Green Party of England and Wales

The Green Party of England and Wales traces its origins to PEOPLE, a political party established in Coventry in 1973. It later became the Ecology Party and adopted the Green Party name in 1985, making it part of one of the earliest organised green political traditions in Europe.

Official Green Party website ↗

From ecology to Green politics

PEOPLE was created amid growing concern about pollution, resource use, population growth and the environmental consequences of industrial expansion. Renamed the Ecology Party in the mid-1970s, it argued that conventional left-right politics did not adequately address environmental limits and long-term sustainability.

The party became the Green Party in 1985. In the 1989 European Parliament election it won a striking share of the British vote, although the electoral system then in use left it without seats. In 1990 the UK-wide Green organisation separated into distinct parties, leaving the Green Party of England and Wales alongside independent Scottish and Northern Irish Green parties.

Building representation

For many years the party’s strongest electoral progress came in local government and in elections held under proportional systems. It developed a broader programme combining environmentalism with social justice, decentralisation, public-service reform and political change.

Caroline Lucas became the party’s first MP when she won Brighton Pavilion in 2010. The party subsequently expanded its local-government base and, at the 2024 general election, won four Commons seats. The Wales Green Party operates within the Green Party of England and Wales, while the Scottish Green Party and Green Party Northern Ireland are organisationally separate.

An expanded Green agenda

The party’s history reflects the evolution of green politics from a specialist ecological movement into a wider political programme. Climate change and biodiversity remain central, but the party also campaigns on housing, public ownership, inequality, civil liberties and electoral reform. Its constitution describes ecological policy and winning elected office as core objectives.