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 this year.
2024
At the general election on July the 7th, the Green Party won four seats in Bristol Central, Brighton Pavilion, Herefordshire North and Waveney Valley.
This was an extraordinary achievement! With very limited funding, the Party could only focus on these four, but to end up winning them all was genuinely amazing. I got very involved in two of these campaigns.
Waveney Valley, Suffolk
In 2023, the Party was hugely successful in the local elections in East Suffolk, winning 16 seats, to become the largest Party, working with the Lib Dems and Independents to take control of the Council.
Building on that success, Adrian Ramsey (Co-leader of the Party) took on the challenge of winning this newly-created seat in the general election. Again, this success had a lot to do with the work of the Party at the local level – as I saw for myself campaigning in the constituency for the Local Elections in April.
North Herefordshire
The Party had been building up its local presence in Herefordshire over several years, with 9 councillors elected on to Herefordshire County Council in 2023. Ellie Chowns was one of those, as well as being a former MEP, an expert in International Development, and a supporter of XR (having been arrested – unlawfully, as it turned out – in 2019).
I spent two weeks campaigning with Ellie Chowns in the run up to July the 7th – an extraordinary privilege to be part of such a dedicated and well-organised campaign. The swing to the Green Party here is one of the largest ever recorded in the UK.
I’m also supporting my local Green Party here in Cheltenham.
Climate 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 joined the Day of Action on 4/12/23, and the Action at the Royal Courts of Justice on 21/2/24.
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) are often controversial (I myself have significant reservations), but the Government’s authoritarian measures to deny people the right to protest often leave 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 are 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 Government gave approval for its development. It’s a horror story from every single perspective. Uplift and Greenpeace UK have mounted separate legal challenges to get that decision overturned.
Green New Deal Rising
