Citizens UK: Stop excluding the candidates for West Midlands Mayor from the Green Party (James Burn), Ukip (Pete Durnell) and the Lib Dems (Beverley Nielsen) from your election debate.

On 29th March, Citizens UK will be holding a public debate for the West Midlands mayoral election, where they want their 1,000 delegates to be able to meet the potential mayors.

But - the 1,000 delegates aren't being allowed to meet the Green Party, Ukip or Lib Dem candidates - they are only inviting Labour and the Tories!

The BBC found this shocking and hard to understand, and featured the issue on BBC WM this week. It is accepted by broadcasters in the UK now that Ukip, the Green Party and the Lib Dems are all major political parties and they have been invited to every debate in this campaign so far - dozens of them - with the one exception of the Citizens UK event.

In an ironic twist, Citizens UK even used James Burn (Green Party) and Beverley Nielsen (Lib Dems) as part of the advertising for their event held on 19th November 2016. Originally Citizens UK actually invited Liberal Democrat candidate Beverley Nielsen, but after the Green Party complained to their board about unfairly being excluded, Citizens UK outrageously *withdrew* their invitation to the Lib Dems, as if somehow that was better! This is an incredibly wrong-headed way to handle being called out for being undemocratic.

Citizens UK are claiming their event is not a debate, but a "private event" that the public can't come to. This simply isn't true. Tickets to this "private event" are freely available to the public - get yours here:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/west-midlands-citizens-mayoral-assembly-2017-tickets-30131646566

And even if it were a "private event", surely a grass-roots organisation who claims to champion democracy and equality, that welcomes diversity and speaks up for the most disadvantaged should be inviting all the candidates, not just the establishment, white middle-aged men. To exclude the only woman, the only candidate from the Black Country and the only young candidate, is bizarre at best.

If you support democracy, please sign this petition. Citizens UK: please live up to the ideals you claim you stand for.