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The Greens are still in a celebratory mood: after 14 years with just one MP at Westminster, they now have four MPs after a hard-fought victory over Labour in Bristol Central, two wins over the Conservatives (North Herefordshire and Waveney Valley) and easily retaining Brighton Pavilion.
By any historical precedent, this is a transformative moment for the Green Party, which until now has had to rely on Caroline Lucas as its sole member, supported by two incredibly hard-working MPs, Jenny Jones and Natalie Bennett, both life peers in the House of Lords.
The party made a breakthrough in the 1989 European elections, winning 15 percent of the vote, but this quickly faded as people’s voting behavior in European elections and general elections always differed.
But managing expectations is still important. Four members of the 650-member parliament is a tiny number, made all the more infuriating when you realise that in a fair electoral system, based on the party’s overall share of the vote (around 7%), the number would have been 42.
The Reform Party won five MPs with twice as many votes as the Greens, giving them even more reason to lament the UK’s unfair electoral system, and the media has been picking up on this particular election result ever since.
So what does it mean that the new Greens will be as “noisy” as the Reform Party in the coming years?
The answer may be surprising: a push back against a manifesto pledge that is similarly “populist” in its appeal to voters and that already enjoys significant public support but was largely overlooked or even ignored in this election.
This was particularly frustrating for young people and first-time voters, and with the strong support of Green New Deal Rising, thousands of young people supported the Green Party candidate and then Jeremy Corbyn.
(This will be an important factor in future elections if a Labour government keeps its promise to lower the voting age to 16).
Back in 1979, I was responsible for drafting the Green Party’s general election manifesto, which was dismissed at the time as “fanciful” and “totally out of touch with reality”.
However, by the time of the 1992 Earth Summit, many of the Manifesto’s “big ideas” had been adopted in various forms by mainstream political parties.
As expected, the Green Party’s manifesto for this election was rejected by many for exactly the same reasons.
If I were to pick three priorities from the party’s 2024 manifesto that I could guarantee would be fully mainstream by 2029 (things are moving a bit faster than they were 45 years ago!), they would be:
First, there is the climate emergency: Green candidates across the country rightly complained throughout the election about a “conspiracy of silence” on the climate and natural environment (leaving aside the sewage-river scandal).
There is nothing unusual about it, except for the fact that climate extremes and their impacts have accelerated over the past year to the point that even more sober climate scientists have watched in disbelief.
It is clear that we are already on the “highway to climate hell”, in the words of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The situation is only getting worse, with climate disasters becoming more severe and costly every year, devastating the lives of an ever-increasing number of people.
The Labour government’s current position on the climate emergency is embarrassingly inadequate, in a predictably calculated way, as part of a risk-averse strategy to keep the UK’s right-wing media at bay.
This means that Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have less to offer British voters in this election than Boris Johnson’s 10-point plan offered in 2020.
So all eyes are now on the savvy and hard-working Ed Miliband, the new Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero, and how well he can get Starmer and Reeves to focus on the green economy as the main driver of the growth they so desperately need.
In fairness, it has made a decent start on that front by immediately changing planning rules to allow onshore wind farms to be built.
Secondly, with an eye towards 2029, the Green Party’s uncompromising commitment to “fair taxation” (a wealth tax, whatever the name) was highly visible in the election.
It speaks volumes that Labour can’t even utter the word “redistribution” after 14 years of the Conservative Party systematically favouring the rich and punishing the poor.
Along with the Liberal Democrats (whose policies in this area have been modest, confused and minimal), the Greens have now carved out the space for serious debate on taxation.
The party has set out a number of specific tax reforms it claims would bring the Treasury an extra £50-70 billion a year – the bare minimum needed to fix broken public services – including a new 1% wealth tax on people “with assets over £10 million” and a 2% tax on those with assets over £1 billion.
With an overwhelming majority, Labour faces enormous challenges to overcome and cannot continue to ignore the issue of fairness.
Voters have certainly given Starmer a vote of confidence, but enthusiasm is not high and vague prospects of future growth balancing will not be enough.
Finally, the Greens will be able to make a stronger case for a total democratic renewal, arguing that there is a clear need for a fairer electoral system based on some sort of proportionality.
Reformists have the strongest case here, as uncomfortable as it may be for both the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, but both parties need to make the best possible use of this unlikely gift.
Nigel Farage has already made it clear that he intends to be much more vocal on this issue than the Liberal Democrats have been so far.
As with climate and fair taxation, Starmer will have no choice but to move in this direction – one that the Labour Party already strongly supports, as do most trade unions – and before he became prime minister, Starmer himself recognised it was inevitable that the UK would eventually have to take this decision.
But whatever happens, it won’t happen quickly: the Greens will need to rack up two million votes with the same strict focus that got them their target of four seats this election.
The party is also in second place in 39 other constituencies and must already be considering what it takes to turn as many of those constituencies into winnable seats as possible.
This is a mature party, despite one of the toughest electoral systems facing any minor party in the UK, but the way in which the party has overcome those obstacles bodes well for the future – this party is not going away!
Sir Jonathan Porritt is an environmental activist, author, long-standing Green Party supporter and former director of Friends of the Earth.