News / General Election 2019
Shadow defence secretary supports Threlfall in Staple Hill
Labour’s shadow defence secretary has visited one the party’s key target seats in the Bristol area to help with campaigning.
On the same day that Jeremy Corbyn launched Labour’s manifesto ahead of the General Election, Nia Griffith helped canvass in Staple Hill with prospective MP Mhairi Threlfall.
Griffith and Threlfall met with local Labour Party members at Fountain Square before speaking to Filton & Bradley Stoke constituents.
is needed now More than ever
Asked how confident she is that Labour can win in the constituency, Griffith said it was “all to play for.”
“I think this is very much too close to call now in this constituency, because I don’t think we’ve seen the surge forward that the Conservative government obviously thought they would have,” she told Bristol24/7.
“I think they thought they were on a high when they started this election, (but) they don’t seem to be making progress.”
Griffith, the former MP for Llanelli, had come straight from the Labour manifesto launch in Birmingham.
Her visit to Filton & Bradley Stoke came a few weeks after Corbyn spoke at a rally in Filton in support of Threlfall.
Since the Filton & Bradley Stoke constituency was created in 2010, it has been held by the Conservatives’ Jack Lopresti, with Labour consistently finishing second. In the 2017 General Election, Labour achieved 41.7 per cent of the vote, up from 26.6 per cent in 2015.
Mhairi Threlfall quit as Bristol’s cabinet member for transport in order to concentrate on her bid to become an MP
Threlfall, currently a councillor for Eastville, has pledged to be an “accessible and approachable” MP, with particular concern for education, health and environmental issues.
On December 12, she will be standing against Lopresti, the Liberal Democrats’ Louise Harris, the Green Party’s Jenny Vernon, and Elaine Hardwick, former mayor of Bradley Stoke, who has launched her own party called the Citizens Movement Party UK.
Read more: Jeremy Corbyn attends General Election rally in Filton
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
