While Labour’s sweeping election victory has rewritten the history books – the Green party has also celebrated its most successful result, winning four seats.
Carla Denyer is the new party leader and MP for central Bristol.
Cathy Newman: Carla Denyer, a historic night for you and your party?
Carla Denyer: Correct. I want to start by saying a huge thank you to everyone who voted Green in the four target seats, which have now gained four new Green MPs, and across the country. This has been a historic result for us in terms of the number of MPs, but it also shows the vote, the number of other places, and I expect the number of deposits saved as well. This really felt like the Green Party’s moment of its age. It comes from the end of five consecutive local elections of massive gains as well. We’ve known for some time that voters have been telling us at the door that they really like the Green Party’s policies. He wants to see more Greens elected. If they have doubts, it is about whether we can get elected. But now they look comprehensively at the local and national level if they want a Green policy, they can vote Green and they can vote more Greens.
Cathy Newman: I’ll go back to the voting system in just a few seconds. But how do you use this moment, as you explained, to hold Labour’s feet to the fire in the environment, when you’ve got four and they have a landslide of MPs?
Carla Denyer: Of course, in the long term, I would like to see more Green MPs elected and Greens in government one day, as is the case in many countries across Europe. But we have to start where we are. We have an ambitious but realistic goal of quadrupling representation, aiming for four seats where we have a good chance of winning this time, but standing up fully so that everyone has the opportunity to vote Green, and so that we can build. But the reason we have this urgency to get four now, frankly, is because our public services are crumbling. We are in a climate emergency. We must act now. And Labor has backed many of those policies which would have made the economy fairer, given us warmer, more comfortable homes, lifted children out of poverty and tackled the climate crisis. So getting a few more Green MPs in the Commons, as we have now done, will allow us to pressure the Labor government. Whether it is through questions, motions, amendments, work in committees and generally taking part in and changing the political debate about what politics can do.
Cathy Newman: Let me just cut to the chase, Carla, because I wonder if you’ve learned from your past experiences. You have a lone MP who is in Westminster. I wonder if you have learned from that experience? Because you know the complaints in Brighton that there are weeds growing on the pavements and rubbish not being collected. Have you learned from it?
Carla Denyer: I think the councilors at Brighton and Hove Council have learned from that and have really listened to what the people of Brighton and Hove want. But it should be noted that it is only one council among many. The Greens are currently in administration in more than 10% of councils in England and Wales. In many of them, we have been in the administration for some time, and the voters have liked what they see and they voted for more Greens. This May, for example, is just up the road from here in Stroud, where the Greens have run the council alongside other parties for over ten years. Also in the north of England, in York, where they built affordable low carbon houses, won an award for that. In Mid Suffolk, where they won the ‘council of the year’ award. So I think people across the country voted Green, liked what they saw and voted more.
Cathy Newman: For a moment and finally, you have always said that the voting system, which was first-past-the-post, prevented you from winning the seat. You and Reform to a certain extent have overturned the conventional wisdom of yesterday, or not?
Carla Denyer: I don’t think we have said that in the past the first post system prevents us from winning seats. In fact, we have often said the opposite that, although it is a very unfair system, the Greens can and will win in that system, and we have proven that this time. However, the Greens always have and will always campaign for a more proportional voting system because the one we have now, Labor got a fairly small share of the vote – a small proportion of the British population actually voted Labor in this election – but they have it. absolute landslide in the number of seats. The number of seats simply does not correspond to the number of votes. The UK is almost alone in Europe in using this outdated system. So yes, we will campaign for a fairer system so that everyone’s vote counts.
Cathy Newman: You can ally with the Reformation on this.