General election 2017: Bristol West has all the ingredients to send another Green MP to Westminster The money seems to be piling on for Molly Scott Cato’s bid to swap Brussels for Bristol West and double […]

The money seems to be piling on for Molly Scott Cato’s bid to swap Brussels for Bristol West and double her party’s representation in Westminster on 8 June.

“When I say I’m the bookies’ favourite, European colleagues look at me and ask ‘what’s all that about?’,” the Green MEP for the South West of England and Gibraltar says. “They don’t gamble like we do! Paddy Power also said I would win – which isn’t altogether a brilliant thing – but we need to overcome this ‘Green’s can’t win’ thing. Equally we don’t want our activists to get complacent.”

Bristol West is a top Green target seat. In last year’s EU referendum it voted 80 per cent to Remain, so anyone who is anti-EU does not stand a chance. Two-thirds of the city’s exports go straight into the single market, so coming out would be “pretty destructive”, Ms Scott Cato says. “Creative industries here will face a lot of barriers if that happens.”

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The Greens came close to winning the seat in 2015 when the Liberal Democrat vote collapsed and Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire won with 22,900 votes. RAF engineering officer Darren Hall – “not a typical Greenie” Ms Scott Cato tells i in an interview at Bristol’s Coffee #1 branch – came just over 5,500 votes behind in second place with a 23 per cent swing, one of the biggest in British electoral history.

The key to Bristol West this time is that t’s obvious people can have a Green MP if they want one. There’s no longer an argument over whether it is possible. That makes a huge difference.” Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP and Bristol West parliamentary candidate

He has decided not to stand this time, believing Ms Scott Cato, already a parliamentarian, is better suited to join party leader Caroline Lucas in the Commons.

Bristol is an global city with diverse communities, home to a Russell Group university that attracts plenty of foreign students. The area has all the ingredients in place for a Green victory: lots of young people, lots of creative types, a lot of people very interested in the environment. A 4.42 per cent swing from Labour will be enough to make it happen.

“We’ve broken through that barrier [after 2015],” Ms Scott Cato, an Oxford-educated Professor of Economics says. “The sense from people that they would like to have a Green MP but can’t have one. That’s the key to Bristol West this time – it’s obvious people can have a Green MP if they want one. There’s no longer an argument over whether it is possible. That makes a huge difference.”

Spate of suicides

Student mental health will be at the top of her inbox tray. In March, Elsa Scaburri, who was studying for a degree in French and Italian, became the fifth Bristol University student to suspected of taking their own life this academic year alone. The university has said it does not believe there is a link between the incidents but Ms Scott Cato appears to disagree.

“The quality of jobs is going down, there are more zero hours contacts and the level of debt students quickly get under is extraordinary. Tuition fees is a political choice. We would choose to free young people from debt.”

Although the Greens are yet to produce a costed manifesto, it is “definitely” the case that people will have to pay more tax to pay for better public services, according to Ms Scott Cato, who supports a rise in the top level of income tax. “We’re living on VAT receipts at the moment, that brings in enormous sums of money. We need to restore corporation tax to where it was.”

One item that has dominated the news in the city this week – and around the country – has been the decision to rename the city’s historic music venue, Colston Hall, named after the Bristol-born English slave trader, merchant, philanthropist and MP. Bands such as Massive Attack have refused to play there unless action was taken and the venue now looks set to have a commercial sponsor instead following the announcement this week.

“The debate really is between people who have thought ‘this is my city and it has always been this way and what’s this got to do with slavery? And there are people of colour but also people genuinely interested in human rights saying ‘this doesn’t work for me having a city where slavery is still celebrated’. That’s the problem,” Ms Scott Cato says.

“You have to give credit to the hall itself [for doing away with the name] but to me it’s quite important that we don’t lose all those references – there’s a Colston Girls’ School, a Colston memorial window, a statue – that we remember the history of Bristol. We need to communicate the message about slavery rather than forgetting it.”

BME communities disadvantaged

The election of Marvin Rees last year was hailed by many as a turning point for race relations in Bristol. The son of an English mother and Jamaican father made history as the first directly elected city mayor in Europe of African or Caribbean heritage.

However, a report published in January claimed Bristol is still among the worst cities in the UK when it comes to racial equality. The study, by the Centre of Dynamics on Ethnicity and the race equality think tank, Runnymede Trust, found black and minority ethnic (BME) communities have poorer job prospects, worst health and fewer academic qualifications than those in white communities of the 10 “core cities” of the UK.

“The quality of jobs is going down, there are more zero hours contacts and the level of debt students quickly get under is extraordinary. Tuition fees is a political choice. We would choose to free young people from debt.” Molly Scott Cato

“That’s something we need to focus on now,” says Ms Scott Cato, contrasting the findings with the Colston debate. “Surely, that should be my priority as a politician – that the city’s BME population now get a fair chance of education, employment and so on. Why it’s not happening though is very hard to say. I’m not sure we’ve got an explanation for that, especially given Bristol’s history as a multicultural city for hundreds of years. There must be some level of prejudice there.”

Many said evidence for prejudice came in January when 63-year-old Ras Judah was captured on film being tasered by officers while walking his dog. Two officers have been served with gross misconduct notices yet continue to work – a scenario described as “insensitive and disrespectful” by the local Justice for Judah campaign. Results of the Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation into the incident are not expected to be published until the end of the year.

“The most exciting thing about this election is the national discussion about a progressive alliance,” Ms Scott Cato says. “For me, I’m hoping to double our representation in Parliament. OK, that’s going from one to two MPs, but it’s still important. I’m not taking a Tory majority as inevitable.”