FAQs

No. The winning candidate will stand for their own party as normal. Think of the primary as taking the guesswork out of tactical voting.

Absolutely! We expect losing candidates to remain on the ballot paper, but with clarity on who everyone is getting behind. It’s actually more democratic - because for the first time in generations, there’ll be a real chance of change!

Our First-Past-The-Post voting system discourages co-operation, and breeds tribalism, short-termism and complacency. The only other country in Europe that fully uses our system is Belarus, Russia's ally in Ukraine.

Definitely not. It takes a lot to overturn a large Conservative majority, and the parties are starting work now. So please go out and help your favourite party. Once the People's Champion is chosen, you can pivot towards helping them. In the meantime, all three progressive parties are working with the very similar goal of shining a light on this Government's appalling track record. Democracy is a continual process, and to work, it needs your help.

We are totally independent from all the political parties. Our costs are almost entirely time, and we all work as unpaid volunteers. This is a community-led, grassroots effort.

We are not asking the parties to commit to standing their candidate down if unsuccessful. Once the primary has selected a winner, the losing candidates can remain on the ballot paper, but we don't expect the losing parties to fund any serious campaign. This is similar to what happened in the Tiverton & Honiton by-election where there was general acceptance that the Lib Dem was the best placed candidate, and in Wakefield where the Labour candidate was the clear choice. By uniting behind a single candidate the Conservative majority was overturned.

We hear this from all sides every election time. Yet the Tory MP is still polling to win. Einstein defined insanity as ‘doing the same thing over & over and expecting a different result’. We sincerely hope that this is the last election under the current FPTP system.

We are not expecting this scenario to arise. With the country facing incredibly tough times, a progressive primary will be a very valuable forum for the candidates to hear about the issues that matter to people across the constituency. A primary will give opposition parties will have a fantastic opportunity to get their message across well ahead of the election, and we expect candidates to be keen to engage.

The Primary process is designed to platform candidates from the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems. In the rare case that a progressive independent candidate were to be a serious contender in a constituency, with a proven electoral track record, then we would consider platforming them if circumstances were right. We would have to be confident that any inclusion of an independent would not lead to further fragmentation of the progressive vote.

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