Origins (1972–1990) The Green Party of England and Wales has its origins in the
PEOPLE Party, which was founded in
Coventry in November 1972. It was renamed the
Ecology Party in 1975; in 1985, the party changed its name to the
Green Party. In 1989, the party's Scottish branch evolved to establish the independent
Scottish Green Party, while the Green Party in
Northern Ireland is a northern branch of the
Green Party of the Republic of Ireland, leaving the branches in England and Wales to form their own party. The Green Party of England and Wales is registered with the
Electoral Commission, only as "Green Party". In the
1989 European Parliament elections, the Green Party received 15% of the vote with 2.3 million votes, the best performance of a "green" party in a nationwide election. This election gave the Green Party the third-largest share of the vote after the
Conservative and Labour parties; because of the
first-past-the-post voting system, however, it failed to gain a seat. Many say the success of the party is due to increased respect for
environmentalism and the effects of the development boom in
southern England in the late 1980s.
Early years (1990–2008) Seeking to capitalise on the Greens' success in the European Parliament elections, a group named
Green 2000 was established in July 1990, arguing for an internal reorganisation of the party in order to develop it into an active electoral force capable of securing seats in the House of Commons. Its proposed reforms included a more centralised structure, the replacement of the existing party council with a smaller party executive, and the establishment of
delegate voting at party conferences. Many party members opposed the reforms, believing that they would undermine the party's internal democracy and, amid the arguments, some members left the party. Although Green 2000 proposals were defeated at the party's 1990 conference, they were overwhelmingly carried at their 1991 conference, resulting in an internal restructuring of the party. Between the end of 1990 and mid-1992, the party lost over half its members, with surveys indicating that frustration over a lack of clear and effective party leadership was a significant reason in their decision. The party fielded more candidates than it had ever done before in the
1992 general election but performed poorly, although it did win its first seat with the election of
Cynog Dafis in
Ceredigion and Pembroke North, who stood on a
join ticket with
Plaid Cymru. In 1993, the party adopted its "Basis for Renewal" program in an attempt to bring together conflicting factions and thus saved the party from bankruptcy and potential demise. The party sought to escape its reputation as an environmentalist
single-issue party by placing greater emphasis on social policies. Recognising their poor performance in the 1992 national election, the party decided to focus on gaining support in local elections, targeting wards where there was a pre-existing support base of Green activists. In 1993, future party leader and MP
Caroline Lucas gained a seat in
Oxfordshire County Council, with other gains following in the 1995 and 1996 local elections. The Greens sought to build alliances with other parties in the hope of gaining representation at the parliamentary level. In Wales, the Greens endorsed
Plaid Cymru candidate
Cynog Dafis in the 1992 general election, having worked with him on several environmental initiatives. and he was duly elected on a
joint ticket. For the
1997 general election, the Ceredigion branch of the Greens endorsed Dafis as a joint Plaid Cymru/Green candidate, but this generated controversy with the party, with critics believing it improper to build an alliance with a party that did not share all of the Greens' views. In April 1995, the Green National Executive ruled that the party should withdraw from this alliance due to ideological differences. As the Labour Party shifted to the
political centre under the leadership of
Tony Blair and his
New Labour project, the Greens sought to gain the support of the party's disaffected leftists. During the
1999 European Parliament elections, the first to be held in the UK using
proportional representation, the Greens gained their first
Members of the European Parliament (MEPs),
Caroline Lucas (
South East England) and
Jean Lambert (
London). At the
inaugural London Assembly elections in 2000, the party gained 11% of the vote and returned three
Assembly Members (AMs). Although this dropped to two following the
2004 London Assembly elections, the Green AMs proved vital in passing the annual budget of former Mayor
Ken Livingstone. At the
2001 general election, they received 0.7% of the vote and gained no seats. At the
2004 European Parliamentary elections, the party returned two MEPs the same as in 1999; overall, the party received 1,033,093 votes. In the
2005 general election, the party received more than 1% of the vote for the first time and more than 10% in the constituencies of
Brighton Pavilion and
Lewisham Deptford. This growth was due in part to the increasing public visibility of the party as well as growth in support for smaller parties in the UK.
