05/05/02
Despite a couple of unexpected upsets, the Green Party continued its political comeback in the English local elections of 2 May 2002.
The Green vote grew to 7% where the Greens stood, compared with 5% in 2000. The party fielded almost 1,100 candidates, more than in any year since 1991.
In NORWICH the Greens got their first 2 councillors elected with 41% of the vote, up 18%, in the constituency of Labour Party chair Charles Clarke MP - a reflection of dissatisfaction with New Labour and the perceptible tendency of Labour voters to switch to Green.
LEEDS Green Party got their third councillor elected, with a 1,100 vote majority.
In BRADFORD, the Greens elected their second councillor with 42% and a 600 majority.
Results mixed but positive
Overall the Greens ended the night with 4 fewer councillors nationally - though still represented on 22 principal authorities.
OLDHAM Green Party lost a seat (where a councillor had been elected as Labour, and had crossed the floor to the Greens mid-term) - but borough-wide the Greens almost tripled their vote, in the party's best-ever Oldham result. Other northern boroughs showed similar progress:
MANCHESTER Greens narrowly missed getting their first councillor elected - just 83 votes behind Labour in a ward where Labour were sufficiently worried that they drafted in foreign office minister Tony Lloyd MP to help campaign.
SHEFFIELD Greens almost doubled their vote, and TAMESIDE Greens got their best ever result, with a top vote of 20%.
On OXFORD city council the Green Group was reduced from 7 councillors to 3. They had been in a ruling coalition with the LibDems, but Labour swept back into control of the council. Cllr Mike Woodin comments: "When we took over after 20 years of Labour rule, the council was in a dreadful state. We have had to spend the last two years clearing up their mess. It was all to easy for Labour to cease on one or two relatively minor decisions and blow them out of all proportion and enough of the electorate fell for it for them to get back in. But we will be back."
The Greens point out that their steady increase in vote-share bodes well for gains in next year's local elections and the 2004 European elections.
Executive Elections Coordinator Geoff Forse comments: "We're disadvantaged both by the archaic first-past-the-post electoral system and by the media's reluctance to provide the public with adequate information about the Green Party and its policies.
"Our 7% vote would have been high enough to have won a large number of seats in a proportional system like those of most EU countries. When Britain eventually gets electoral reform, we can expect the Greens here to gain as much representation as our colleagues in other European Union countries.
"In the meantime, with the ongoing increase in our membership, and the growing popularity of our policy, we'll continue to make steady progress."
