Green party celebrates ‘really encouraging results’ in England’s local elections
The Green party is celebrating gains in areas where it has traditionally not been strong, including Newcastle upon Tyne, where it took seats from Labour.
Adrian Ramsay, a co-leader, said he believed the party – which is hoping to win control of Bristol city council later on Friday – would end up with a record number of councillors.
Besides doing well in Newcastle, the party has won seats for the first time in Sefton in Merseyside and Redditch in Worcestershire.
Ramsay told the Guardian: “We’ve had a really encouraging set of results, building on what we’ve seen over the last four sets of local elections where we have gained record numbers of Green councillors each time, and we look set to be on a record number of councillors again.”
He said the party was also pleased to have won more seats in places such as South Tyneside, Exeter, Peterborough and Colchester. “That spread of seats, winning seats from Labour and from the Conservatives in rural areas and in urban areas, really shows the depth and breadth of support the Green party has [from] people in all corners of the country.”
Asked why he thought the party was breaking through in places such as Newcastle, Ramsay said: “People are looking for a change and looking for a positive change, looking for councillors who represent them well on local issues, and what we’ve shown up and down the country is the practical impacts that Green councillors can make in being an advocate for their communities on everything from protecting green spaces to defending public services to pressing for more council housing.
“These are things that matter to people right around the country and increasingly Greens have a strong track record of winning seats in local government, being strong local representatives, playing a key role in many ruling administrations.”
The Green are hoping to seize control of Bristol, where the post of directly elected mayor has been scrapped. Its campaign there has been marred after the government’s antisemitism adviser, Lord Mann, raised concerns about posts from two of its candidates. The Bristol result is expected later on Friday.
Overnight, Labour had a boost in south-west England in the Avon and Somerset police and crime commissioner election, where the party’s Clare Moody has defeated the Conservative incumbent, Mark Shelford, winning a majority of 4,976. The Greens came in third, with the Lib Dems fourth. Turnout was down from 31% in 2021 to 24%.
after newsletter promotion
Ramsay said the council results bode well for the general election, when the Green party hopes to take a Bristol seat from Labour and beat the Tories in North Herefordshire and Waveney Valley in East Anglia.
The political scientist James Dennison, an expert on the Greens, said: “It looks like a great result [in the local elections]. Let’s see the number of seats but this probably means further establishment of the party at the local level and thus a basis for geographically focused Westminster campaigns. The clear Muslim shift to the Greens is another social group to add to their electoral coalition – environmentalists, protest voters, Corbynistas, [and the] economically struggling in certain historic Tory safe seats.”