Meet Labour Brighton Pavilion candidate Tom Gray as Eddie Izzard falls short

Musician Tom Gray has been selected as Labour’s candidate for Brighton Pavilion at the next general election ahead of comedian Eddie Izzard.

Gray – who won the Mercury prize with his band Gomez in 1998 – said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that he was “delighted and humbled” to have won selection, which will see him contest the only Green-held constituency in the country.

Green MP Caroline Lucas has represented the constituency since 2010, having won the seat from Labour. Lucas will stand down at the next election, with former party co-leader Sian Berry selected as the party’s candidate for the seat.

Lucas has steadily grown her majority in the seat, reaching 19,940 votes at the 2019 election – though polling earlier this year suggested a Labour win could be possible.

Gray currently serves as chair of the Ivors Academy – the professional association for songwriters and composers – and founded the ‘Broken Record’ campaign calling for fairer streaming revenues for artists.

He joined the Labour Party on his 15th birthday and volunteered at party HQ as a teenager. He first moved to Brighton in 1999 and currently serves as the Labour Campaign for International Development delegate to his Constituency Labour Party.

Shadow Science Secretary and MP for Hove Peter Kyle congratulated Gray in a post on X, saying the songwriter would be an “outstanding Labour MP”, adding: “Tom has always been an unstinting champion for rights and fairness.”

Also writing on X, Shadow Wales Secretary Jo Stevens said: “Can’t begin to tell you what great news this is. [Tom Gray] is brilliant. A lifelong trade unionist, [Labour] campaigner and all-round top bloke. Brighton Pavilion people are in luck.”

But Green Party candidate Berry was quick to go on the offensive, Brighton and Hove News reports. She said: “We know from the polls that there will probably be hundreds of Labour backbenchers in Westminster after the next general election who will be told how to vote by their leader.

“For 13 years, Brighton has voted for something better than that and they say they will vote for me because they trust me to carry on Caroline Lucas’s excellent record reflecting Brighton’s unique voice in parliament.”

Gray was selected ahead of Izzard and local councillors Lucy Helliwell and Birgit Miller, whom he thanked in his post on X “for showing such solidarity and integrity on the trail”.

Izzard previously stood to be Labour’s candidate for Sheffield Central in the selection process last year, but lost out to Sheffield City councillor Abtisam Mohamed.