Liverpool Green Party has reported a membership surge to over 420 local members after an astonishing week of growth for the Greens nationally, which saw over 4000 new members join the England and Wales Green Party in just 48 hours – one new member every 20 seconds. At times, the Green website was shutdown due to the volume of traffic.
With the planned exclusion of Green leader Natalie Bennett from the debates, and the Prime Minister refusing to take part until they are invited, new local Green members explained to us why they have rallied to the cause.
Don McAllister from Knowsley said:
“I’ve never really been into politics and I’m still not. But with the current state of the main political parties and the frightening promotion of UKIP by the media (especially the BBC), I just felt I needed to make a stand with a credible alternative.”
Alex Harrison from St Michaels said:
“I voted Green in the European and local elections but the recent lack of media attention towards the Greens prompted me to become a member. I read an article earlier in the week in the Independent which stated that the Greens could soon overtake UKIP. I joined on Wednesday to hopefully make a difference and start campaigning.”
The “greensurge” as it is described on social media, has seen membership of the Greens surge. They have now overtaken both the Liberal Democrats and UKIP to become the 4th largest political party in terms of membership.[1]
Cllr John Coyne, Liverpool’s Green leader, commented:
“We replaced the Liberal Democrats as Liverpool’s largest opposition party in May 2014 and now we have overtaken them nationally them as Britain’s 4th largest political party. Despite this green membership surge, the BBC is still going to treat the Greens as a “smaller” party with less coverage while promoting UKIP with equal status to the others. We need people to keep on joining us to render that decision outdated and unacceptable.”
The latest polls suggest that it is not only Green membership that is rising, but also their support. YouGov [2] shows them marginally ahead of the Liberal Democrats, 7% to 6%. With IPSOS Mori [3] showing Green support at 8%, they are also closing the polls to within 3% of UKIP.
Cllr Coyne added:
“This sort of momentum suggests we can do what the Greens did in 1989 and capture 3rd place in a major election. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but voters want an alternative to the other Westminster parties who all voted for George Osbourne’s austerity programme on Tuesday. Increasingly we are being seen as the real opposition party for people to vote for which will mean we could be electing many more Green councillors and Green MPs on May 7th.”
[1] Figures are 44,713 Green members at the end of 15th January 2015
[2] http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9137
[3] http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2015/01/15/labour-regain-the-lead-with-ipsos-mori/
