The new Green MP for Brighton Pavilion thanked her cheering supporters and the voters of Brighton Pavilion after holding the seat at the general election. The full result is below.
Siân Berry, who succeeds Caroline Lucas, said: “Firstly, I want to thank the other candidates in this campaign. I know that, like me, you put your hearts and souls into this election and into this democracy.
“Secondly, thank you to the returning officer and all the staff at the count tonight. You have ensured that the ballot has been carefully and fairly counted.
“And thank you, Brighton Pavilion!
“This is such a special place, living and working in this unique city is a joy.
“And I’ve had a ball meeting people on doorsteps, out and about at community groups, schools, youth centres, charities, the junior doctors and nurses … thank you for sharing your thoughts, worries and hopes for the future.
“I can’t wait to deliver for you as your MP.
“I am honoured that you are trusting me to continue your strong independent Green voice in Parliament.
“I promise to work hard for every single person in Brighton Pavilion including those who could not or did not vote for me.
“Together you have demanded action on the NHS, the water companies, housing and the climate emergency, and I will be there to make sure all these things are prioritised by the new government.
“What an incredible campaign team and volunteers. I am absolutely floored by the effort and dedication that so many of you have put into this.”
She also thanked “the brilliant Caroline Lucas” who made the breakthrough for the Greens and the previous candidate, late Keith Taylor MEP.
She was also delighted at the prospect of joining three fellow Green MPs at Westminster , then said: “I can’t wait to get stuck in for you.”
The votes cast were as follows.
Siân Berry (Green) 28,809
Tom Gray (Labour) 14,519
Sarah Webster (Conservative) 3,975
Mark Mulvihill (Reform UK) 2,836
Ashley Ridley (Lib Dem) 1,604
Citizen Skwith (Official Monster Raving Loony) 257
Carl Buckfield (SDP) 184
Steve Ai (Independent) 179
Greens did a lot of campaigning in Pavillion, so well deserved from the hard work the campaigning team did in getting their helicoptered candidate into their safe seat.
Bitters
Not at all, recognise the hard work the Green campaign team did and the respect Lucas built up with voters. Sian did very little comparatively. Same story with Labour in East, on the balance.
Sian was out almost daily over the last year and engaged with local campaigns and groups, no one worked harder than Sian and that is why she won.
I suspect it being a safe green seat, and the excessive campaigning by the green campaign team did the majority of the heavy lifting here. Still, it’s rather a moot point at this stage, actions speak louder than words, and she has four years to show off her talents!
I think Sian Berry’s huge majority reflects that her win was a combination of factors, the huge strength of feeling towards Caroline Lucas, the momentum of the campaign on the ground, but also very much Sian Berry’s own work over the last years. She’s been really visible in the community, and after Caroline Lucas residents want someone who will work in their best interests and be visible, which they didn’t see coming from the Labour candidate, but they did from Sian Berry because she’s worked hard to be present in the community.
It’s def not the same story in East Brighton. It was a safe Labour seat, and Labour bosses ousted a popular MP amongst members to replace him with a London based close pal of Kier Starmer, which caused a huge amount of ill will amongst Labour members.
If rumours are correct, many Labour members refused to go out campaigning for Chris Ward because they were shocked, upset and angry at the way Lloyd was treated (irrespective of whatever the allegations against him are). It is not a comparable to Brighton Pavilion.
Some Labour voters still voted Labour, it was a safe seat for Lab so this was always going to be the outcome. But the number of spoilt ballots and the rise in the Green vote in East Brighton shows that the handling of things left many people feeling unable to vote Lab anymore. It’s def not comparable to Sian Berry and Brighton Pavilion.
Overall, despite the national picture re Labour, it’s quite interesting that in Brighton things look quite differently, with Greens doing better than predicted in all three constituencies and also winning the by election on the same night.
Exactly like Chris Ward in Kemptown then.
Indeed, agreement with you there.
