Joney Faragher, the new leader of the Manx Labour Party has sat down with the Isle of Man Examiner to explain how she got into politics and what drives her.

Ms Faragher, a grief charity worker from Laxey, has replaced David Cretney as leader of the party as it looks forward to the 2021 general election.

Having always had an interest in politics, including studying it at A-Level, it was a visit from a former Peel MHK that convinced her to take a more active role.

She said: ’I must give credit to Hazel Hannan here who came to visit Ballakermeen High School when I was doing my GCSEs.

’She discussed her politics and it just peaked my interest at that time and I chose politics as an A-Level and have been interested in it ever since.

’But what encouraged me to get more involved in recent years is the global situation. I think a lot of people have been more alert to the fact that populism is on the rise and I think Donald Trump getting in as American president was an eye opener for a lot of people.

’And I think that since the financial crisis of 2008, everyone is aware that things have been getting more unequal in Britain as a whole, so it’s been a culmination of things really.’

Before being elected leader, Joney had been a member of the MLP for just over three years and was the green issues coordinator, a role she is continuing in as leader.

Ms Faragher paid tribute to former leader Mr Cretney for being ’friendly, warm and compassionate’ and wants to continue on that vein with her leadership.

While seeing that there will be challenging times ahead for the economy after the Covid-19 pandemic, Ms Faragher wants to see solutions that are ’community-based and much fairer to everybody’.

Ms Faragher said that she believes the smaller islands around the British Isles are beginning to embrace party politics more so than residents have for a long time.

She said: ’The main reason for that is it gives the electorate a high level of accountability. You can’t really hold a person accountable to a single manifesto, but in a party framework, you can hold people more accountable to that.’

While the MLP would as a whole have one manifesto which candidates would stand on, they would also be able to have localised manifestos reflecting the different issues that exist in the island.

Ms Faragher said that while the party intends to stand a candidate in as many constituencies as possible, the MLP would also look to work with ’other progressive’ parties moving forward.

She said: ’The MLP’s principles of equality and fairness are very much aligned with my own personal political drive and motivation, and I would love to see equal opportunities and life chances for all.

’I’ve done a lot of roles where I’ve seen the cyclical nature of poverty and deprivation on our island, we like to think we don’t have poverty or deprivation, but we do and I’d love for people to be able to have equal life chances and be judged on their individual merits rather than their circumstances that they were born into.’