Yesterday (Saturday 23rd Mar 2024) saw the last of six public meetings organised by the East Wight Primary initiative — the grassroots initiative aimed at finding the progressive candidate most likely to beat the Conservative Party at the next general election.
The purpose of the meetings, which were originally meant to follow a ‘Town Hall’ Q&A format with progressive candidates for the new East Wight constituency, had to be changed at the last minute when the IW LibDem Party pulled out of the initiative.
A speedy pivot
Following discussions with everyone who had shown an interest in East Wight Primary, the team quickly pivoted the function of the meetings to share details of why they are involved, what they hope to achieve and to hear from voters about their concerns on issues that are important to them.
During the meeting it was explained how residents voting for the three main progressive parties splits the vote and any chance of a progressive candidate being selected for the new constituency. That is why the team have come together to find a solution to selecting the best tactical choice to beat the Conservative Party candidate.
A variety of deep concerns
Yesterday’s meeting attracted 50-60 members of the public, who came to hear more and engage with the process.
Deep concerns around housing, education, healthcare, job prospects, ferries, infrastructure and more rippled through the audience during the interactive parts of the meeting.
Speaking to the organisers
News OnTheWight caught up with Stephen Cockett, after the meeting. He’s one of a core group of organisers, contributing his time and passion to the initiative.
Discussing how the project has had to pivot since the last-minute withdrawal of the LibDems, and with Labour also being unable to participate, he explained how East Wight Primary will effectively become an aggregator and distributor of information about the candidates.
How it will work
Once they are all selected, the candidates from Labour, LibDems and Green Party will be scrutinised with questions from the EWP team and general public.
The responses from the candidates will then be collated and re-distributed, “as fairly and evenly as we can”. These responses will be published unedited, without any analysis or contextualisation from the EWP team.
Secure online voting for the People’s Choice
Stephen went on to explain that after several months of voters getting to know the candidates “in ways they have never done before”, EWP will run a vote, which will be managed via a secure online voting system (after being checked off against the electoral roll), to determine which of the candidates comes out on top as the progressive candidate most likely to beat the Conservative candidate.
The purpose of this, he explains, is to understand the best tactical choice for voters.
Listen in
You can listen to our five minute chat with Stephen by clicking on the play button below. You can pause, jump back 10 seconds or jump forward 30 seconds by clicking on the relevant buttons.
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