Caroline Lucas (2008–2012) In November 2007, the party held an internal referendum to decide on whether it should replace its use of two "principal speakers", one male and the other female, with the more conventional roles of "leader" and "deputy leader"; the motion passed with 73% of the vote. In September 2008, the party then elected its first leader,
Caroline Lucas, with
Adrian Ramsay elected deputy leader. In the party's first election with Lucas as leader, it retained both its MEPs in the
2009 European elections. In the
2010 general election, the party returned its first MP. Lucas was returned as MP for the seat of
Brighton Pavilion. Following the election,
Keith Taylor succeeded her as MEP for South East England. They also saved their deposit in
Hove, and
Brighton Kemptown. In the
2011 local government elections in England and Wales, the Green Party in Brighton and Hove took minority control of the
City Council by winning 23 seats, five short of an overall majority. At the
2012 local government elections, the Green Party gained five seats and retained both AMs at the
2012 London Assembly election. At the
2012 London mayoral election, the party's candidate
Jenny Jones finished third; she lost her deposit.
Natalie Bennett (2012–2016) In May 2012, Lucas announced that she would not seek re-election to the post of party leader. In September, Australian-born former journalist
Natalie Bennett was elected party leader and
Will Duckworth deputy leader in the
leadership election took place. Bennett would take the party further to the left, aiming to make it an anti-austerity party to the left of the Labour Party. The
2013 local government elections saw overall gains of five seats. The party returned representation for the first time on the councils of Cornwall, Devon, and Essex. At the
local government elections the following year, the Greens gained 18 seats overall. In London, the party won four seats, a gain of two. It held seats in
Camden and
Lewisham, and gaining seats in
Islington and
Lambeth. In 2013, there were allegations of factionalism and infighting in the party between liberal,
socialist, and eco-anarchist factions. {{multiple image At the
2014 European elections, the Green Party finished fourth, above the
Liberal Democrats, winning more than 1.2 million votes. The party also increased its European Parliament representation, gaining one seat in the
South West England region. In September 2014, the Green Party held its
2014 leadership elections. Incumbent leader Bennett ran uncontested and retained her status as a party leader. The election also saw a change in the elective format for the position of deputy leader. The party opted to elect two, gender-balanced deputy leaders, instead of one.
Amelia Womack and
Shahrar Ali won the two positions, succeeding former deputy leader Duckworth. In the 2010 general election, the Green Party contested roughly 50% of seats. The party announced in October 2014 that Green candidates would be standing for parliament in at least 75% of constituencies in the 2015 general election. Following its rapid increase in membership and support, the Green Party also announced it was targeting twelve key seats for the 2015 general election: its one current seat,
Brighton Pavilion, held by Lucas since 2010,
Norwich South, a Liberal Democrat seat where June 2014 polling put the Greens in second place behind Labour,
Bristol West, another Liberal Democrat seat, where they targeted the student vote,
St. Ives, where they received an average of 18% of the vote in county elections,
Sheffield Central,
Liverpool Riverside,
Oxford East,
Solihull,
Reading East, and three more seats with high student populations –
York Central,
Cambridge, and
Holborn and St. Pancras, where leader Bennett stood as the candidate. In December 2014, the Green Party announced that it had more than doubled its overall membership from 1 January that year to 30,809. This reflected the increase seen in opinion polls in 2014, with Green Party voting intentions trebling from 2–3% at the start of the year, to 7–8% at the end of the year, on many occasions, coming in fourth place with
YouGov's national polls, ahead of the Liberal Democrats, and gaining more than 25% of the vote with 18 to 24-year-olds. This rapid increase in support for the party was referred to by media as the "Green Surge". The hashtag "#GreenSurge" also became popular on social media (such as
Twitter) from Green Party members and supporters and, , the combined Green Party membership in the UK stood at 44,713; greater than the number of members of
UKIP (at 41,943), and the Liberal Democrats (at 44,576). Views subsequently fell back as the
2015 general election opinion polls arrived: a Press Association poll of polls on 3 April, for example, put the Greens fifth with 5.4%. However, membership statistics continued to surge, with the party attaining 60,000 in England and Wales that April. At the
2015 general election, Lucas was re-elected in Brighton Pavilion with an increased majority, but the party did not win any other seats. In part due to the greatly increased the number of contested seats of 538 from the 310 at the 2010 election, the Greens received their highest-ever vote share (more than 1.1 million votes), and increased their national share of the vote from 1% to 3.8%. Overnight, the membership numbers increased to more than 63,000. However, at the local government elections the party lost 9 out of their 20 seats on the Brighton and Hove council, losing minority control. Nationwide, the Greens increased their share of councillors, gaining an additional 10 council seats while failing to gain overall control of any individual council.
