As exotic locations go, a Coventry solicitors’ office does not rank very highly. Yet the motley group who met there 40 years ago tomorrow live on. What these 43 people created in 1973 is now established as the UK’s fourth biggest political party.
Affording such status to the Green Party may ignore Ukip’s current surge. But Ukip would crave UK political representation to match that of the Greens. The Green Party has 141 councillors, nearly four times as many as Ukip’s 39. While former party leader Caroline Lucas won Brighton Pavilion to become the first Green MP at the last general election, Ukip leader Nigel Farage, running against only John Bercow of the main three parties, was beaten by an independent candidate dressed as a dolphin.
So, after two name changes and much mockery, the Greens have achieved something tangible. Where they have had success, it has come from recognising that no election is too small; the party’s development in Brighton serves as a model of local politics at its best. Years of campaigning and gaining councillors – and then control of the council – culminated in Lucas’s election in 2010. A similar strategy has led to electoral dividends in Norwich, where the Greens have 15 councillors and could gain their second MP in 2015.
Despite these successes, the party should feel frustration too. Progress since the general election could generously be described as anaemic. The anti-establishment streak of Lib Dem voters disillusioned with the coalition should be prime Green targets. But the Greens aren’t even fielding a candidate in Eastleigh, saying they will concentrate on the county council elections instead.
In great contrast to Ukip, they have barely impacted upon the national debate. While the Greens might justifiably complain that they have been featured less on programmes like Question Time, Ukip have, through persistence and Farage’s zeal, used their media showings to steer the public debate.
The Greens’ failure has been in not creating a clear, easily understandable link between their ideas and solutions to Britain’s problems. People may not agree with Ukip’s solution of leaving the EU; at least everyone understands it. Until it can resolve this problem, the perception of the party as the preserve of the middle-class will remain.
Yet for all that the Greens must envy Ukip’s prominence in political discourse, so Ukip long for representation to rival theirs – and above all a Westminster presence. To Greens that – and the knowledge of how far they have come from that Coventry meeting – must be worthy of a birthday toast.
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