Parties in the island shouldn’t just name candidates for the sake of doing so.

That was the agreed consensus from the Manx Labour Party, the Liberal Vannin Party and the Manx Green Party.

Representatives from the three parties were responding to a question at a Positive Action Group meeting held at the Manx Legion in Douglas this week, which is reported on in more detail in this week’s Manx Independent.

Andrew Newton, leader of the Green Party, said his party, which was established in 2016, felt that year’s general election was too soon for it to back candidates.

However, Mr Newton said that in the previous three local authority by-elections the party in which the party had put forward candidates, it had won one, with Andrew Bentley topping the poll in Derby ward, Douglas, with 42% of the vote.

He added that his party planned to tour the island to spread its message of a sustainable environmentally-friendly future of growth for the island.

However, he stated that while his party intends to fight for as many seats as possible in future elections, they would only put up ’the right candidates’.

David Cretney MLC, the chairman of the MLP, said he was ’disappointed’ the party only has one representative (himself) in Tynwald and only one local authority member, Castletown commissioner Carole Quine.

Mr Cretney supported the stance by Mr Newton, saying that the MLP would seek to contest seats, but won’t just ’throw candidates and hope they stick’.

He added: ’We will not just field candidates for the sake of doing it.’

He said that importance of finding the right candidates had been shown by Liberal Vannin MHKs who have been elected but then left the party.

This has occurred to the party in the past three elections, with Bill Malarkey being elected as a Lib Vannin MHK in 2006, only to resign from the party in 2007.

Zac Hall was elected in Onchan in 2011 alongside former party leader, and founder, Peter Karran, only to leave the party in 2012.

Finally, Onchan MHK Julie Edge was elected in 2016, taking Peter Karran’s seat after he retired from politics, before she quit the party in 2017.

Liberal Vannin Ramsey MHK Lawrie Hooper said that the party results showed it fielded four candidates in 2016 and won three seats.

However, the experience with past members has left the party eager to run what he also called ’the right candidates’ in the 2020 local authority elections and 2021 general election.