Lucas and Bartley (2016–2018) On 15 May 2016, Bennett announced she would not be standing for re-election in the party's biennial
leadership election due to take place in the summer. Former leader Lucas and Jonathan Bartley announced two weeks later that they intended to stand for leadership as a
job share arrangement. Nominations closed at the end of June, with the campaign period taking place in July and voting period in August and the results announced at the party's Autumn Conference in Birmingham from 2–4 September. It was announced on 4 September that Lucas and Bartley would become the party's leaders in a job share. Lucas first suggested "progressive pacts" to work on a number of issues including combating climate change and for electoral reform, following the results of the
2015 general election. She then reiterated the call alongside Bartley as they announced their plan to share the leadership of the party. The Green Party stood in 457 seats in the
2017 general election, securing 1.6% of the overall vote, and an average of 2.2% in seats it stood in. While it was a disappointing result after the 2015 success, this was still the second-best Green result in a general election, and
Brighton Pavilion remained Green with an increased majority. On 30 May 2018, Lucas announced she would not seek re-election in the
2018 Green Party of England and Wales leadership election and would stand down as co-leader. On 1 June 2018, Bartley announced a co-leadership bid alongside
Siân Berry, former candidate for the Mayor of London in 2008 and 2016.
Bartley and Berry (2018–2021) Bartley and Berry were
elected as co-leaders in September 2018, winning 6,279 of 8,329 votes. In the
2019 local elections, the Green Party secured their best ever local election result, more than doubling their number of council seats from 178 to 372 councillors. This success was followed by a similarly successful European election where Greens won (including Scottish Greens and the Green Party in Northern Ireland) more than two million votes for the first time since 1989, securing 7 MEPs, up from 3. This included winning seats for the first time in the East of England, North West England, West Midlands and Yorkshire & the Humber. The membership also saw another climb in 2019, returning to 50,000 members in September. In September 2020, it was announced that Bartley and Berry had
won re-election for another two-year term. In the
2021 local elections, the Green Party gained their first ever councillors in
Northumberland and
Stockport, as well as making significant gains in
Suffolk and
Sheffield. In total 88 seats were gained, challenging the Liberal Democrats to become England's third-largest party. In July 2021, Bartley announced that he would stand down at the end of the month to give the party time to choose new leadership before the next general election. This triggered the
2021 Green Party of England and Wales leadership election. Berry remained as acting leader, but said she would not stand in the leadership election following disagreements within the party.
