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Russell Brand has called for people to vote Labour in England and Wales – unless they live in Brighton Pavilion, where Caroline Lucas is the country’s sole Green MP.
It’s a coup for Ed Miliband, and a remarkable turnaround by Brand. Writing in the New Statesman, Brand previously said:
I have never voted. Like most people I am utterly disenchanted by politics. Like most people I regard politicians as frauds and liars and the current political system as nothing more than a bureaucratic means for furthering the augmentation and advantages of economic elites. Billy Connolly said: “Don’t vote, it encourages them,” and, “The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever being one.”
But on his YouTube programme The Trews today, Russell Brand said:
What I heard Ed Miliband say is if we speak, he will listen. So on that basis I think we’ve got no choice to take decisive action to end the danger of the Conservative party. My view is this. If you’re Scottish you don’t need an English person telling you what to do do, you know what you’re going to be doing. If you’re in Brighton I think it would be a travesty if we lost the voice of Carolince Lucas in Westminster. But anywhere else you’ve gotta vote Labour. You’ve gotta get the Conservative Party out of government in this country so we can begin community-led activism, so we can be heard.”