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Walsall North candidate Gill Ogilvie: Voters are looking beyond Brexit

A Labour parliamentary candidate says voters have started looking beyond Brexit as she hit the campaign trail in the Black Country.

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Gill Ogilvie (left) on the campaign trail in Walsall North with shadow cabinet minister Margaret Greenwood

Gill Ogilvie is trying to win Walsall North back for Labour after Jeremy Corbyn’s party lost the seat to the Conservatives in 2017 for the first time in nearly four decades.

And she said that despite the huge Brexit vote in the constituency, residents had told her they were concerned about the state of the country once the issue has been decided one way or another.

Ms Ogilvie, who was joined on the campaign trail by the shadow secretary for work and pensions Margaret Greenwood, backed Leave in the EU referendum and supports Mr Corbyn’s policy on Brexit.

She said issues including education, jobs, the NHS and Universal Credit had been popular topics of discussion on the doorstep.

“People are looking at what is going to be left over after Brexit," she added. "They are asking what sort of society we are going to have in this country once it is all sorted out.”

Ms Greenwood, who is the MP for Wirral West and a key ally of Mr Corbyn’s, is pushing Labour’s election pledges to bring back Sure Start centres and to make radical changes to social security – including a plan to scrap Universal Credit over five years.

“We are fully aware of the hardship that Universal Credit has caused and will be bringing in emergency measures to support people,” she said.

“It is clear that people are concerned about the NHS and they don’t want us to have an American-style insurance-based health system.

“There’s also wages and unemployment, and I think we have some really popular policies that deal with all of these issues.”

At the last election Eddie Hughes took Walsall North for the Tories with a majority of 2,601.

The other candidates standing are Lib Dem Jennifer Gray and Mark Wilson for the Greens.

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