How Green Party's Bex Whyman's political 'epiphany' led her to go (almost) vegan

“I’m one of the people who is quite different in politics as I didn’t used to vote,” says Bex Whyman, the woman now selected as the Green Party candidate for next month’s South Yorkshire mayoral election.

“I felt like I would do more damage making a vote for something I didn’t understand.”

Pod's Own Country: Listen to the full interview with Bex Whyman

Whyman, 36, says that it was only in 2015 in the run-up to that year’s General Election that her sister persuaded her to look at each party’s manifestos.

“I sat down, had plenty of coffee and read through every single manifesto,” she says. “I had an epiphany – I realised, ‘Huh, I’m a Green!’”

It was the start of a political and personal journey which has seen the senior product analyst and mother-of-two not only try to make her life “as green as possible” but also become increasingly involved in local politics.

Whyman has given up meat but admits that becoming fully vegan has proved slightly beyond her.

“I struggle with cheese,” she laughs.

“It is my absolute favourite but I am trying lots of alternatives.”

She says on a more serious note that trying to live an environmentally-friendly and ethical lifestyle is generally not easy to achieve.

“It is really difficult and it should be so much easier,” she says.

“The Government has so much control on making that journey easier for people to be as green as possible.

“On a personal level, it was the small things like just to where to shop, trying to avoid the big supermarkets and move to a more sustainable diet.

“I have sort of worked my way up to be in a position of privilege to be able to experience a life like that.

“I have come from poverty basically – being a single parent with my first child – and ultimately I know what it is like when you are actually on the breadline.

“It is costly ultimately to make the right choices for the planet.

“So what I have tried to do on a political side is try to vote in the right way to make sure we can get those changes on a Government level rather than just a personal one.”

Whyman, who grew up in Sheffield before moving to Rotherham as a teenager, says she realised she had to get involved politically after trying to vote Green following her manifesto-reading session and then finding out there was no local candidate in her constituency.

She ended up helping to create a Rotherham branch of the Green Party and stood in a council election in 2017.

After taking a step back from politics following her second pregnancy, she says she felt the time was right to jump back into politics and put herself up to be the party’s candidate for the mayoral election.

Back in 2018, the Greens finished fifth, with 7.8 per cent of the vote in the mayoral election, but since then the party has made considerable progress in Sheffield in particular, where its councillors hold a power-sharing deal with Labour after the latter party lost overall control of the local authority last year.

Whyman says she is hopeful of a strong performance next month but feels she has already partly achieved her aims just by standing for election.

She is currently the only woman standing in the mayoral election, with Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Yorkshire Party all selecting male candidates in the battle to replace Dan Jarvis.

“If I am completely honest, I already feel like I’m bringing success to this because one of my main aims and core values is to get more women in power,” she says.

“I absolutely think that is the right way to go. There needs to be more balance. I feel that I am the right person to bring that about because I do work in a very male-dominated environment at the moment in my job.”

In terms of her electoral chances, she says that the supplementary vote system being used, in which voters can nominate a first and second preference, is helpful to her cause.

“I’m hoping we can build on what we did last time. There’s a lot of unrest with the two mayor parties and I think it is really good opportunity for people to vote Green.

“If people like what we are putting out in the manifesto then do put the Green vote as the first preference.”

When it comes to her political policies, Whyman says she is in favour of bus franchising in South Yorkshire – a move back into public control that is already being pushed through in Greater Manchester.

She also wants to see a programme of retrofitting homes to make properties more energy efficient and reduce bills, as well as being a firm opponent of fracking.

While mitigating the effects of climate change have moved up the agenda of all mainstream political parties in recent years, Whyman says she is a firm believer that voting for parties and candidates who are genuinely committed to dealing with the issue is a way to enact real policy shifts.

“We have to get the right people in power to force some of those changes into our daily lives,” she says.

“It is not about making us poorer. I think there is this general feeling that if we go greener, it will cost us more but ultimately, it won’t. I work in technology and I love a gadget.

“There is so much out there in the energy sector and housing sector.

“With the right skills to use them, ultimately these changes will make it cheaper for us and save the planet at the same time.”

Going public about being pansexual

Bex Whyman recently came out as pansexual – a person who is attracted to all genders. As part of LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual) History Month, she posted on Twitter that she had not known the term pansexual until recently but felt delighted she could finally label what she was.

“I know being able to identify as you want to is important for a lot of people and I wonder if it has something to do with that euphoric feeling when you feel like you belong, like you have a place,” she wrote.

She says: “To have more acceptance and inclusivity about what we do, we need to be able to say, ‘This is who I am’. It felt brilliant to be in my own skin and still be able to pursue a political career.”

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