If you’ve been paying attention to the West England Bylines YouTube channel over the last year, you’ll have noticed I made video essays about each of the counties we report in and how their constituency boundaries change for the 4 July general election.
I made a prediction in the video covering the West England Combined Authority that the newly made Bristol Central constituency could flip from Labour to the Green Party based off the local elections from 2021.
Three years later and that prediction has gained a lot of steam, not because of me, however.
When the Greens launched their current campaign, they did so in Bristol and polls, according to Electoral Calculus, have the Green Party gaining the seat by 14%.
On the Labour side, they have stepped up their campaigning since the prime minister announced the date of the general election. The incumbent, Thangam Debbonaire, has been in the news, both local and national, doing interviews, making her presence known and Sadiq Khan has even visited Bristol, saying that “In Thangam, they will have a strong champion as culture secretary in the next Labour government. I urge everyone in Bristol Central to re-elect Thangam as their MP…
“The two words nobody in Bristol must say on July 5 is ‘if only’.
In this article, I thought I’d go through each candidate, what they offer, and asking if anyone really will be saying “what if” on the 5 July.
The Labour Party – Thangam Debbonaire
Thangam Debbonaire has been the MP of Bristol West since 2015, serving in various roles in the shadow cabinet, such as shadow Leader of the House of Commons and shadow secretary for housing before her current role.
Since before she entered the House of Commons, she has been a cello player, so it makes sense that she was made the shadow secretary for culture, media and sports.
During her time, she has represented the constituency well, campaigning to remain in the EU (Bristol voted 62% to remain).
On her website, she notes her biggest priorities as tackling the climate emergency, building decent homes for everyone, fair treatment of refugees and ending domestic violence and abuse.
In her role as Shadow Secretary for Culture, she has outlined many times the need of a strong media sector, outlining plans under a Labour government to invest and support the industry, as well as the future of the BBC in an ever changing landscape.
The Green Party – Carla Denyer
Carla Denyer is one of the co-leader of the Green Party, a role she has had since 2021, becoming the first openly bisexual leader of a major political party in England. She has studied mechanical engineering and went to work in the wind energy sector for a Bristol based consultancy group, GL Garrad Hassan.
In 2015, she stood and was elected a councillor for Clifton East (later Clifton Down in 2016) on the Bristol City Council where she stood until 2024, when she stood down to chase becoming the party’s second Green MP.
In 2018, it was Denyer who proposed that Bristol declare a climate emergency, becoming the first city in Europe to do so, with the goal of making the city carbon neutral 2030. During this time, she’s seen the Greens become the biggest party on the city council twice, with her focus on public transport, housing and, of course, the ongoing climate crisis.
Bristol – How does the city feel?
Bristol has five constituencies, gaining one more since the boundaries were redrawn. Of the four that have existed since 2010, the only one which has elected a Conservative MP in recent years was Bristol North West, but that switched to Labour with the election of Darren Jones in 2017. The Bristol seats are now seen as some of the safest Labour seats in the country.
Bristol Central is ever so slightly different.
It has existed as Bristol West in some form since 1885 and while it has regularly elected left leaning parties since 1997, it elected the Liberal Democrats in 2005 and kept electing them until 2015, the election after the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition was forged.
If we want something even more recent then this, I mentioned earlier that Carla Denyer’s time as the Green co-leader presided over a shift in the political make-up of the Bristol City Council. In 2021, the Greens gained 13 councillors from Labour, needing a by-election the next year to overtake them. What’s significant is that in the new borders of Bristol Central, there were 14 councillors that operate in these wards and 12 of the councillors elected were of the Green Party.
And in 2024, the same area returned 14 Green Councillors as the Bristol Green Party returned 34 councillors in the City Council, just two shy of an outright majority.
So, if these results in Bristol Central are replicated in the general election, then Thangam Debbonaire would be looking at losing her seat.
A gain for the Greens?
If polls are to be believed, we’re on course for Bristol Central to have a non-Labour MP for the first time since 2015, despite the fact that Thangam Debbonaire is highly respected as a local MP. This part of the world could make history.
The first past the post system throws up anomalies. The Green party have only registered one MP since 2010, way below its vote share. It picked up 835,597 votes (2.6% of the vote) in 2019.For comparison, in 2019 another small party, Plaid Cymru, got only 153,267 votes (0.5% of the vote) of the vote and yet returned four MPs. This is of course due to distributional factors.
It looks as though we’re heading for a Labour majority, the polls are just too consistent for it to be otherwise, so if that happens and the Greens win in Bristol (also as the polls say they will), there’ll be one more left leaning voice challenging the Labour government. Remember Denyer’s comment in the leaders’ debate: “Starmer has changed the Labour Party, he’s changed them into the Conservatives”.
With the other parties seemingly not making much of an effort, speaking personally I haven’t received any leaflets from anyone other then the Greens or Labour, it seems like a two horse race between Denyer and Debbonaire. With one, the city would be making history, the other a Culture Secretary who understands Culture, Media and Sports. Not really a scenario Bristolians will be asking “what if?”.
Postscript (16 July 2024): In the election Carla Denyer won by a wide margin: 24,539 to Thangam Debonnaire’s 14,132.
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