It has been a good month for the Greens. In the local elections of 2 May, they enjoyed the biggest proportional gains of any party, more than doubling their council seats to 362. Still more encouraging for the Greens is that while the elections involved a certain amount of Brexit-fuelled protest voting against the main parties, huge surges in membership indicate that their gains were driven not by disaffection but by the growing importance of the environment as an electoral issue.
“We had 1,500 new members just over the weekend,” reveals Caroline Lucas, the Greens’ only MP. “There was a new member joining us every three minutes.” For Lucas, the most exciting wins in the local elections were in the 53 new wards – “places like Darlington, Derbyshire Dales, Carlisle, Colchester, places you wouldn’t necessarily associate with a strong Green presence” – in which Green councillors had never been elected before. Establishing a “foothold” on new councils is, for Lucas, crucial to the party’s success as it allows them to get past the “credibility barrier” that all smaller parties face. “Our experience is that once you get the first Green elected, the next time around you get more.”
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