In Bristol, the Green Party are growing at a fast pace after having made huge gains in the Local Elections and favourites to defeat Labour in Bristol Central - which will give them their 2nd MP in the House of Commons.
However there are two others seats where the Greens stand a really good chance of winning MPs; the seats of Waveney Valley and North East Hertfordshire.
Waveney and North East Hertfordshire are Tory areas and as we all know the Tories are in collapse.
In most parts of the country that benefits Labour (or LibDems) however in these two particular seats, the Greens are the strongest opposition and stand a seriously good chance of taking both.
In General Elections, a lot of (potential) Green voters tend to vote LibDem or Labour as they believe the Greens have no chance of winning......even if they voted Green in local elections. However with the Greens looking so strong in these seats, the opposite may be the case with Labour and LibDems (possibly) lending their vote to the Greens to get the Tories out.
Can An Ex-Tory Voter Switch To The Greens?
There is a stereo-type that rural Tory voters are somehow naturally Right-Wing and would never switch to a openly Left-Wing Party like the Greens. The problem with that stereo-type is that alot of polls show that rural Tory voters tend to lean Left on the NHS, public services and Tax havens.
Jeremy Corbyn's policy of a fully renationalised NHS gets 81% of the public infavour and the Mirror reported 67% of Tory voters back a 4-day working week. That is alot more than voted for Brexit. On climate change, rural Tory voters tend to be more sympathetic to Green policy than urban Tory voters and many Labour voters.
I do not want to go over the top as if Tory voters are switching en masse to the Greens and many more will vote Reform than Green but there are minorities of ex-Tory voters who now prefer Greens and many are located in Waveney Valley and in North East Hertfordshire.
Furthermore, the Greens there have a little bonus; this bonus is Green activists coming from other areas to campaign for them. In other words, Green members in places like London, Manchester and Birmingham travel to those seats to help out.
This strategy worked very well for them in the 2010 election when they won Brighton Pavillion as Green members from outside the area came into Brighton Pavillion to make it an easy gain. Imagine the Greens spamming all their activists into 6 seats while ignoring the other 600+ seats then in those few seats they are looking pretty damn strong.
2029 General Election
Finally I want to mention the issue of the second place finishes for the Greens. Usually we tend to ignore who came 2nd in an election but for the Greens a 2nd place has special importance as it is a sign they could take the seat on the following election.
So even if in Waverney Valley and North Hertfordshire, they only came second, this is a good sign for the following election. Then too there are potential 2nd place finishes in the other seats in Bristol and other areas like in Stroud, Hastings and Sheffield where the Greens are the largest party in the local elections.
Could the Greens end up with 15, 20 or even 30 seats in the House Of Commons? Maybe in the 2029 election? It is hard to know now but one thing is for sure, the Greens have made some impressive gains in local elections and will now challenege fiercly in those areas at the General Election.
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