Denyer and Ramsay (2021–2025) The Bristol councillor,
Carla Denyer and the former deputy leader,
Adrian Ramsay were
elected as co-leaders on 1 October 2021. Ramsay stated that "People are looking for a positive alternative to the establishment parties, and finding it in the Greens"; in the first national electoral test of the new leadership in the
2022 local elections the Green Party made a net gain of 71 seats – including in both Conservative and Labour "safe seats". On 7 September 2022, it was announced that
Zack Polanski had been elected as the party's new deputy leader, defeating three election opponents and replacing Amelia Womack, who chose not to re-stand for the position in the election. In October 2022, at their national conference the
Scottish Greens voted to sever ties with the Green Party of England and Wales, specially over the issue of
transphobia. In response the Green Party of England and Wales said that trans rights are human rights, that it has strong policies of trans inclusion and that a goal of the party is to be welcoming, inclusive and promote diversity. The party also said it would continue to support the rights of trans people, women and oppressed groups. The LGBTIQA+ Greens also responded by saying it would "continue to fight transphobia". At the
2023 local elections, the Green Party gained more than 200 councillors across England, and
won majority control of
Mid Suffolk District Council, the party's first ever council majority. Despite losing control of
Brighton and Hove City Council, the Greens became the largest party on
East Hertfordshire District Council,
Warwick District Council, 2023 saw the party's best ever results in a local election. In the
2024 local elections, the Greens aimed to make gains in
Stroud,
Hastings and
Worcester. In the south west the Greens
became the largest party on
Bristol City Council failing to win an outright majority by a single seat. They made a breakthrough in
Northern England by winning their first ever seats on
Newcastle City Council and
Sefton Council. It was noted that the Greens benefited from anger at Labour over the
Israel–Gaza war when they won their first seat on
Bolton Council. After gaining 74 seats across England and increasing their total to 812, the Greens hailed 2024 as their best ever local election result. On 8 June 2023, the Green Party's only MP,
Caroline Lucas, announced she would not be standing for re-election at the
2024 general election. Former party co-leader,
Siân Berry, stood as the Green candidate in
Brighton Pavilion. Along with Brighton Pavilion, the Greens targeted three other seats in the general election:
Bristol Central,
Waveney Valley and
North Herefordshire. In what turned out to be the Greens' best ever general election, Berry held Brighton Pavilion, while Denyer gained Bristol Central, defeating Labour incumbent and
Shadow Culture Secretary Thangam Debbonaire; Ramsay won Waveney Valley, a notional gain from the Conservatives, and
Ellie Chowns won North Herefordshire, defeating Conservative incumbent
Bill Wiggin.
Zack Polanski (2025–present) Carla Denyer stepped down as Green Party co-leader to focus on her MP role, as leadership nominations opened on 2 June 2025 with voting running through August 2025. Deputy leader
Zack Polanski launched his bid, calling for a bolder party approach. The results were announced on 2 September 2025, with Polanski winning the leadership by a landslide, with 84.1% of the vote, and marking the first time an incumbent leader of the Green Party was defeated in a leadership election. On 15 October, the
New Statesman reported that the party had grown to 110,000 members, with its membership having grown by 55% since Polanski's election as leader. Four days later, membership hit 130,000, taking the Greens ahead of the Conservatives. On 9 December, membership was at 180,000 members. As of 17 December, membership stood at 184,000 members. Under Polanski's leadership, there have been multiple defections of Labour councillors to the Greens, the largest of which being the defection of 5 Labour councillors from
Brent London Borough Council, including the chief whip and a former cabinet member, in December 2025. The party also earned defections from prominent former Labour politicians, including former
Brighton Kemptown MP
Lloyd Russell-Moyle and former Mayor of the North of Tyne
Jamie Driscoll. In December 2025, a poll found Polanski was the most popular party leader in the UK, holding an approval rating of –1, compared to Nigel Farage's rating of –12 and Keir Starmer's rating of –43. On 26 February 2026, the party won its first
by-election victory in Gorton and Denton, with
Hannah Spencer being elected with 41% of the vote and a majority of over 4,000. The Green Party had previously never won more than 10% of the vote in a parliamentary by-election. The week after the by-election, a poll by
YouGov showed the Green Party on 21%, second place and two points behind Reform. This was the highest polling ever recorded for the party. party, combining
environmentalism with left-wing economic policies, including well-funded and locally controlled public services. It advocates a
steady-state economy with the
regulation of capitalism, and supports
proportional representation. It takes a
progressive approach to social policies such as
civil liberties,
animal rights,
LGBTQ rights and
drug policy reform. The party also supports a
universal basic income, a
living wage,
participatory democracy, and has taken a pro-immigration stance.
Sociologist Chris Rootes stated in 1995 that the Green Party took "the
left-libertarian" vote, and James Dennison characterised it in 2016 as reflecting "libertarian-universalistic values".
