We spoke to the pub that’s standing for election and we think we’ve found our new PM

Chris French isn’t your typical General Election candidate.

While many vying to become a local MP get caught up in the chaotic scramble to secure every last vote, Chris is pretty laid back about the whole thing.

The 47-year-old London pub owner launched The Mitre party, named after the bar he runs in St Mary’s Grove in Richmond. 

And he’s gunning for the Richmond Park seat in parliament.

Follow the latest from the General Election on our live blog 

His name is perfectly wedged between the Labour and Conservative candidates on the ballot paper – and the party logo certainly jumps out at you.

It’s fair to say he’s taken a slightly different approach to campaigning compared to his rivals, though.

‘To be honest, I’ve spent the entire day painting my pub garden because it needed doing,’ Chris told Metro.co.uk.

‘I think it’s green but someone else said it’s grey. I’m colour blind, so who knows. I’ve not been out campaigning – and I was never going to.’ 

Chris is humble about his prospects of knocking Sarah Olney – the Lib Dem candidate who is favourite to win the Richmond Park seat – off of her perch.

But in his eyes, the fact people are even talking about him as a candidate means he’s ‘already won’ this year’s UK General Election.

‘The fact that I’ve had so many people reach out to me and want to speak to me… I’ve already won the election no matter what else happens,’ he said.

‘All I know how to do is run a pub and talk s***’

‘I’ve got Times Radio ringing me up, I’m at the top of the Metro homepage and I’ve even got a political professor calling me for a chat tomorrow, so I’ve won. 

‘It was mainly about getting people talking about the pub and through the door.’ 

Politicians don’t always have the best reputation when it comes to honesty.

But Chris certainly says it exactly how it is – and brings a breath of fresh air with his own inability to bend the truth.

When asked what he would do if the unthinkable happened and he actually won the race to become an MP, he admitted: ‘I haven’t given it any thought at all to be completely honest. I have no idea.

‘If I actually won, I’d have to have a serious conversation with someone who knows about these things because I don’t have a clue. I know how to pull pints and that’s about it.

‘Although, I’ve heard that if I win, I will get an MP’s pension, so that’d be nice because I’m a publican and we don’t earn much money. I’m not sure how long I’d actually have to be an MP for though so who knows. 

‘All I know how to do is run a pub and talk s***.’

Chris isn’t sure whether this will be a one-time run at the Richmond Park seat and says it might depend on how many people vote for him.

He also admitted his relative disdain for politics and taking part in the democratic process.

‘If I get a decent amount of votes, I’ll run again next time,’ he added. ‘But if I only get four, I’ll know everyone that voted for me, so maybe not.

‘I’ve voted for myself and I’ve got a few locals who are supporting me and say they are going to vote for me. But it’s one thing saying they’ll vote for me and another thing actually doing so.

‘The last and only time I voted was for Labour in 1997, and that’s just because it was cool to vote for Labour then. So that’s two times I’ve voted, once for Labour and once for myself.’

His hypothetical manifesto hasn’t been given too much thought just yet, either. When pressed on what it might include a few weeks ago, he joked: ‘I don’t know. Maybe close all the other pubs down in Richmond.

‘Cut beer duty on The Mitre to maybe one pence and put everybody else up to 50 pence.’

By virtue of his party existing, Chris is also in the mix to become the leading party in the UK and therefore the prime minister.

Granted, it’s virtually impossible for Chris to get his hands on the keys to 10 Downing Street because he’s only running in one constituency.

In the rare event that the rest of the UK abstains from voting in every single other constituency and he wins the seat in Richmond Park to get into parliament, only then would he get the gig.

Not that he actually wants it, of course.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

MORE : Brutal moment Tory MP Steve Baker is told he has a less than 1% chance of winning his seat

MORE : Maps and charts reveal who won the General Election in your area

MORE : Tories face seismic defeat as Labour eye power for first time in 14 years

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.