The Green Party’s hopeful in Chingford and Woodford Green is taking on Iain Duncan Smith’s 25-year reign to offer voters “real long-term change”.

Employment and commercial barrister Sinead King joined the Green Party just last year, but believes they are Britain’s only hope of protecting our resources for generations to come.

Despite the Greens only bagging 4.2 per cent of the vote at the 2015 elections, the 39-year-old from Wanstead says she wants to build momentum to get more of more representatives into the Commons and town halls across the UK.

She said: “I wanted to get involved in a different type of politics, and the Greens had a completely different vision about what they want out of this country.

“Maybe we won’t win this time, but maybe we’ll gain a few more MPs and council seats, and the more of them we have, the better poised we are to look after our country so it’s in good working order for our children.”

A self-confessed Remainer, Ms King wants to make sure we keep EU-style regulation on pollution, environmental protection, and workers’ rights.

She added: “From my professional experience I thought introducing a whole different trade and legal relationship with Europe was too much to put our country through.

“But now it's happening the bottom line is a lot of British Law is derived from EU law, so we need to be very careful about what we take and what we leave.

“Around 40,000 people die early every year from poor air quality, and with London’s pollution problem there’s absolutely no reason we shouldn’t keep EU restrictions on it.”

In terms of her manifesto pledges, the Green candidate says she wants to focus on stopping NHS cuts and ensuring social mobility for young people, as well as environmental change.

She said: “Whipps Cross Hospital is in special measures, which we want reversed.

“But we want to make sure the NHS is properly funded and the staff well paid.

“As for education, there’s too much scrutiny on teachers and not enough letting them get on with their jobs.

“We want to stop excessive testing for pupils so they get a better education.”

Like her colleague in Leyton and Wanstead Ashley Gunstock, Ms King wants to offer an alternative to the “Punch and Judy politics” provided by the mainstream parties.

She said: “Iain Duncan Smith might have a large majority, but he has to be challenged.

“He has made a lot of unpopular decisions that he claimed would save us money and haven’t ended up doing that at all.

“We have to stand up for change, if we want change to actually happen.”

Sinead King will face Tory incumbent IDS, Labour’s Bilal Mahmood, and Lib Dem Deborah Unger on June 8.