Neil Carter wrote in 2008 that following the demise of Green 2000 the party embraced a "broader left-libertarian agenda," with fellow
political scientist Lynn Bennie stating in 2016 that they positioned themselves as "left, libertarian
and green" documenting their move "from [an] ecological party to a distinctly left libertarian position". They also want to limit the power of
big business, which, they argue, upholds the unsustainable trend of
globalisation, and is detrimental to local trade and economies. The Green Party publishes a
party platform: a full set of its policies, as approved by successive party conferences, collectively entitled
Policies for a Sustainable Society (originally
The Manifesto for a Sustainable Society before February 2010). Separate from this, the Greens have a set of Core Values, a Philosophical Basis and a series of Long-term Goals. For the
2015 general election, the party's manifesto outlined many new policies, including a
Robin Hood tax on banks and a 60% tax on those earning more than £150,000. For the
2019 general election, the party's manifesto had four key sections: "remain and transform", which advocated for the UK to reverse its
decision to leave the EU and increase cross-border co-operation with the EU; "grow democracy", which aimed to overhaul the UK's
current voting system and rebalance government power by lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 and redefining the jurisdiction of local governments; the "green quality of life guarantee", which addressed social issues such as housing, the
NHS, education, countryside conservation, discrimination, crime, drug reform, animal rights, and the implementation of a
universal basic income; and the "new deal for tax and spend", which outlined the party's economic policies such as simplifying income tax, increasing
corporation tax to make big businesses pay their fair share, supporting small businesses, and ending wasteful spending. For the
2024 general election, the party's manifesto followed the slogan "Real hope. Real change". Their manifesto focused on providing a "secure future", solving the
climate crisis, major investment into the NHS, raising tax on those earning more than £50,270 a year, nationalising Britain's railways, water companies and largest energy companies, expanding renewable power, campaigning for councils to be given the right to set rent controls and ban no-fault evictions.
Economic policy The Green Party believes in "an economy that works for all". This includes steps to eliminate poverty with social policies such as increasing the
minimum wage in line with the
living wage. In October 2021, the party stated its support for a £15 an hour minimum wage. The party supports moving towards a
four-day work week; which it is claimed would boost productivity and growth, with Mondays and Fridays being the least productive days in the week. In November 2019, the Greens pledged to introduce a
universal basic income by 2025, which will give every adult in the United Kingdom (unemployed or not) at least £89 a week (with additional payments to those facing barriers to work, including disabled people and single parents). This is in order to tackle poverty, give people financial security, give people more freedom of choice to cut their working hours, start a green new business, take part in the community, or improve their own well-being. The Green Party wanted to raise
corporation tax from 19% to a higher level; this is designed to generate more government revenue and ensure large corporations do not become too powerful. The party wants to end subsidies for
fossil fuels and replace them with subsidies for
renewable energy sources such as wind, solar power and tidal power. Investment in
green energy could potentially create more jobs and boost the economy. The environmental economic policy also includes a Green deal that the Green Party say will generate new jobs and reduce Britain's energy costs. The Green Party wants to increase Britain's development and its position on the
Human Development Index and free time index. They believe that uncontrolled economic growth has contributed to
pollution and
global warming and that more steps should be taken to ensure that growth is sustainable and keeps environmental damage to a minimum. The party also supports the implementation of a nationwide retrofit insulation programme (for both homeowners and renters). This would be in order to reduce energy consumption, provide warm homes and lower people's energy bills. The party supports bringing energy and water companies, public transport including buses and railways, as well as
Royal Mail into public ownership. They have also called for social care to be free at the point of use.
