Over the weekend a significant article emerged in the Guardian/Observer which was written by Toby Helm that reflected on the data recently carried out by Best for Britain. The article is available on line here and it makes it very clear that if the political parties (Labour, Lib Dems and Greens) would be willing to work together that at the next General Election

if Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Greens could agree to field one unity candidate in each of only 154 English battleground seats, the Conservatives would end up with just 254 English MPs, seven fewer than Labour, which would have 261 English MP. The Liberal Democrats would win 16 English seats and the Green party one.

There are of course real concerns if that would be possible from among the Labour Party and perhaps just as challenging is that the Greens would not gain very much as they already have one MP. Indeed there is also the challenge for the Liberal Democrats in the future who would want more than 15 MPs. However if these three parties were to do this for the next General Election and then as the dominant parties they would introduce Proportional Representation which all three of the parties would call for in their manifestos. This would then make it easier for the Liberal Democratics and Greens to grow their settings in a number of locations.

Another vital theme is how can Independent Candidates get treated more credibly than is currently the case in our nation. Although Independent PCC’s did very well in the first election and they returned 3 cases in the 2016 election, sadly in this years election they were removed completely. The reason why Independent PCCs made sense was partly because Police forces are obliged to be politically independent. However the main reason was that because David Cameron had set out the PCCs as being Independent at the beginning of his plan in 2010. Sadly he did a U turn in around late 2011 or early 2012 and since then the political dominance has removed all of the Independent PCCs. Another case is the extent to which Independent Councillors are increasing. Now to be clear in long term history just as the town and parish Councillors were nearly all Independents, there was a significant growth of parties trying to control them. However the value of Independents in their sector and the Borough and District and even Unitary and County Councillors has increased over time such as in East Sussex and Brighton and Hove. So let us hope that if the three parties are willing to do as Best for Britain is calling for them to do, that in due course the people from Independent settings will also be considered.