Shropshire Star

No back-room deals, says Kuldip after Green Party 'offered not to stand' in Telford to help Labour win seat back

Labour's candidate for Telford today said he wants no "back-room deals" as he fights for votes in the upcoming General Election.

Published
Green candidate Luke Shirley and Labour candidate Kuldip Sahota

Kuldip Sahota, who hopes to win the seat from current Conservative MP Lucy Allan, revealed he had rejected an offer to work with the Green party.

The constituency's Green Party had offered not to fight for the seat in a bid to work with Labour and stop the Conservative Party retaining the seat.

In 2015, the Conservatives won a majority of 730 in Telford. Conservatives took 16,094 votes while the Green Party won 930 votes. Labour's candidate at the time, former MP David Wright, won 15,364 votes.

But Mr Sahota said he wanted no "back-room deals" as he campaigned ahead of the election on June 8.

He said: "We are not doing any back-room deals with the Green Party or any party, and the reason is only a Labour candidate can been the Conservatives.

"We don't want to make any deals. I want people to vote for me, to vote intelligently, because I am the only one that can beat the Tory candidate.

"Back-room deals, they don't look good and we have not done any of those.

"I will always be open and transparent and I do not want to do any of these deals with them, or any other party."

The Green party's candidate for Telford, Luke Shirley, claimed the Greens had proposed not to stand.

Mr Shirley said the idea was in the hope it would stop the Conservative Party candidate Lucy Allan retaining the seat.

He said: “Telford voters are being let down by the Conservatives who clearly have no interest in being up front with voters.

"It’s a real shame that Labour refused our generous offer to work with the Greens to try and ensure we get an MP who understands that we cannot afford to continue underfunding our public services.

“We reached out to them locally, but it’s clear that at higher levels within the Labour Party, including Jeremy Corbyn, they do not want our help, and certainly don’t want to see more fantastic Green Party MPs like Caroline Lucas.”

Caroline Lucas, joint leader of the Greens, added: "It’s a real shame that Labour have refused to even consider co-operating in marginal seats like Telford.

“In many places Labour have defied their own members on the ground – and the time has now come for the Greens to focus entirely on winning votes up and down the country."