Brentwood and Chelmsford Green Party member Paul Jeater travelled to Diss in South Norfolk for an Eastern Region Green Party action day in support of the party’s co-leader Adrian Ramsay, who is our candidate in the new constituency of Waveney Valley.
And Paul, who is our local party Treasurer, encouraged anyone from our area who can follow suit to head to the target seat to help Adrian’s campaign in its crucial final stages.
“To my knowledge Waveney Valley is an unusual constituency as it crosses county boundaries, North Suffolk and South Norfolk. It is largely rural, with few large towns,” said Paul.
“Diss, probably the largest, and on the main London to Norwich rail line, has a population of c.10,000. It is a new constituency created by the boundaries commission after the recent review.
“I met Adrian soon after I joined the party in 2011, at a council by-election in Norwich and he recruited me to the campaign team for the 2014 European Elections in Eastern Region, which, to a significant extent, kick started my involvement in the party.
“Close to a hundred members arrived at Diss to door knock and/or deliver leaflets in the town and surrounding villages and hamlets. In recent years the party has gone from strength to strength in this area. It currently is the majority group on Mid Suffolk District Council and has recently won a seat on Norfolk County Council in South Norfolk.
“With postal votes likely to be delivered to households this week, it is important to make contact with as many of these voters as possible in the next few days. For those not involved in active politics, the purpose of canvassing is to identify those who either will vote for your party or who are quite likely to vote for the party; it is not to try to convert people.
“On the whole the reception was very good. A number of residents said we were the only party they had seen. The number of Green posters around the town was encouraging, but I have no doubt that there are plenty of silent Tories, whose votes are still up for grabs. In the village I visited in the afternoon, it was a straight Tory vs Green contest. A number of people insisted that they could never vote Labour, but were disillusioned with the Tory Party and recognised that we were the party campaigning against the polluting of the local river and opposing the proposed installation of pylons from Norwich to Tilbury.
“Waveney Valley is one of our four target seats in England, and my sense is it will be close. There’s just over two weeks to go in the campaign and every conversation and every vote will count.
“The more members of Brentwood & Chelmsford Green Party and Eastern Region Green Party who can attend between now and polling day, the more doorstep conversations & the more leaflets that can be delivered, the better. This is a fun day with likeminded people, working towards getting our first MP in the East.”
To find out more about the Action Days coming up in Waveney Valley and to sign up see:
https://actionnetwork.org/campaigns/adrian-ramsay-for-waveney-valley
