Hackney Greens announce general election candidates

Charlotte George. Photograph: Hackney Green Party

Charlotte George. Photograph: Hackney Green Party

Hackney Green Party has announced its candidates for the May 2015 general election.

Charlotte George will stand in Hackney South and Shoreditch, where Meg Hillier will be likely to seek re-election. Heather Finlay will compete for Diane Abbott’s seat in Hackney North and Stoke Newington.

The Greens’ key campaign issues are for “clean air for Hackney, homes not investments and proportional representation at local elections”.

Charlotte George, a filmmaker and campaigner who has lived in Victoria Ward for four years, said: Housing, along with challenging the current anti-immigration rhetoric and getting real about climate change, are the issues I most want to talk to the people of South Hackney about. The Green Party can offer them a genuine alternative.”

Heather Finlay. Photograph: Hackney Green Party

Heather Finlay. Photograph: Hackney Green Party

Heather Finlay, who has been an active member of the Green Party for nine years said: “The Green Party has alternatives and I look forward to giving the residents of Hackney North and Stoke Newington an opportunity to think differently about the future.”

The Greens have also announced that their membership has increased by almost 100 per cent this year. In January the Greens had 194 members, but latest December figures show an increase to 380.

The increased membership of Hackney Greens has been replicated nationally, as the Green Party of England and Wales has seen its membership double this year, reaching over 27,000 people.

Speaking on the rise of Hackney Greens, Natalie Bennett, Leader of the Green Party said: “This is a real landmark in the ‘Green surge’. To have doubled the membership of the party in less than a year is a real marker of the way in which people in England and Wales are seeing that we need real change in our society, not the business-as-usual politics offered by the three largest parties.”