Greens did a lot of desperate harrassing more like. Counted at least half a dozen flyers through the door, even after asking to be removed from their mail outs. Certainly have a lot of money these Greens. And of course, over 300 Green candidates openly supported Palestine and we know how much money is pumped in to the chronic marches of hate of Jews/Israel. Not a happy win for a lot of people. So if you want to applaud the fact that a lot of money from Pro-hate funders likely helped, then your eyes are shut. And we have’nt even mentioned the huge student vote for Greens, most duped in to thinking that the Greens actually know what they’re talking about when we workers all know how much fumes are pumped in to Brighton from stationary traffic caused by extra cycle lanes.
Anti-apartheid =/= hate. There are plenty of Jewish people who are also against the genocide currently occurring in Gaza.
The only genocide in sight is the one planned by the leaders of Gaza and their followers ie most of the people of Gaza.
Can hardly pull the student vote card again as most have gone home for summer, the Greens just worked exceptionally hard and earned all the votes they got
Can imagine it would have been annoying for you to get more leaflets than you would have liked, but “harassing” people with leaflets doesn’t create a 14,000 majority. Labour were guilty of some savage personal targeted attacks against the Green candidate, whereas she signed a clean campaign pledge to just be critical of policies, rather than personal attacks on other candidates. It was a much more dignified campaign for that reason (albeit leaflet heavy!).
On students, term has finished and most have gone home, so the outcome of this election wasn’t student dependent. Think you’ll find Greens are pro-peace, and pro-hate just doesn’t stand up as an argument.
The Electoral Commission publish accounts of political parties, and Greens receive a fraction of the donations and income Labour and Tories receive. Labour received abour £47 million in the accounts published in 2023, Tories about £30 million, and Greens £3 million.
On cycle lanes, these are decided by the council, and it’s currently a Labour council. Labour also won the local elections in 2015, 2019 as well as 2023. In the last 10 years I think Greens really only ran the council for about 2-3 years during the pandemic when the Labour council collapsed due to antisemitism rows (https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2020/08/30/how-a-tumultuous-labour-administration-failed-brighton-and-hove-and-brought-shame-to-our-city/). The rest of the time in recent years it’s been Labour run.
There’s lots of misinformation out there, so pointing out the above in case useful.
Dear Sian, when you represent ‘everyone’, will you (and the greens) now endorse the Cass report on behalf of all the parents, health care professionals, and young people receiving care that has been exposed as harmful with unknown long term consequences? Can you also assure us that you will support women who speak up about biological sex, sex based rights and understand why this is necessary including for safe and effective health and care, and genuinely supporting equality and inclusivity for all- including women and girls.
Funny how people interpret reports to fit their own agendas, actually no it isn’t, it’s divisive and utterly unhelpful
Which it seems you’ve done yourself. Multiple changes to both policy & law were fast tracked into existence & real world use off the back of said report. Which took an extended period to be compiled & released with multiple extensions to seek wider data & stakeholder input whilst proactively encouraging diverging POVs instead of being rushed through or simply a token effort.
Not to mention an entire unit was found to be medically & ethically unsound, a risk to children to the point it was closed down & formal guidance issued nationwide directing similar units or health care professionals to avoid the same care path whilst ensuring stronger, more robust & increased safeguarding points are enshrined in the system. Which is hard to argue was the wrong course of action(s) as the preceding system was challenged in court with the NHS ( As the overarching entity) being found guilty, sued for damages & compelled to take appropriate actions such as those suggested in the CASS Report.
The Cass review is an uncomfortable read especially, I’d imagine, if you have been involved in either promoting or delivering the un-evidenced care and treatments for gender dysphoric youth as exposed by Cass- and the WINPATH files, GIDs whistleblowers etc. However I don’t find it ‘funny’ how the people and small number of organisations actively discrediting the Cass review continue to promote un-evidenced health and care that causes long term harm- ultimately in support of their agenda. With the exception of the Greens, the main political parties, have accepted the Cass review findings. Time for the Greens to step up, speak up, and work to ensure our gender dysphoric children and young people are not being harmed and instead get the health and care and support they need. Especially important when representing Brighton.
