A chance to question general election candidates for Chipping Barnet constituency at hustings event

The five leading candidates standing in the general election for the Chipping Barnet constituency have been invited to appear at an election hustings to be held at Barnet parish church on Saturday 22 June at 7pm.

Questions are now being invited. They will either be read out or can be put in person at the meeting.

The five candidates invited to appear are Mark Durrant, Liberal Democrats; David Farbey, Green Party; Hamish Haddow, Reform UK; Dan Tomlinson, Labour Party; and Theresa Villiers, Conservative Party.

A total of seven candidates are standing for the constituency on polling day on Thursday 4 July, but the other two – Richard Hewison (Rejoin EU) and Kay Lauer (Independent) – have not been invited because the organisers say opinion polling indicates their parties do not reach a minimum threshold of likely votes.

The hustings meeting has been organised by Churches Together for Chipping Barnet and the Church of England Deanery of Barnet.

Chair for the event will be the Reverend Dominic Grant, Minister at Barnet United Reformed Church and St. Andrew’s Chesterfield Road United Reformed Church, and Convenor of the United Reformed Church London Local Area Group.

The organising group concluded that the fairest way of choosing which candidates to invite to the hustings would be to invite all those who are polling above 1% in local constituency polls. This follows the example of national debates.

“We wanted to ensure we have an informative event which leaves enough time for candidates to give thorough answers to questions, which has meant we couldn’t invite them all, but we have wanted to ensure we hear from a broad range of candidates which led us to the invite all those who are above 1% in the local constituency polling.

“Where members of the public who have asked questions are able to attend the hustings event in person, they will be presenting their question.

“Otherwise, the chair will pose questions where there is not a member of the public present to do so. All questions will be put to each candidate, as this will ensure hearing a broad range of responses and allow parity for timekeeping for each candidate.

Questions for the candidates should be submitted by June 19 online via https://forms.gle/CaLbJRdJyxFhPzWF7 or by using the QR code in the above poster.

Theresa Villiers, who has been the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet, since 2005, is standing for re-election for the sixth time and is defending a slim majority of 1,212 votes.

Her closest challenger is the Labour candidate Dan Tomlinson who was selected to stand for the constituency last year.

Ms Villiers succeeded the late Sir Sydney Chapman as MP for Chipping Barnet in 2005 taking the seat with a majority of 5,960. She increased her majority to 11,927 in the 2010 general election and followed this with a majority of 7,656 in 2015.

After a strong challenge in the last two elections by Labour candidate, Emma Whysall — who is now a High Barnet councillor — Ms Villiers’ majority slumped dramatically falling to 353 votes in the 2017 general election and only improved slightly to 1,212 in 2019.

Mr Tomlinson, who is 32 and who trained as an economist, is currently principal policy adviser for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Previously he had worked for the Resolution Foundation and the Treasury.

He moved to London a decade ago and he and his wife purchased a house in Whetstone last year after having lived in Friern Barnet for a year and a half.