Last Saturday December 7th, Crowborough Community Centre hosted Wealden's only pre-General Election parliamentary hustings debate with all four parliamentary candidates participating - Lib Dem Chris Bowers, Labour's Angie Smith, the Green Party's Georgia Taylor and incumbent Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani. The debate was moderated by BBC political journalist Helen Catt.
Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Chris Bowers has said he is "really pleased" that Wealden voters will at last get a chance to hear all four Wealden candidates speaking at a live hustings debate on December 7th in Crowborough. The news comes after over a month of silence from the Tory candidate following Chris' open challenge to Nus Ghani to debate him at a live hustings before the December 12th General Election.
Wealden's Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate Chris Bowers will be participating in the upcoming live 'Climate Emergency Question Time' this Wednesday November 27th, an event which has been organised by Wealden's Extinction Rebellion (XR) group.
The debate will be held this Wednesday November 27th from 8pm to 9.30pm at Michael Hall School Theatre in Forest Row (RH18 5JA). All four of Wealden's parliamentary candidates have been invited, though so far only Liberal Democrat Chris, plus the Green and Labour candidates have confirmed they will be there. Organisers say they are still waiting for a reply from incumbent Conservative candidate Nus Ghani, who has apparently been sent numerous invitations (incidentally, she also still hasn't replied to Chris Bowers' open invitation to debate him at a hustings during the general election campaign!). Perhaps she plans on making a surprise entrance, but for now she is being creatively depicted on XR's event poster as a mysterious piece of topiary on a desert island (see pic)!
We've updated our General Election 2019 FAQ page - Wealden's LibDem Parliamentary candidate answers questions about the environment sparked by an RSPB initiative...
QUESTION: What are you personally pledging to do to help protect the environment?
A number of people have written to Chris asking him to use his voice to protect the environment. This was an initiative started by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds called Let Nature Sing in the General Election, but covers a number of environmental topics and asks candidates to answer three questions amounting to a pledge.
Wealden's Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Chris Bowers welcomed the Unite to Remain agreement which involves candidates from the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and Plaid Cymru standing aside in 60 constituencies in order to avoid splitting the Progressive Remain vote and to unite behind the one Pro-Remain candidate in each constituency who stands the best chance of winning.
Chris described the announcement as "a shot in the arm for grown-up politics" and "an encouraging sign that there are people in UK politics willing to put the welfare of the country and its people ahead of their local party".
The arrangement involves two of the three candidates in 60 named seats standing aside to enhance the chances of a pro-Remain candidate beating a pro-Brexit candidate.
Although Wealden is not one of the 60 seats, Chris Bowers, who has a long track record as a passionate environmentalist, said: "We accept and respect that the Green Party will not be standing aside in Wealden, but we urge voters tempted to vote Green this time to put their weight behind the party most likely to beat the Conservatives, which in Wealden is clearly the Lib Dems." This is backed up by extensive data analysis by the leading cross-party tactical voting sites including Best For Britain's getvoting.org and the People's Vote Campaign's tactical-vote.uk where voters can look up their postcode to receive unbiased pro-Remain advice.
"We all thank the Green Party and Plaid Cymru for their brave decision," said Chris. "Brexit is a national crisis. This groundbreaking agreement, facilitated by the Unite to Remain campaign group, will help to secure more Remain-supporting MPs in the next Parliament. And the more LibDems that are elected, the higher the chances are of us finally bringing about long overdue and much needed electoral reform - which would finally mean getting a fairer voting system in Britain, in which tactical voting would no longer be needed."
Despite a sizeable majority, and long being considered a "safe blue seat", the Conservatives are by no means home and dry in Wealden, which has an unpopular and oft-absent MP and an electorate which, since 2018, has switched to being more than 50% in favour of Remain according to a Best For Britain report.
Ahead of the General Election on December 12th, constituents and campaign groups have, understandably, been contacting parliamentary candidates to get their views on specific topics. In order to respond as fully and clearly as possible to all those who've been sending him questions, Wealden's Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate Chris Bowers is providing written answers to the most frequently asked questions, starting with his detailed response to many queries about the controversial Loan Charge.
The leading candidate running against Nus Ghani at the forthcoming general election has challenged her to a hustings debate - and says he wants the incumbent Tory MP to commit to staying for the full two hours.
https://twitter.com/chris1bowers/status/1189681130276032512?s=20com/chris1bowers/statau118968113026032tac512?s=20With the latest data by progressive alliance pro-Remain sites such as Best For Britain's getvoting.org showing the Liberal Democrats as now being the strongest Remain party in Wealden, Lib Dem candidate Chris Bowers has challenged the sitting MP to debate with him at a hustings in front of constituents, to be held in either Crowborough, Uckfield or Hailsham - or ideally in all three. His challenge has received a lot of positive feedback from Wealden voters, but almost a week later, Ghani has still not responded.
Following the recent attack by vandals on the Hailsham LibDem HQ, which is still being investigated by police, local LibDem activist Steve Murphy spent many hours removing the paint and repainting the damaged parts, and has managed singlehandedly to restore the building (as pictured yesterday). Well done Steve and a huge thank you from all of us!
Wealden's MP Nus Ghani has been referred to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) by Chris Bowers, her leading opponent at the forthcoming general election, in the growing row over a leaflet the Liberal Democrats have described as 'greenwash electioneering'.
Several constituents have contacted Ms Ghani's parliamentary office to find out more about a leaflet they'd received entitled 'Your Guide to Going Green', which the MP claims to have written, and which states was funded with money from her parliamentary allowances. Bowers says that this is likely a misuse of taxpayers' money - on top of their salary, MPs are allowed to claim a number of tax-free allowances. This includes a communications allowance to help MPs inform their constituents about their work, however it cannot be used for party political purposes. This is at the centre of the Lib Dems' complaint and was previously covered in an article on this website and in an article by the Kent-Sussex Courier newspaper (pictured below).
