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15
Apr
Reform and Greens accuse Lib Dems of 'misleading' voters in Harrogate
Reform UK and the Green Party have accused the Liberal Democrats of misleading voters in campaign leaflets for the Harrogate Town Council election.
Lib Dem leaflets claim it’s a two-horse race between them and the Tories on May 1. They add that ‘voting Labour or Green will only help the Conservatives’.
The claims are published alongside an image showing last year’s general election result in Harrogate and Knaresborough, which the Liberal Democrats won.
But the latest national opinion polls indicate support for Reform UK has increased since then and there is little to choose between the main parties.
Jonathan Swales, chair of the Harrogate and Knaresborough branch of Reform UK, said:
With Reform UK currently polling at 25% according to Politico and ahead of both the Conservatives and Labour it is very odd that the Liberal Democrats are still focusing on the general election results from nearly a year ago.
If you consider current data with Reform UK at 25% nationally, these figures should have been put to the voters as it would give a true representation of the current options available to them.
We know the Liberal Democrats like to repeat the tired phrase, ‘It’s a two-horse race in Harrogate’, to try to maintain the status quo, however this is not the case now.
The Green Party has also attacked the Lib Dems over the claim. One of its leaflets says:
We are concerned that a Lib Dem leaflet is using a graph of 2024 general election results trying to show that Greens cannot win in these town council elections. This is highly misleading: the voting in this town council election will not mirror last year’s general election, largely because Greens and others voted tactically for the Liberal Democrats in order to beat the Conservatives.
We asked the Harrogate and Knaresborough Liberal Democrats to respond to the claim that it was misleading voters.
A spokesperson replied:
In over 175 elections at borough, county, unitary and parliamentary level in Harrogate this century, the only two parties, who are contesting these town council elections, who have won an election are the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. Voting for anyone else in Harrogate will just help the Conservatives.
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