Political party Liberal Vannin is looking for new candidates to stand in the general election in September.

The party has posted a social media appeal seeking new candidates to apply.

The post reads: ’Serve your community by fighting for their interests in local government as their elected representative. Liberal Vannin is seeking people interested in standing as candidates for the forthcoming local authority elections.

’Liberal Vannin is a party of consensus and principle, which means we would never ask any of our candidates to vote for a position or policy that they do not agree with.’

Chairman Paul Weatherall told the Manx Independent: ’We’ve got a number of people within Liberal Vannin who are interested in fighting in the elections, but we thought we would widen it to see if there was anyone else willing to stand as candidates.

’We’ll be declaring candidates for the local elections next month and we’re declaring general election candidates after that, so end of April/beginning of May.

’Candidates need to have commitment and broadly agree with the principles that we’ve got as a party.

’They’ve got to be willing to demonstrate they’ve got good contacts within their local communities and are going to fight for them, whether on their local councils or in Tynwald.’

Founded in 2006 by Peter Karran, the party later saw Kate Beecroft as leader from 2014 to 2020 when she quit the Keys, Bill Malarkey resign in 2008, Julie Edge resign in 2019, and Zac Hall suspended in 2012.

Lawrie Hooper is now the sole representative of the party in the House of Keys.

There were two members elected in 2006 (Karran and Malarkey), three in 2011 (Beecroft, Karran and Hall) and three in 2016 (Beecroft, Edge and Hooper).

Mr Weatherall is the current chairman, who was appointed after Michael Josem stepped down from the position in December last year.

He conceded that the Liberal Vannin party has had a turbulent history, and that lessons learned since the last election in 2016 include the need for people to stay within the party and not resign so soon.

Mr Weatherall insisted that making an appeal for candidates from the wider public wasn’t a sign of desperation.

’We’re not asking strangers to sign up, we’re asking whether people are interested and we would interview them and decide if they were suitable for the party - we won’t just be accepting anyone who applies,’ he said.

’We’re wanting to make sure that we select candidates who are going to continue in membership, as we don’t want to put forward candidates who are selected and then resign afterwards.

’What we’re hoping for in terms of numbers is to match what we had in 2016, with at least three MHKs and even more if possible.

’There have been a lot of changes within party politics on the island and the likes of the Green Party and the Manx Labour Party are more active than they were.

’I think there’s a lot more genuine interest in people being represented by political parties than there were in 2016, so we’re hoping that will generate a lot more interest.’

Liberal Vannin’s ethos, members say, is ’to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society on the Isle of Man, in which they seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, fairness and community, and in which no one shall be held back by poverty, ignorance or conformity’.

Mr Weatherall said the party is committed to encouraging younger people to be involved and interested in politics.

’We very much are hoping that younger people will join Liberal Vannin,’ he said.

’We have to show that we’re relevant to their needs and interests, such as climate change and education. We would like to see University College Isle of Man develop and become more relevant to young people on the island.

’Jobs is an obvious subject and housing, as it’s difficult for younger people leaving their parental homes to secure a mortgage. We hope that the all-island housing strategy will address that.