Prof Neil Carter
Neil Carter is Professor of Politics at the University of York. He has published widely on UK party politics, green politics and environmental policy, including The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy (CUP, 2018, 3rd ed).
Email: neil.carter@york.ac.uk
Dr Mitya Pearson
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies (University of Warwick) focusing on environmental politics.
Email: mitya.pearson@warwick.ac.uk
UK Election 2024
Section 4: Parties and the campaign
34. A changed but over-staged Labour Party and the political marketing weaknesses behind Starmer’s win (Prof Jennifer Lees-Marshment)
35. To leaflet or not to leaflet? The question of election leafleting in Sunderland Central (Prof Angela Smith, Dr Mike Pearce)
36. Beyond ‘my dad was a toolmaker’: what it’s really like to be working class in parliament (Dr Vladimir Bortun)
37. The unforced errors of foolish men: gender, race and the calculus of harm (Prof Karen Ross)
38. Election 2024 and rise of Reform UK: the beginning of the end of the Conservatives? (Dr Anthony Ridge-Newman)
39. The Weakening of the Blue Wall (Prof Pete Dorey)
40. The Conservative party, 1832-2024: an obituary (Dr Mark Garnett)
41. Bouncing back: the Liberal Democrat campaign (Prof Peter Sloman)
42. The Greens: riding two horses (Prof Neil Carter, Dr Mitya Pearson)
43. Party organisations and the campaign (Dr Danny Rye)
44. Local campaign messaging at the 2024 General Election (Dr Siim Trumm, Prof Caitlin Milazzo)
45. The value of getting personal: reflecting upon the role of personal branding in the General Election (Dr Jenny Lloyd)
46. Which constituencies were visited by each party leader and what this told us about their campaigns (Dr Hannah Bunting, Joely Santa Cruz)
47. The culture wars and the 2024 General Election campaign (Prof John Steel)
48. “Rishi’s D-Day Disaster”: authority, leadership and British military commemoration (Dr Natalie Jester)
49. Party election broadcasts: the quest for authenticity (Dr Vincent Campbell)
After winning 15% of the vote (but no MEPs) in the 1989 European Parliament election, it took slow, hard graft during the 1990s and 2000s for the Greens (three independent parties: of England and Wales, Scotland and of Northern Ireland) to achieve some regular success in British elections. This was enabled by a targeted local campaigning strategy, the political space which opened up for the Greens as a progressive alternative to the incumbent Labour governments, and new opportunities to take part in elections using proportional representation (European Parliament and devolved bodies).
2015 saw the ‘Green Surge’ in membership and votes. The Liberal Democrats had governed with the Conservatives, and Labour neglected to provide unambiguous opposition to Conservative policies on austerity and immigration, allowing the Greens to act as an attractive vessel to progressive voters. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader crowded out the political space that the Greens had become used to occupying. At the 2017 General Election the profile of Green voters consequently became more demographically and ideologically heterogenous – overall they were more right wing than in 2015.
In recent years, the Greens’ have recorded unprecedented performances in council elections. At the 2019 English local elections 265 Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) councillors were elected (194 gains) and, after repeated successes, by May 2024 the Greens had around 850 councillors across Great Britain. Importantly, these local advances occurred in different types of places, including rural areas which had traditionally voted Conservative.
These developments are important to understand the party’s approach to the 2024 General Election. The GPEW selected four target seats: two urban seats where they were principally competing with Labour (Bristol Central and Brighton Pavilion), and two rural seats where they were principally competing with the Conservatives (Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire).
The Greens thus had something of a Janus-faced campaign, targeting two different sources of voter discontent. Firstly, growing left-wing disenchantment with Keir Starmer’s leadership of Labour and, in particular, the prominence of the Gaza issue from October 2023 onwards (which helped their campaigns in Bristol Central and Brighton Pavilion). Secondly, the disillusionment among former Conservative voters in rural areas. In Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire, the Green campaigns emphasised similar issues to those pushed by Liberal Democrats at this election in Conservative-held seats including the NHS, standards in public life and sewage discharges into water.
On a national level, the GPEW’s campaign was spear-headed by their co-leaders, Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, who took part in the TV debates and set-piece interviews. In their manifesto and national campaigning the GPEW had some clear dividing lines with most other parties, including much greater ambition on climate change and other environmental issues, and plans to use significant tax increases to massively boost spending on public services.
This was an exceptionally successful election for the Greens. There were 629 Green candidates across the UK – the highest ever. The Greens received 1,943,265 votes across the UK, representing 6.7% of the national vote share. This surpassed their previous best result of 1,157,613 votes and 3.8% of the national vote share in 2015.
The stand out success was the election of four GPEW MPs. Not only did Siân Berry hold Brighton Pavilion, but the Greens won Bristol Central, North Herefordshireand Waveney Valley, in each case overturning huge notional majorities to secure comfortable victories. The GPEW have thus not only successfully navigated Caroline Lucas’ departure, but quadrupled their representation at Westminster through a remarkably successful targeting operation. Across the UK the Greens were calculated to have lost around 250 deposits, the most of any party. However, given the number of candidates standing this still meant that they saved over 350 deposits, massively bettering their previous best result of 131 deposits saved in 2015. Although the Green Party Northern Ireland have historically achieved representation at Stormont and the Scottish Greens continue to have MSPs in Holyrood, like previous general elections the GPEW were much more successful than their counterparts in the rest of the UK. However, both parties’ vote shares increased, particularly in Scotland. Preliminary results suggested that the Greens got 10% or higher in vote share in approximately 100 seats, and came second in 40 (almost half of those were in London).
But, this election was paradoxical: the environment is the one issue which the UK public clearly trusts the Greens on over other parties and it was notable for its absence from the campaign, nonetheless they performed incredibly well in this election. In an election where party support fragmented, the Greens were well-placed to tap into two distinct but powerful sources of discontent. Success brings its own challenges, however. They will need to decide if it is sustainable to continue their dual approach to political strategy over the long term. They will also need to reconcile their chosen political strategy with their ideological traditions, while presenting a coherent national message which is not simply a combination of localised political concerns.
