think the one thing worse than costing the constituency a by-election... would be the unsuitable person continuing in post to avoid having to pay for a by-election.

I can't see the answer to that one.