All they ever did for Brighton was 10 ,000 miles of bike lanes instead of poking their noses into the middle east they should be working for our city , which is why they got elected
Don’t forget their policy of pumping £170 bn into public services and then putting an increased income tax on anyone earning over £50,700, so discouraging people from working.
That’s even more ridiculous than Corbyn.
And that young lad that stands behind Carla Denyer sometimes when she’s speaking, Adrian Ramsay – does he ever say anything?
Number of seats each party would’ve had in a proportional representation election:
Labour: 219
Conservative: 154
Reform: 93
Lib Dem: 79
Green: 44
SNP: 16
Thing is, when we had a PR vote for Brexit and we voted to leave, those that always campaign for PR, i.e. LibDems, Greens etc, all stated that the vote was the wrong result and took it upon themselves to attempt to overturn it.
So what these pro-PR parties really want is to grab as much as they can in any way that they can do it. They’ll bang on about PR until it doesn’t work for them, and then they’ll denounce it.
What it really means is that these people are undemocratic. It’s as simple as that.
More the case that they argue voters were massively mislead by the leave campaign (which is true) and based on the disastrous impact on Brexit, now stand on a platform to rejoin which is perfectly democratic.
The infamous bus is a great visual example of your point about voters being misled.
Interesting that as Europe, USA and the rest of the world lurch further to the extreme right, the UK swings to the left. OK, we have Reform making gains from the Tories, but overall it is a large swing to Labour and the LibDems, the Greens. And then, the right-wing Nationalist party, the Scottish National Party (SNP), have been ruined. I don’t think the British National Party (BNP), .. sorry.. Reform, will last very long either.
It is odd that we always seem to swim against the tide. I’m glad we do.
The EU are in serious trouble
Labour didn’t win, the tories lost.
The UK isn’t swinging to the left, Starmer got less votes than Corbyn, both times.
Reform got 15% of the votes and they’ll get more next time because politicians are not listening to what the public is really saying. You don’t want reform. Brighton doesn’t. But millions of British people do.
It’s actually a very pertinent point. Tories did more to campaign against themselves than any campaign for the other parties. It is an important message that Labour will need to take away, keep themselves humbled, and ensure they do deliver on what they say they will.
Agreed. That will continue, especially for the Greens. Reform will shoot themselves in the foot repeatedly. Having racism as the only real policy will become more evident as they progress.
Tom Gray would have made a wonderful MP for Brighton Pavilion. Maybe younger voters just can’t remember what a good and highly respected musician he was, or the great Fergal Sharkey who proposed him, and the work he has done to clean up rivers. Very sad that Tom didn’t get elected.
How does being a respected musician in any way qualify someone to be an MP? There are many arts and industries where people are very skilled but that is different. Fergal Sharkey may have done a small amount of good work but he did not “propose him” as Fergal Sharkey is not local and Tom Gray has done zero to help Brighton Pavilion. An incredibly weak candidate who did very little work until the last 2-3 weeks – Sian Berry got very lucky to come up against such an easy opponent when Labour could have seriously challenged for the seat.
I have to agree with you Linda, Tom was a rather unusual choice, in my opinion.
Gomez were only ever really known for their first album, so why anyone under the age of 30 would know or care about his past life in a band the 1990s should not be surprising! Have no idea how being in a band in the 1990s qualifies someone to be an MP either. I hope he finds happiness with any future campaigning he does in his fields of interest, and that if he does choose to stand somewhere else in the future, that he runs a more positive campaign instead of one centred around so much negatvity and personal attacks on candidates he’s standing against. That lost him lots of votes in the end imo.
Having at one point done some work for them, I can confirm that there is something about Brighton Greens that is strange, bizarre, perverse and highly unnatural