Worthing Greens complain over BBC debate exclusion

Worthing Dome will host the Sunday Politics debate, featuring representatives from the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and UKIP. But the Greens have lodged a complaint after they said the broadcaster felt the party was ‘over-represented’.

Parliamentary candidate for East Worthing and Shoreham James Doyle said: “I think it’s terribly disappointing that the BBC are planning not to include the Green Party. We have as many parliamentary candidates in the South East as the Tories, Labour or the Lib-Dems, we are in parliament, we have over 700 local election candidates, and we are fighting to win seats in every part of the region.

“It’s hard to see how we are ‘over-represented’ when we have frequently been excluded from debates.”

A spokesman for the BBC said the party had been invited to other debates, as recently as last week.

They said: “Based on BBC election guidelines the parties invited to all four debates command a significantly high level of electoral support in the region, but we work hard to ensure our audiences are aware of policies from all relevant candidates in other programming.”