Greens “standing down”: the effect on the Tory total in Parliament
Labour made 28 gains and Lib. Dems 5 from Tories on election day in England and Wales (they also had a few losses).
In these 33 gains from Tories , Greens fielded candidates in twenty-two constituencies. We stood aside in eleven. It appears that in only one seat : Oxford and Abingdon was the absence of a Green candidate extremely likely to have been decisive for a Tory loss. (There in 2015 the Green vote t…
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Rusty Kevin Victor PR is the only answer to this …..You have one right wing party and 3 to the left. It’s not a win win….
Markus Petz But what about the Green vote? Where Greens did not stand aside how did it do? Was it the same? Up or down? Then we can see if a more strategic targeting of where we do stand makes sense. Money and campaign activists more concentrated may be better for a strong green voice. It can also make the argument to others for some kind of deals.
Douglas Rouxel There is the other side of this – people want to see Green campaigns where they are, and want to support a Green candidate in their area – they don’t always want to travel a hundred miles to support their nearest candidate – there is more to elections than the cold hard win/lose – they are opportunities to nurture new activists and bring people on a step from where they are, to a more active involvement in the party.
Rachel Hardy Totally agree Doug, but thats not how elections are portrayed. Or understood. Canvassing you get, still, ‘I’d vote for you if you could win’ ‘labour ard huge here so voting Green is a wasted vote’ Add that tl people not understanding the electoral, system. ‘Jeremy needs every vote’ and there are more…Green Party could do with addressing lack of understanding. And that includes Greens who voted LP in safe seats. Oh and all those tactical voting sites telling people who to vote for to be rid of Tories. Did any say ‘Green’ ?
Keith Clements Rachel Hardy I believe that you “hit the nail on the head” with your comment about “a lack of understanding” by the electorate, of what the Green Party is all about… It has always been my contention that this can’t be changed by local parties spendin…See More
Markus Petz The Greens have to do active things to be taken seriously. If there are Green litter picks, stalls with action connected etc. then people say well the do do xyz. If all people experience is a sad stall and someone asking for their vote come election time with a vague promise if they win a Green government would do something they will not consider Green votes a useful one.
Bernard Little Kath. The majority of people do not understand the electoral system. I spent more time talking to people about why “got to keep the Tories out” in a strong Labour seat where greens were second, did not make sense. Most don’t seem to understand the difference between left and right let alone majority government. Local elections…never had a conversation yet with a member of the public who understands what is going on in their Council. I work on the wards in a hospital where a great many people have degrees.
Keith Clements Markus Petz Your comment exactly describes why the AVERAGE Green Party stall has little effect!
Rowan Van Tromp If Greens had stood aside in Norwich North and all Green voters had voted labour then the Tories would’ve lost. This defeat of labour was also compounded by poor campaign management in the city where Clive Lewis returned a massively increased majority.
Karen Varga Ⓥ If, if, if. There are no certainties in a secret ballot. There are no ‘reliable’ votes. The Green Party has quite a proportion of Blue/Green voters – who used their votes to make sure the ‘terrible Trot’ didn’t take the country back to the 1970s! People give the electorate too much credit – just because we know policy and party intentions we think the broad masses do – they don’t! We have one of the least engaged electorates in the World! They may as well just throw darts at a board. PR might make it better, as may compulsory voting. State funding of the media and political parties might even up the playing field. But you know what – none of it is going to happen coz this system suits the Tories and Labour too much. I just do what I do as a protest in the knowledge nothing is really going to change and the planet is totally fucked – but I’m going down screaming.
Rusty Kevin Victor Protest votes mean nothing, fighting for proper democracy that might change things is better…PR recognises the equal weight of each vote. It is one man one vote. FPTP is BS. The only representatives we need on the ground in each constituency is a local representative. We have just learnt to accept this archaic Westminster system that has passed its sell by date. Equally the house of lords should be democratically elected….
Rachel F Bee How many green MPs before and how many after?
Craig Simmons I am no fan of standing down, but your list is incomplete. By standing down, the Greens had a far greater impact that you suggest. For example, Brighton Kemptown.
Jimmy Sayle What about seats that the Tories held, but only just, and that might have gone Labour had there been no Green candidate? Rowan has already mentioned Norwich North (which I agree is not a straightforward case because of Labour’s targeting error). I don’t know how many other cases like this there were, I’m just saying they need to be taken into account before you can draw conclusions. We Greens are the first to complain when others use statistics selectively.
Kat Boettge Derby North was definitely one Labour won because we stood aside.
Mike Shone Hi Kat, the Green vote in Derby North in 2015 was 1,618 and the Labour majority in 2017 was 2,015 so even if all 1,618 had continued to vote Green in 2017 the Labour candidate would still have had a majority approaching 400. In practice ,of course, voting for Greens in constituencies where we stood was generally around half or a little less so than in 2015.
Kat Boettge Mike Chris Williamson lost narrowly in 2015. Greens even went out campaigning for him in 2017. He fully accepted that our votes helped him to win. He even thanked us publicly.
