Green Party
I joined the Green Party back in 1974. (It was called the People Party then, changing its name to the Ecology Party in 1975, and then the Green Party in 1985). I was very involved in the Party between 1974 and 1984, becoming co-Chair, coordinating the 1979 General Election campaign, and standing 7 times as a candidate in Local, General and European elections.
I took over as Director of Friends of the Earth (a strictly non-party political NGO) in 1984, and have been much less involved since then, apart from a big campaign in 1990/1991 (Green 2000) to streamline and professionalise the Party. This proved to be hugely divisive (similar tensions rumble on today!), so I stepped back again. Until 2024.
2024
At the General Election on July 7th, the Green Party won four seats in Bristol Central, Brighton Pavilion, Herefordshire North and Waveney Valley.
This was an extraordinary achievement! I got very involved with two of these campaigns, with Adrian Ramsey in Waveney Valley and Ellie Chowns in Herefordshire North. With minimal funding, the Party could only focus on these four, but to end up winning them all was genuinely amazing.
I’m also supporting my local Green Party here in Cheltenham.
The Green Party now has a new leader – Zack Polanski – who is vigorously taking the fight both to Starmer’s right-wing Labour Government and to Nigel Farage and The Reform Party.
Climate and Human Rights Campaigning
I was Director of Friends of the Earth back in the 1980s, when we launched one of the first-ever campaigns about Global Warming (as it was called back then!) in the UK. It’s been a big part of my campaigning life since then, in my work as Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission between 2000 and 2009, and in all my work in companies and public sector organisations (Forum). I was there at the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro in 1992 when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was brought into being. Unfortunately, progress since then has been slow and dangerously inadequate.
Hence my support these days for those organisations who seek to accelerate the pace of change through the use of Non-Violent Direct Action. I see civil disobedience of this kind as a vital part of the overall climate change community.
I also blog about this a lot (e.g here , here , & here)
Defend Our Juries
I’m a strong supporter of Defend Our Juries, an organisation set up in 2023 to do what we can to thwart efforts by the Government and the Courts to silence defendants brought to trial for their climate action. “Juries have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience”. I’ve been involved in a number of actions outside the Royal Courts of Justice and the Old Bailey.
Lift The Ban
Defend Our Juries’ most important current campaign is to get the ban on Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation lifted. I’ve been arrested twice on August 9th and September 6th as part of the protests in Parliament Square. Read more here, here & here
Just Stop Oil (JSO)
JSO was set up in February 2022, with a simple remit: to ensure that no new licenses for fossil fuel development should be granted here in the UK. Its tactics (including slow marching, disrupting sporting events and cultural venues) were often controversial (I myself had significant reservations), but the Government’s authoritarian measures to deny people the right to protest often left them with little choice.
Extinction Rebellion (XR)
XR burst on the scene in October 2018, claiming inspiration from the Suffragettes campaign, the Civil Rights Movement, and Occupy. It had a real impact at the time, as the principal influence on the UK passing the Net Zero Act into law in June 2019. Its demands of politicians were simple: tell the truth; act now; engage citizens.
Stop Rosebank
Rosebank is the biggest remaining oil and gas field in the North Sea – and back in September 2023, this Conservative Government gave approval for its development. It’s a horror story from every single perspective.
Successful campaigning by Uplift and Greenpeace UK ensured that this approval was overturned, but a new planning application will be made in 2025, testing the Labour government’s commitment to “no new licences in the North Sea”
Green New Deal Rising
Reports
CLIMATE DASHBOARD
More detail on relevant indicators: INPUTS, OUTPUTS, OUTCOMES
Jonathon Porritt & Robin Maynard – Published 2025 (PDF)
Exodus Equator – One Billion on the move by 2050
Published October 2024 (PDF)
The Progressive case for taking control of EU immigration
Jonathon Porritt & Colin Hines – Published 2017 (PDF)
Greenest Government Ever
Published May 2015 (PDF)
‘Green Liberties’ report
Published September 2011 (PDF)
