Ellie Chowns speaks ahead of the announcement that she had won the North Herefordshire seat

Transcript

00:00here on those issues and more.

00:02But we already have one other Green MP confirmed tonight, we may still have more. Can a small

00:08party really wield that much clout in Westminster?

00:12Absolutely. I mean I think the example of Caroline Lucas, who's been our single Green

00:15MP for the past 14 years, has just shown how powerful a single Green MP can be. And we're

00:22hoping to have four by the end of the night, at least. We've got two announced already.

00:27And so I think we're really showing our growing strength and the influence that we'll be able

00:32to have as a group of MPs in Parliament will be correspondingly larger. So I think I'm

00:38absolutely delighted Carla won Bristol Central with such a strong share of the vote, 57%

00:43of the vote I think. Absolutely fantastic vote share. We're still awaiting election

00:48results and a couple of other seats. And what this election shows is that Greens can win

00:54seats in areas that have been traditionally thought of as Labour and traditionally thought

00:58of as Conservative. North Heritage here, you know the last time it elected a non-Conservative

01:03was 1906. So for more than a century it has been Conservative. We have shown that people

01:09here really welcome the opportunity to vote for a hard-working, principled, effective

01:15Green representative. And I'm really delighted with that because it means that we're cracking

01:19open some of the historical control or polarisation of the political system and I think that's

01:25a really positive thing. So looking forward to seeing a very strong voice for North Heritage

01:30here and a strong Green voice within Westminster. I see. One other quick question is you're

01:34already well known in the county as the leader of the Green group on the council. Are you

01:40going to have to take a step back from that now? Is there going to be a gap there? Yes,

01:44I will. Perhaps not right today, but I would like to focus full-time on working as the

01:51MP for North Heritage here. And I'm sure that the residents in my ward, Bishop's

01:57Room and Cradley, we will put forward a fantastic Green candidate who will hopefully carry on

02:02the work that I've been doing in the ward. But for today, I'm focusing on celebrating

02:07the win for North Heritage here and I will throw myself into that role absolutely 100%

02:14full-time and more. I see. Ellie Charns, thank you very much and once again, congratulations.

02:19Thank you.