Thursday 15 January 2015

Green Party Membership Surpasses UKIP Membership


The membership of the UK Green parties continues to surge and yesterday surpassed that of UKIP membership. Although, the England and Wales, Scottish and Northern Irish Green parties are separate parties, when totalled together the Greens are now the fifth largest party in UK. They are also hot on the heels of the Lib Dems, who they should surpass in the coming weeks.

I can’t help thinking that with the Green party being excluded from the televised leaders’ election debate, it has actually fuelled this rapid increase in our numbers. Yesterday for example, my local Green party in Haringey had 31 new members join, which I think is a record for a single day. I think the unfairness of excluding the Greens from the debates has been good for us, and who knows we may yet get to be included. Green party Leader Natalie Bennett told London live that “there was an hour yesterday when a new person was joining every 10 seconds,” commenting on the national picture.

Polling company YouGov released a poll today for The Sun newspaper which finds that:

      67% of Britons think Natalie Bennett, the leader of the Green party, should be invited to take part in the leaders’ debates.
     
            72% think it is unfair that the Green party are not included and the Liberal Democrats are, given their similar level of support in some polls.

      Only 16% see the Lib Dems being in government and having more MPs as a good enough reason for them to be included and the Greens omitted.

The poll also puts us ahead of the Lib Dems in its headline figures. 

A Guardian poll on their website today finds that 85% disagree with the statement ‘Ofcom says UKIP is a major party, but the Greens aren't – do you agree?’ When I last looked.

Multi party politics is here to stay it seems for the foreseeable future, but only one main (‘national’) party offers the electorate the opportunity to cast a vote against the disastrous austerity policies of the establishment parties.


That party is the Green party.  


5 comments:

  1. Mike, would you mind if I reblogged this on my own site?

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  2. Yes, that is fine Alan. Please credit our blog with a link.

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  3. Mike, do you - or anybody else - know if there's a counter somewhere, that automatically records Green Party membership totals? I can't find one online anywhere and suspect there is no such thing immediately available, but... watching it click over regularly would be an exciting experience for armchair duffers like me!

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  4. I don't think there is such a thing Marcus, but it is a great idea. Come on Green party press office, get this going!

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