Haringey Green Party candidate Tom Davidson holds third place, coming above both the Conservatives and UKIP.
South-west Haringey with the City in the background, from Alexandra Palace, one of the highest points in London.
Haringey Green Party successfully defended third place in Thursday’s by-election for the vacant Woodside seat on Haringey Council. A campaign team of 30 Green Party activists, including visiting activists from Islington, spreading the offer of a “positive protest vote”, helped secure 191 votes for Tom Davidson and third place with 8.1% of the vote despite being out-resourced by the bigger parties.
Green candidate Tom Davidson held the third place first attained by the Greens in last May’s local elections, maintaining their lead over both the Conservatives and UKIP. “Our message went down well on the doorstep, and I’d like to thank everyone who voted for me” said Davidson “I’d also like to pay tribute to our wonderful team of activists. We ran an effective ground campaign that undoubtedly made the difference for third place. UKIP fancied their chances of beating us, so we needed to scrap hard in this by-election just to defend our May placing. Of course we still remember Pat Egan and his family and friends, and we sincerely wish that the by-election had not been necessary.”
This safe Labour seat was duly held by Labour candidate Charles Wright. The extensive personal involvement and resourcing of embattled MP Lynne Featherstone, who is 13 points behind in her constituency in latest polling, helped hold second place for the Liberal Democrats for the time being. Turnout was a disappointing 25%. UKIP were targeting the ward and putting resources into running a ground campaign in this by-election, and they came fourth with 161 votes, ahead of the Tories in fifth with 140.
With a 16.3% borough-wide vote share last May, the Green Party has taken second place ahead of the Lib Dems in seven Haringey wards, including six of the nine wards in Tottenham.
A recent Lord Ashcroft marginal constituency poll of General Election voting intentions in Hornsey & Wood Green showed the Green Party polling at 8% – more than triple the share recorded at the 2010 General Election. Meanwhile Green Party of England & Wales membership has grown by 45% this year alone.
Gordon Peters, the Green Party’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) for Hornsey & Wood Green, said: “This may be the Green Party’s least strong ward in this constituency, a more ‘outer London’ working class area. It’s also an area where many people demonstrably feel neglected by out-of-touch elites. But in Woodside as across Haringey, the positive Green message of ‘hope not fear’ still has more takers than either the vicious austerity of the Conservatives or the hatred and division of UKIP. The Greens may lack the lavish media coverage of UKIP and the Tories, but we have volunteers – ordinary people – spreading our message, one doorstep at a time. I was also proud to campaign with the cross-party ‘Stand Up to UKIP’ group during this election campaign, and I’m also very pleased that the Greens remain the best placed alternative to the never-ending duopoly on Haringey Council under the unfair voting system.”
Christine de León, Green Party PPC, added: “It matters a lot to me, and to other activists in Haringey Greens, that we render UKIP irrelevant everywhere in Haringey. People know that the Greens are not just a single issue party for the chattering classes, we represent everyone who wants radical change through social, economic and climate justice.”