General election 2017: Candidates for Portsmouth area revealed
Following prime minister Theresa May calling a snap election last month, voters from across the Portsmouth area will head to the polls.
The News will follow the results of eight key seats across the area, which were all won by Conservative candidates in the last general election in 2015.
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Hide AdYesterday saw the deadline for candidates to hand in papers to say if they were standing, and The News had confirmations from 37 candidates that they are standing across the eight seats in the area.
All but one of the batch elected in 2015 are returning for the public vote.
Chichester’s Andrew Tyrie has stood down after 20 years.
But the key battleground for the area is the hotly-contested Portsmouth South seat.
Over the years, it has switched control between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats, with Conservative Flick Drummond winning the seat by a margin of just more than 5,000 votes in 2015.
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Hide AdIt has been keenly targeted by the Liberal Democrats this election and with the Tories already securing ministerial visits to the seat’s constituents, both parties are set to battle it out for the marginal seat.
Meon Valley had the highest turnout of the eight seats in 2015, with 71.1 per cent of constituents placing their vote on polling day.
And according to a survey compiled for Johnston Press, the proportion of people in the south east planning to vote Ukip has dropped by 5.8 percentage points, compared to the 2015 general election.
The survey holds that this is the single biggest drop for the party in England, Scotland and Wales.
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Hide AdThat compares to 2.9 per cent more for the Tories, three per cent more for Labour, 1.9 per cent more for the Lib Dems and 0.1 per cent less for Greens.
A total of 9,741 people completed the survey online.
THE CANDIDATES
Here’s a full list of the candidates standing in the snap general election battling it our for your vote on June 8.
PORTSMOUTH NORTH
Penny Mordaunt (Con)
Darren Sanders (Lib Dem)
Mike Fitzgerald (Ukip)
Ken Hawkins (Green)
Rumal Khan (Labour)
Joe Jenkins (Libertarian Party)
PORTSMOUTH SOUTH
Flick Drummond (Con)
Gerald Vernon-Jackson (Lib Dem)
Kevan Chippindall-Higgin (Ukip)
Ian McCulloch (Green)
Stephen Morgan (Labour)
HAVANT
Alan Mak (Con)
Paul Gray (Lib Dem)
John Perry (Ukip)
Tim Dawes (Green)
Graham Giles (Labour)
Ann Buckley (Independent)
GOSPORT
Caroline Dinenage (Con)
Bruce Tennent (Lib Dem) Chloe Palmer (Ukip)
Monica Cassidy (Green)
Alan Durrant (Labour)
Jeffrey Roberts (Independent)
FAREHAM
Suella Fernandes (Con)
Matthew Winnington (Lib Dem)
Tony Blewett (Ukip)
Miles Grindey (Green)
Matthew Randall (Labour)
MEON VALLEY
George Hollingbery (Con)
Martin Tod (Lib Dem)
Paul Hayward (Green)
Sheena King (Labour)
Paul Bailey (Ukip)
EAST HAMPSHIRE
Damian Hinds (Con)
Richard Robinson (Lib Dem)
Richard Knight (Green)
Rohit Dasgupta (Labour)
Susan Jerrard (Justice and Anti-Corruption Party)
CHICHESTER
Gillian Keegan (Con)
Jonathan Brown (Lib Dem)
Mark Farwell (Labour)
Margaret Barrie (Green)
Andrew Emerson (Patria)
Andrew Moncreiff (Ukip)