The Green Party: Emerging from the Political Wilderness?

British Politics, Jun 2008

In November 2007, the membership of the Green Party in England and Wales voted overwhelmingly in favour of replacing its collective leadership with a more conventional structure of party leader and deputy leader. This organisational change reflected the increasing electoral focus of the Green Party. Despite a dismal record in UK general elections, the Greens have made some electoral advances in second-order elections in recent years and have slowly moved away from the political margins. But can they overcome the plurality vote electoral system to secure an MP at Westminster? This article examines the electoral record of the Greens, analyses why they have struggled to secure electoral success and assesses their future prospects.

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The Green Party: Emerging from the Political Wilderness?

British Politics The Green Party: Emerging from the Political Wilderness? 0 Neil Carter Department of Politics, University of York , Heslington, York YO10 5DD , UK Green Party; environment; British elections - In November 2007, Green Party members in England and Wales voted overwhelmingly to replace its system of collective leadership with a more conventional leadership structure of Leader and Deputy Leader.2 It was a decision that, on the face of it, represented a major compromise of the party’s commitment to participatory democracy and its traditional suspicion of the very notion of having a ‘party leader’. Will this decision come to be regarded as a significant shift in the direction and, crucially, the electoral fortunes of the Green Party? For although the UK boasts the oldest Green Party in Europe, the Greens have struggled to achieve any significant electoral success and have performed feebly in general elections. However, there have been some modest advances in recent years, with Greens elected to the European Parliament, Greater London Authority (GLA), and a steady increase in local councillors. The Scottish Green Party has been represented in all three Scottish Parliaments, and the Scottish National Party (SNP) was able to form a government in 2007 only with support from the two Green MSPs. More generally, since 2006 public concern about the environment, particularly climate change, has been at the highest level since the peak of interest in 1989–90 and there has been a sharp intensification in the party politicisation of the environment. Thus the leadership referendum decision came at a time when the Green Party is slowly becoming a more credible electoral force and there has been a resurgence in the electoral salience of the environment. This article examines the electoral record of the British Greens,3 analyses why they have struggled to make electoral headway and assesses their future prospects. Green Party Electoral Performance4 The Green Party’s performance in general elections has been mostly dismal (see Table 1). It has failed to get a Green elected to the House of Commons, or even come close to doing so.5 Formed in 1973 as ‘People’, just a handful of candidates contested the two 1974 general elections. It changed its name to the Ecology Party in 1975 and, in order to attract more national publicity, presented a slate of over 50 candidates in the 1979 general election, which secured 5-minute party political broadcasts on radio and television. Between 1979 and 1997, the Green Party’s (the name it adopted in 1985) average share of the vote in those seats it contested was between 1.0 and 1.5%, its share of the overall UK votes cast was less than 0.5% and it lost every deposit. The main development over this period was a steady increase in the number of seats contested, which peaked at 256 in 1992, when the Greens, boosted by impressive performances in the 1989 European Parliament election (see below) and in local council elections, hoped to make a breakthrough in the Westminster election. After failing to do so, the party entered a period of consolidation, putting up only 95 candidates in 1997. In 2001, with more candidates, the average vote share doubled to 2.9% and, at last, 10 deposits were saved. The party attracted a record vote of 283,414 in the 2005 general election, representing an average share of 3.4% in those seats contested and 1% of the overall vote. Perhaps most significantly, having saved Table 1 Green Party UK general election performance 1974–2005 a record 24 deposits, there were signs that Greens were building local pockets of support. The best result was in the Brighton Pavilion constituency, where the Green candidate, local councillor Keith Taylor, gained 22% of the vote to finish third, pushing the Liberal Democrat into fourth place. It was, by a long way, the best ever Green performance in an individual Westminster constituency, and was supplemented by saved deposits in two neighbouring constituencies. Ten of the saved deposits were in London. Elsewhere, they were mostly in urban seats, some with large student populations, including Bath, Bristol South, Leeds West, Norwich South and Sheffield Central. Strong performances in several constituencies in Glasgow and Edinburgh may have been further helped by the presence of seven MSPs (see below). The Greens have achieved greater success in elections to the European Parliament. After attracting an average share of the vote in 1979 and 1984 that was just slightly higher than for general elections, the Green Party secured an astonishing result in the 1989 election. With candidates contesting all 78 constituencies for the first time, the Greens gained 14.9% of the vote (2,292,718 votes) and saved every deposit. Green candidates polled over 20% in 17 constituencies, finishing second ahead of Labour in six and ahead of the Social and Liberal Democrat candidates in all but one seat. This result was remarkable both because th (...truncated)


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Neil Carter. The Green Party: Emerging from the Political Wilderness?, British Politics, 2008, pp. 223-240, Volume 3, Issue 2, DOI: 10.1057/bp.2008.5