Greens eyeing major general election upset as they look to win in Kettering 'out of nowhere'

Green party representative Emily Fedorowycz is hoping to defeat the Conservatives’ Philip Hollobone, who has won the last five times Kettering went to the polls, and current bookies’ favourite Rosie Wrighting from the Labour Party.

She was one of three Green councillors who stunned the Tories to be elected to North Northamptonshire Council in 2021 – and she’s looking to go one better at the general election on July 4.

Ms Fedorowycz, 30, told the Northants Telegraph: “It will be an absolutely huge thing if I did win here because obviously it would be essentially out of nowhere, but this has happened before.

"It happened on a local level, we came out of nowhere and won by a landslide because people saw what we were doing and because it resonated with them and that we actually cared.

"That’s happening all over again. We can absolutely win here.”

The former Bishop Stopford School pupil, who has Ukrainian heritage, has been a vocal champion of local businesses on social media and said bringing town centres back to life would be one of her key priorities if elected. She wants to encourage firms to rent share, introduce penalties for vacant buildings and promote community investment.

Ms Fedorowycz said investing is roads is another top priority for her by pushing for funding to fix them and solve the pothole crisis.

And she also pledged to help the NHS and Kettering General Hospital get the funding they need, as well as investing in doctors and dentists. Nationally the Green Party is proposing a one per cent tax on the wealthiest one per cent, which they say would raise £28bn.

She said: “The roads, the healthcare, the local education, all the big really big things that are impacting people in a really fundamental way, we need people fighting for us at the top. We are just in a serious crisis.

"In almost every area of our society if we don’t make some really big shifts and take some bold action it’s going to be in a really bad place.”

Some on the left have raised fears that a vote for the Green Party – instead of Labour – make a Conservative hold more likely.

But Ms Fedorowycz urged people to vote for what they believe in and said tactical voting ‘isn’t relevant’ in Kettering.

She said: “There’s everything to play for. There are people that are being scared and the fearmongering is getting in there, so people that desperately want to vote for me are being scared by tactical voting.

"If they all just actually voted I think I’d be winning by a landslide. But it’s just giving people the confidence to know that actually things are very different in Kettering and people can vote how they want. If they do, they’ll get what they want.

“I think I can win. From the stuff we are hearing on the doorstep, if nine out of 10 of those 30,000 Conservatives are voting Green this time it’s going to be huge. I think this is going to be a historic election in Kettering and I don’t necessarily think it’s going to be a divisive one because I’d be looking to unite people. We need to put that party politics aside.”

At the last two general elections the Green Party has come last in Kettering but Ms Fedorowycz said comparing this election to previous ballots is ‘completely useless’ because they’ve never run a campaign here before, until now.

She said: “I wouldn’t be running if people weren’t coming out and saying that they wanted a change and that they wanted something different.

"On the doorstep the big thing is that mostly Conservatives are saying they cannot vote Conservative this time based on everything that’s happened at the top. They can’t vote Labour and they’re saying they’re going to vote for me.

"We’re seeing a huge amount of people just shifting from blue to green.”

Standing in the Kettering constituency at the General Election on July 4 are: Rosie Wrighting (Labour), Philip Hollobone (Conservative), Crispian Besley (Reform), Emily Fedorowycz (Green), Sarah Ryan (Liberal Democrats), Jim Hakewill (Indepedent), Jehad Aburamadan (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom) and Matthew Murphy (Social Democratic Party).