Green Party co-leaders Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer pose with supporters at their General Election Manifesto launch - Real Hope, Real Change, at Sussex County Cricket Ground in Hove, England, Wednesday, June 12, 2024. In the build-up to the UK general election on July 4. Sian Berry, The Green Party candidate for Brighton Pavillion speaks to The Associated Press in the Round Hill Ward in Brighton, East Sussex, England, Wednesday, June 12, 2024.
“I think they are very wrong, the other parties, to ignore climate change and the big investment that’s needed,” said Sian Berry, one of 574 Green candidates running in England and Wales for the 650-seat House of Commons – and one of the few with a good chance of winning. The party held just one seat in Parliament before the election.
The Green Party embraces that message, but faces a struggle to be heard, and to convince voters that it’s not just about the environment. The party’s 44-page election manifesto, released on Wednesday, includes policies on housing, health care, education, employment and defense as well as green issues.
War in Ukraine and surging migration also have elbowed the green agenda aside in Britain and beyond. Green parties lost ground in countries including France and Germany inIn the town of Dartford, southeast of London, 27-year-old construction worker Harry Colville said he thinks climate change is important, but “I’m more worried about my life right now. More about the near future for myself.”
Unlike many European countries, the U.K. does not use a system of proportional representation. Its first-past-the-post electoral system, in which the candidate who gets the most votes in a constituency wins, favors the two big parties. The Greens got just 2.7% of votes cast in the 2019 election. Roger Ballance, a university worker who has voted both Labour and Green in the past, said the Greens “present a different side, it’s refreshing.”