Beneath the headlines about a new Labour government, the election comprises 650 contests, including vegans and other animal advocates trying to make a difference. The UK now has more vegan MPs than ever before, despite one of the new vegan MPs dislodging one of the vegan incumbents.
I’ll look at the performance of the single-issue Animal Welfare Party contesting its fifth general election this weekend. Updated on July 4 with results and, later, with new vegan MP Claire Hazelgrove.
Not Standing Again
Christina Rees
Christina Rees, a vegan MP who was first elected in 2015, is retiring at the respectable age of 70. But she’s under something of a cloud, after apologising for bullying constituency workers.
Henry Smith
Henry Smith was a vegetarian MP who would represent the Conservatives at VegFestUK and was involved in animal causes in parliament. He announced he would stand down in 2023.
Seats of Interest
These are in alphabetical order. I’ve continued to include vegan candidates who don’t stand a chance of winning, in case their count is on TV and you want to wave.
Belfast East – Naomi Long defeated again
Naomi Long is a candidate for the cross-community Alliance Party, and was the MP from 2010 to 2015. Animal Aid praised her as an MP to keep, but it’s proved hard to regain the seat from the Democratic Unionist Party.
When I visited the Alliance Party in 1989, politics in Northern Ireland was entirely about whether you wanted it to be part of the republic of Ireland, or of the United Kingdom. The Alliance Party stay as neutral as they can on that question, and are gaining more votes as politics makes more space for the mundane questions of how to run a government.
Will she win? Naomi Long came close in 2019, reducing the DUP majority to 1,819, but that was with only three candidates. Enda McCafferty reviewed the fight for Belfast East for the BBC.
Other parties were squeezed, but DUP leader Gavin Robinson managed to increase his majority to 2,676. Constituency boundaries had changed slightly.
Bethnal Green and Stepney
Vanessa Hudson (Animal Welfare Party) is vegan (and the party leader).
Birkenhead – animal advocate holds
Alison McGovern (Lab) was an animal advocate that Animal Aid cheered on in 2015. Her seat of Wirral South was split up between its neighbours, and she managed to win selection for one of those neighbours – much safer seat than the one she left.
She kept the seat with 52% of the vote.
Bristol Central – Green co-Leader Carla Denyer enters Parliament
Thangam Debbonaire (Lab) is the incumbent who went vegan under Kerry McCarthy’s influence. She is again faced by Carla Denyer, now the co-leader of the Green Party. Back in 2019, they competed for “Bristol West”, which has been redrawn and renamed since, making it harder to predict. The seat is one of four Green targets, and they hold all the corresponding council seats, but Labour are putting up a stiff fight, enrolling vegan businessman Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity and chair of Forest Green Rovers.
Carla Denyer won a stunning victory, with 57% of the vote to 33% for Debonnaire.
Bristol East – the vegan veteran returns to parliament
Kerry McCarthy (Lab) is our longest-serving vegan parliamentarian, and very safe.
She won, but her challenger is now the Green party. She won 45% of the vote against their 31%.
Bristol North-West – vegan MP holds seat
Darren Jones (Lab) took the seat in an against-the-odds victory in the 2017 election, and is now looking very safe. He went vegan for climate change reasons in 2014.
He won with almost half the votes.
Christchurch
Sasha Jolliffe (Animal Welfare Party) is vegan.
Clapham and Brixton Hill
Shâo-Lan Yuen (Green) is vegan.
Dartford
Laura Edie (Green) is vegan.
Derby South
Chris Williamson (Worker’s Party) is vegan. He was the Labour MP there from 2010-15 and 2017-19, but his denial of the party’s problems with anti-semitism saw him lose the Labour candidacy and the seat. I interviewed him with the other then vegan MPs in one of our first episodes.
Filton and Bradley Stoke – new vegan MP
Claire Hazelgrove confirmed after the election that she is also vegan. She took her seat from the Conservatives, with 46% of the vote to their 26%. This seat is on the northern boundary of Bristol, and borders fellow vegan Darren Jones’ seat.
New Forest East
Prof Andrew Knight (Animal Welfare Party) is vegan. He featured in our shows about cats for his expertise as a vet who advocates that cats can thrive on a vegan cat.
New Forest West
Gavin Ridley (Animal Welfare Party) is a longstanding animal advocate.
North-East Derbyshire
Frank Adlington-Stringer (Green) is vegan.
Nottingham East – hold
Nadia Whittome (Lab) was welcome news in the last parliament – the vegan we found out about after the election, and the youngest MP when elected. (Someone even younger was elected in a by-election in July 2023). She’s on the left of the party, and broke the whip (voted against the party line) more than once. She’s the incumbent, and should win.
Nadia won easily with most of the votes.
Faversham and Mid Kent
Hannah Perkin (LibDem) is vegan.
Waveney Valley – new vegan MP
Adrian Ramsay (Green) is vegan, and it’s one of their targets. They are strong in local government, but MRP polling places the Greens in fourth place there. This is an entirely new constituency, so is difficult to call. If he wins, he’ll replenish the vegan caucus back up to five.
Ramsay won, 42% compared to 30% for the Conservatives. He benefited from the right-wing vote being split between Conservatives and the far-right Reform party.
