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The Wales Green Party (WGP; Welsh: Plaid Werdd Cymru) is a semi-autonomous political party within the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW). It covers Wales, and is the only regional party with autonomous status within the GPEW.
The WGP contests elections for the National Assembly for Wales (as well as at the local, UK and European level) and has its own newsletters, membership list, AGMs and manifesto. Members of the WGP are automatically members of the GPEW.
The current Leader is Pippa Bartolotti[1] and the current Deputy Leader is Anthony Slaughter.[2] Wales is represented internally within the GPEW by Chris Simpson and Chris Carmichael on the Green Party Regional Council (GPRC). Both sets of positions are directly elected by postal ballot.
Other officer positions within WGP (elected at AGM) are as follows:
Wales-wide decisions are taken by the Wales Green Party Council made up of the spokespeople, the officers listed above and a representative from each local party.
The Green Parties in the United Kingdom have their roots in the PEOPLE movement which was founded in 1972. This became the Ecology Party three years later, and then the Green Party in 1985. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each had separate branches. In 1990, the Scottish and Northern Irish branches left the UK Greens to form separate parties. The English and Welsh parties became the Green Party of England and Wales, with the Welsh branch being semi-autonomous. At the 1992 general election, local Greens entered an electoral alliance with Plaid Cymru in the constituency of Ceredigion and Pembroke North. The alliance was successful with Cynog Dafis being returned in a surprise result as the MP, defeating the Liberal Democrat incumbent by over 3,000 votes.[3][4] The agreement broke down by 1995 following disagreement within the Welsh Green Party over endorsing another party's candidate, though Dafis would go on to serve in parliament as a Plaid Cymru member until 2000, and in the National Assembly of Wales from 1999 until 2003. Dafis later stated that he did not consider himself to be the "first Green MP".[5]
The Wales Green Party has always had its own spokesperson (now referred to as leader). Jake Griffiths became leader in 2009.[6] Pippa Bartolotti was elected to succeed him in 2011.[7] Anthony Slaughter became deputy leader in 2014.[8]
In the inaugural election for the National Assembly, the Welsh Greens stood candidates in all five electoral regions used to elect "top-up" members of the assembly. Additionally, one candidate stood for the constituency seat of Ceredigion. The party stated that they aimed to poll around 7% of the vote and win at least one top-up seat.[9]
The Welsh Greens ultimately polled 25,858 votes in the regional lists, 2.5% of the total, and 1,002 constituency votes (3.1%) in Ceredigion. No Welsh Greens were elected.[10]
In the 2003 election, the party again fielded a list of candidates for each of the electoral regions but this time stood no candidates for the constituencies. The Welsh Greens failed to win any seats, polling 30,028 votes, or 3.5%. Their best performance was in South Wales West where they polled 6,696 votes, or 4.8% of the total.
In 2007, the party again fielded a list of candidates in each of the top-up regions but no candidates for the constituencies. The Wales Green Party proposed that Wales should "be at the forefront of....a green industrial revolution". The party targeted South Wales West - the region where they had performed best in 2003.[21]
The Welsh Greens polled 33,803 votes, or 3.5% of the total, a slight decrease on 2003.[22] The party failed to win any seats, with their best performance this time being Mid and West Wales with 4.0% of the vote. In South Wales West their vote declined by one percentage point, their worst result of the five regions.
The Wales Green Party again fielded candidates in all 5 top-up regions for the 2011 election. For the first time since 1999, the Greens also stood in a constituency - they once again opted to stand in Ceredigion.
During the 2011 campaign, they specifically targeted Labour voters with the aim of persuading them to use their regional list vote for the Greens, using the slogan "2nd vote Green". They claimed that Labour list votes were "wasted" and that over 70,000 votes in South Wales Central went "in the bin at every election" as Labour had never won a top-up seat in that region.[28]
On this occasion, South Wales Central was the region the party targeted. The region includes Cardiff, with its large student population, and also the constituency of Cardiff Central, the only Liberal Democrat-Labour marginal seat in Wales. Welsh Green leader and South Wales Central candidate Jake Griffiths stated they were also aiming to attract disaffected Liberal Democrat voters in the region.[29]
The Greens polled 32,649 votes, 3.4% of the total votes cast for the regional lists.[30] In South Wales Central, they took over 10,000 votes, 5.2% of the total, though they were still almost 6,000 votes away from winning a seat. The regional results were as follows:
In Ceredigion, Chris Simpson polled 1,514 votes, or 5.2%. He came fifth out of five candidates.[36]
In the 2005 UK general election, the Wales Green Party failed to gain any MPs or retain any deposits. The results for the party's candidates in Wales, in alphabetical order of constituency, were as follows:
In the 2010 UK general election, the Wales Green Party again failed to gain any MPs. The results for the party's candidates in Wales, in alphabetical order of constituency, were as follows:
In the 2015 UK general election, the Wales Green Party again failed to gain any MPs, but did retain their deposits in 3 constituencies, having achieved 5% or more of the vote. The party stood candidates in 35 of the 40 constituencies in Wales, far exceeding previous efforts. Leader at the time, Pippa Bartolotti, declared 2015 a 'record breaking year'[37] for the party. The results for the party's candidates in Wales, in alphabetical order of constituency, were as follows:
In the 2004 elections, the Welsh party failed to gain any seats in the European Parliament (with 3.6% of the vote for the four Welsh seats) and lost their only county council seat (of Klaus Armstrong-Braun in Flintshire).
In the European Parliament election, 2009 (United Kingdom), the Welsh party failed to gain any seats in the European Parliament, but increased the vote to 5.6% for the four Welsh seats.
The Green Party nominated four candidates for the European Parliament election, 2014.[38]
European People's Party, European Union, Brussels, Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, European Council
European Parliament, National Assembly for Wales, Labour Party (UK), Sinn Féin, Democratic Unionist Party
United Kingdom, Welsh language, Isle of Man, Cardiff, Swansea
Politics, Green party, European Green Party, Feminism, Eco-socialism
European Union, Green politics, Alliance '90/The Greens, The Greens–European Free Alliance, Green Party (Ireland)
Plaid Cymru, Welsh Labour Party, Welsh Liberal Democrats, National Assembly for Wales, Natural Law Party
Plaid Cymru, Scottish Green Party, Sinn Féin, Green politics, European Green Party
Scottish Green Party, London Assembly, Caroline Lucas, United Kingdom general election, 2005, City of Lancaster
Green Party of England and Wales, London Assembly, Derek Wall, Caroline Lucas, Jean Lambert