England’s Greens seek to translate growing support into local power

Caroline Jackson was arrested and charged with obstruction of the highway outside a fracking site in Lancashire in August 2017. The retired teacher was fined £240.

Now, the Green party politician is the newly elected leader of Lancaster city council in the northern English county, the first place the party has taken such a position outside its south coast stronghold of East Sussex, home to its one MP.

Despite the Greens only having 10 out of the 60 Lancaster council seats, Jackson relishes the challenge. “We are a left-leaning party, and here in Lancaster we are trying to create something that is a new politics,” she said, chatting at a café inside Lancaster Castle.

Across the country this means delivering its agenda — which focuses on climate and social issues — by working with rivals, usually through informal coalitions and often involving independent councillors or local fringe groups. This is in spite of the Green party remaining a minnow in terms of national representation.

Voters seem to be taking note. The party made striking progress in May’s local elections, tripling its presence in Sheffield and ending in a dead heat with Labour in Bristol. In English councils the party won 157 seats of which 91 were net gains. And, in a sign of its broad-based appeal, it flipped almost as many former Tory seats (45) as Labour ones (49).

It also came at least third in all but one of the directly elected mayoral races in England.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Greens, a separate party, are in coalition talks with the Scottish National party and could end up wielding executive authority for the first time in a devolved administration.

Sian Berry, the England and Wales party co-leader, attributes the momentum to the public’s desire for “more plural and more diverse” representation.

“We are winning in all places where people are feeling taken for granted and neglected,” she said. “That could be Labour or Conservative areas.”

For now the Greens pose a bigger threat to Labour given the crossover in both parties’ supporter bases, according to Matt Goodwin, professor of politics at Kent university. “The Greens are remarkably well positioned to benefit from an emerging alliance of university graduates, middle class professionals and young Zoomers,” he said.

“Germany is the big example of where they have replaced the centre-left Social Democrats,” he added, a reference to the party there being in a very strong position ahead of federal elections.

In England such ambitions remain distant. But it is in places such as Lancaster that the Greens are laying what it hopes will be the foundations for future success. Seven parties are represented on the council and the Greens have shared power for 16 of the past 21 years after taking their first seat in 1999.

When asked why there is a large Green vote in the city, locals speculate that Lancaster has succeeded in retaining people who came to study at the university.

“It’s the curse of the Pendle Witch, graduates never leave,” said Will Maden, who arrived in 1999 to study and never left, in a joking reference to a local legend. He is now analytics director for local company Miralis, which advises transport companies on cutting emissions.

From 2019 until this spring the council was run by a “progressive alliance” of Labour with the Liberal Democrats and Greens which quickly agreed a 2030 net-zero carbon target for the authority.

That coalition, led by Labour’s Erica Lewis, converted the entire council fleet of vehicles to electric, spent £7m building a new solar array and secured funding to decarbonise the local leisure centre.

It embarked on a “people’s jury” to listen to local people’s ideas on how to tackle climate change. “People said they were keen on green space, dealing with waste properly, education, many of them were people who had never thought much about climate before,” said Jackson.

The wheels started to come off the Labour-led coalition when a handful of leftwing councillors broke away — forming a new “Eco Socialist Independents” — in protest at Labour’s national leader Sir Keir Starmer.

Then, in May councillors carried out their biennial vote on who should be leader — and Jackson won with backing from both the Eco Socialists and the Conservatives.

Labour initially accused the Greens of wanting to “jump into bed with the Tories”.

That was not the case, however. Instead the Greens have already signed off a new rainbow alliance with cabinet posts for the Eco Socialists, Labour and the Morecambe Bay Independents.

“We voted for new leadership, not for Green policies,” says Adrian Duggan, leader of the Tories. “Caroline is more collegiate and approachable than Erica.”

Kevin Frea, leader of the Eco Socialists — and new deputy council leader — said the defenestration of Lewis was an attempt to move towards a more “collaborative” approach. “My priority is urgent action on climate and ecology and you won’t get that without everyone being on board,” he said.

Jackson’s in-tray includes a controversial housing development called the South Lancaster Growth Catalyst, with £140m of potential government funding. The Greens are less keen on the 9,000-home new town than Labour.

But she also wants to provide more renewable energy, cut tenants’ energy bills, rebuild a 1960s estate with an emphasis on sustainability, and plant more trees, wild flower meadows and verges.

At the national level, Berry said the party’s next “mission in life” is to not only have its policies implemented but to become the UK’s third party.

“I would hope other parties who are thinking of maybe reversing course or stepping back on green policies might be thinking twice,” she said. “Look what’s happening in Germany, that’s where we are headed.”