Environmental policy The Green Party supports bringing water companies into public ownership to lower water bills and so that the money that would go to shareholders is instead spent on mending leaks, rebuilding infrastructure and maintaining clean water. The party states that it would end industry tax breaks and subsidies for fossil fuel-based power generation. The Green Party would also remove subsidies for nuclear power within ten years and work towards phasing out nuclear energy, due to nuclear power being slow to develop, very expensive and the large quantities of radioactive waste it produces. Instead it would invest in renewable energy sources, including wind power, solar power and
hydropower, as well as new and emerging renewable technologies, such as
tidal power and
wave power. The party also supports the use of
marine energy and
geothermal energy. This would coincide with an aim to cut energy use through methods such as home insulation.The Green Party wants to set up an environmental protection committee to ensure the protection of habitats and to enhance biodiversity. The party also wants to ban
trophy hunting and
trail hunting. Former Leader
Natalie Bennett has advocated replacing the British Army with a "home defence force", according to
The Telegraph. Green Party policy formerly stated that "in the long term, it would take the UK out of
NATO". In 2014,
Natalie Bennett led an anti-NATO march in
Newport, Wales. In 2022, the party formally supported withdrawal from NATO, but not before the end of the
Russo-Ukrainian War. This changed in March 2023, when the party abandoned its opposition to NATO. However, the party said it supports reform of the organisation in aspects such as guaranteeing a "no first use" policy on nuclear weapons, that NATO commits to upholding human rights, and that the organisation only acts in defence of member states. The party opposed the UK's involvement in the
War in Afghanistan, and opposes British involvement in the
Saudi Arabian–led intervention in Yemen. The party campaigns for the rights of
indigenous people around the world and argues for greater
autonomy for these individuals. Furthermore, they support the granting of compensation and justice for historical wrongs, and that the re-appropriation of lands and resources should be granted to certain nations and peoples. The party also believes that the cancelling of
international debt should take place immediately and any financial assistance should be in the form of grants and not loans, limiting debt service payments to 10% of export earnings per year. The party wants to end the prohibition of drugs and create a
system of legal regulation in order to
minimise the harm associated with drug use as well as the harm associated with its production and supply. The party's view is that people have always used drugs and there will always be people that will use them, and therefore focus should be on minimising the harm associated with drug use and tackling the causes of why people take drugs (e.g. poverty, isolation, mental illness, physical illness, and psychological trauma). The Green Party's 2024 election manifesto states its support for, "A National Commission to agree an evidenced based approach to reform of the UK's counterproductive drug laws. This will allow the UK to move towards a legally regulated market that stops criminal supply and profiteering, and that reduces harm including by preventing children accessing drugs." It goes on to state that, "Neither prohibition nor the policing of low-level drug offences, especially cannabis possession, have reduced use and consequently have had no impact on the size of the criminal market or the profits made by organised crime."
Sexual orientation and gender identity in 2018 The stated aim of the sexual orientation and gender identity group within the party, known as LGBTIQA+ Greens, is to
raise awareness on
LGBTIQA+ rights and issues affecting the broader
LGBTIQA+ community, as well as broader Green politics. The LGBTIQA+ Greens are a Special Interest Group of the party, colloquially known as a Liberation Group. the co-chairs of the group are Matt Rogan and Kat Bristow. The 2015 and 2017 general election manifestos contained policies on all teachers to be trained on LGBTIQA+ issues (such as "providing mandatory HIV, sex, and relationships education – age appropriate and LGBTIQA+-inclusive – in all schools from primary level onwards"), on reforming the system of pensions, on ending the "spousal veto" (a provision of the
Gender Recognition Act that requires applications for a
Gender Recognition Certificate to include written consent from an applicant's spouse) and on "mak[ing] equal marriage truly equal" by amending pension inheritance rights. Bennett has also voiced support for
polygamy and
polyamorous relationships. The Green Party supports
same-sex marriage and, on
Brighton and Hove City Council, expelled Christina Summers in 2012 due to opposition to same-sex marriage legislation on religious grounds. Some issues of trans rights have caused divisions in the Green Party, such as when
Siân Berry cited opposition to her support for trans rights as a reason for stepping down as co-leader. In the subsequent
leadership election, candidate
Shahrar Ali's comments on trans rights led to the Young Greens to call for his expulsion. After being removed as Speaker for the party, Ali successfully sued the Green Party for unlawful discrimination against someone with views on gender that are protected under the
Equality Act 2010. In February 2024, the
Mayor's and City County Court ruled that the Greens had breached procedural fairness and awarded him £9,100, but upheld that political parties may dismiss spokespersons for views not in line with their party's values. At the 2021 Conference, the Green Party voted in favour of
gender self-identification and voted down a motion that women were discriminated against "solely upon their biological sex", which opponents claimed excluded trans women. The
Scottish Greens suspended their cooperation with the Green Party of England and Wales in October 2022 due to "transphobic rhetoric and conduct" and "lethargic, ineffective, and inconsistent" disciplinary action against "an unelected legislator [who had] insulted [the Scottish Greens] and sought to damage [the Scottish party's] reputation regarding LGBT+ rights, women's rights, and child protection issues". In response, the English and Welsh party replied that "the Green Party of England and Wales is clear that trans rights are human rights and we are proud of our strong policies on trans inclusion".
Transport The Green Party has called for "A People's Transport System" to help deal with the issues not just to the planet but to local communities as well. The Green Party has an official transport working group, aimed at helping to draw up policies to be voted on at the conference. The party also aims to prioritise accessibility to transport and create equal access irrespective of age, wealth or disability. The party also wants to reduce the total distance people travel and travel journey lengths by encouraging the development and retention of local facilities. It also seeks to reduce the environmental impacts of transport, partly through encouraging transport that makes use of sustainable and replaceable resources. The party would also implement a
green transport hierarchy of transport that would need to be followed by all levels of government: (Green Party Canada, Bradshaw, 1992) • Walking and disabled access. • Cycling. • Public transport (trains, light rail/trams, buses and ferries) and rail and water-borne freight. • Light goods vehicles, taxis and low powered motorcycles. • Private motorised transport (cars & high powered motorcycles). • Heavy goods vehicles. • Aeroplanes. One of the flagship and long-standing policies in this field is returning the
railways to public ownership The party has called for free bus passes for under-22s in England, matching an existing scheme in Scotland.
Tuition fees The party supports scrapping
university and further education fees. It supports all courses in further education being provided free at the point of use. In their long-term goals, they advocate that "The monarchy shall
cease to be an office of government. The legislative, executive and judicial roles of the monarch shall cease." The party supports the
separation of church and state. It advocates that the
Church of England be
disestablished from the British state and become self-governing. The party supported Scottish independence in the
2014 Scottish independence referendum. In February 2021, the Green Party announced that it supported a referendum on
Welsh independence and would campaign in favour of independence if a referendum were to be held, following a 2020 conference vote. For the
2024 election, the Welsh branch backed Welsh independence in their manifesto. The party's general policy is to support the
self-determination of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, should they wish to
secede from the United Kingdom. Unlike the UK's other prominent political parties, the Green Party regularly fields candidates against the
Speaker of the House of Commons in general elections and they typically receive the largest vote share after the Speaker.
European Union In their manifesto for the
1987 United Kingdom general election the Green Party opposed the
European Economic Community due to their concerns about large scale corporate and governmental power, as well as objecting to the
Common Agricultural Policy. The Green Party remained
Eurosceptic for the
1989 European Parliament election and during the 1990s. Their first two
Members of the European Parliament were elected in 1999 due to the adoption of proportional representation, and during the 21st century EU policies developed to include more environmental protection and sustainability. Green Party policy changed to advocating EU reform, arguing in particular for increased democracy and reduced corporate lobbying. The party supported the
2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, calling it "a vital opportunity to create a more democratic and accountable Europe, with a clearer purpose for the future". The party has criticised the
Common Fisheries Policy and the "excessive influence" of the
European Commission in comparison to the
European Council and
European Parliament, describing it as "undemocratic and unaccountable". The party favoured a "three yeses" approach to Europe: "yes to a referendum, yes to major EU reform and yes to staying in a reformed Europe". In 2013, the then party leader Natalie Bennett added: 'Yes to the EU' does not mean we are content with the union continuing to operate as it has in the past. There is a huge democratic deficit in its functioning, a serious bias towards the interests of neoliberalism and 'the market', and central institutions have been overbuilt. But to achieve those reforms we need to work with fellow EU members, not try to dictate high handedly to them, as
David Cameron has done. The party came out in favour of the UK remaining in the EU in February 2016, prior to the EU referendum in June 2016. Reasons the party cited for supporting remaining in the EU included the protection of workers rights and environmental standards. ==Organisation and structure==