Mike Shone I think it is a case of helping to increase the Labour majority but not of being decisive in Labour winning.
Mike Shone I should add that as things stood at the announcement of the General Election that standing aside in Derby North was a very reasonable tactical decision/gamble , the Labour surge during the campaign could not have been predicted.
Adam Ramsay I’m not sure how we can know this. In the famous previous example of Greens stepping down and endorsing a candidate – Cynog Dafys in 1992 – he went from fourth place to first. You can’t simply describe an effect by adding together the votes for two parties. You have to look at the dynamic it creates, the sense of direction it encourages, etc.
I have no idea whether withdrawing in various seats had any significant effect on them. But I don’t think that the way to find out is simply by comparing vote numbers between 2015 and 2017.
Markus Petz I think you do have some idea 
🙂 . But your point remains withdrawal or even candidature should be done on a strategic basis.
🙂 . But your point remains withdrawal or even candidature should be done on a strategic basis.
Richard Johnson The Green Party has far too much of a dependency on electoral politics in a broken first past the post system that always reduces the choices down to two binary opposites leaving the Green Party squeezed out of existence between the Conservatives and Labour. The Green Party simply must add greater breadth to its work in order to escape this political vice so that come election times its already established a high profile.
Luca Dray You’ve missed Kemptown in Brighton. Greens standing down there had a huge effect
Mike Shone Mike Shone Only on the size of the Labour majority not on Labour winning
Luca Dray it was a tory seat?? which labour wouldn’t have potentially gained if the greens hadn’t stood aside in Kemptown, and all the greens voted for labour, as the vote would have been split and the tories would have sailed thro the middle. It is accepted that this is the case in Brighton
Mike Shone It was a Tory seat with a majority of 690 in 2015. The Green vote in 2015 was 3,187 so it was quite reasonable to suppose that it would have been a Labour seat in 2015 if Greens had not stood. However the Labour majority in 2017 is 9,868 which is far in excess of the 3,187 Green vote of 2015 , if we were to take that as the maximum though unlikely Green vote in 2017 (“unlikely” due to the great prevalence of tactical voting). 9,868 minus 3,187 would still give a Labour majority for 2017 of well over 6,000. In other words the surge towards Labour was more than enough to take the Brighton Kemptown seat from the Tories without the Green Party standing down.
Luca Dray But what you seem to be missing is that although labour has improved from the Blair days, it’s still not where it should be, and many people are now turning to the gp. Labour won KT due to tactical voting. I know of many that wouldn’t have voted labour by choice, but did so to get the tories out
Steev Burgess Widening the breadth of Green party politics should have been done when the Labour party was in the hands of Blairites. The present Labour party is pretty good in the eyes of many people who have in the past often voted Green (Myself included). Doing it now would only split the vote further and let the Tories and LibDems in. I think as well a campaigning for radical ideas like Universal basic income you should pursue pure Green policies, at least you will bring them too the attention of the other parties and some of them may be enacted by them. It shifts the whole of politics to a more green position. Obviously a better form of dividing up the seats in the HOC would be welcome too, and you might find after the next clutch of boundary changes more people will agree with you (us).
Ruthi Brandt Universal basic income is a pure Green policy, even if it’s not necessarily an obvious green one 🙂
🙂
In other words, the Green Party is not just about adding environmental policies to the existing system, it is about changing the whole way we structure our society. UBI is a good step in that direction.
Richard Johnson I disagree the Green Party has a massive role as a credible Left of Labour positive opposition, does anyone think that the revolutionary Left can fulfill that role? And also when the fault lines in Labour bring a Labour government crashing to its knees that’s when the Green Party can grow again but the Green Party must be willing to break the undemocratic power of the elites and that does not mean victimizing them. The only problem is that the Green Party does not do class politics and is blissfully unaware of its own class bias. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a largely graduate professional membership but more awareness is needed of the Green Party’s specific social perspective.
Mike Shone Richard Johnson The Green Party at its best is multi-dimensional. So I don’t think it is wise just to emphasise our role as being Left of Labour. It is true we give a better understanding of the shift of wealth from ordinary people to the already wealthy and capitalism and that we provide policies accordingly to address that. Labour is too timid and unaware to do this. But we are essentially a Party of sustainability not growth. And we care about biodiversity and we have a more realistic and optimistic outlook on a better quality of human life as reflected in the UBI and the recent advocacy of a four-day working week. However I do think there is more than a little something in your critique of the present Green Party having some blissful unawareness of its class biases.
Maggie Jeffery Mike Shone Thanks Mike. Certainly perpetual growth is not sustainable! I do have problems with what I call ‘top down’ politics which I see as disempowering the individual. My main interest in the Green Party is localism and I’m very wedded to the Transition Town Movement. How do individuals own their own power? How can our planet survive with all the psychological projection and defence – not to mention the inequality that ultimately triggers war? My feeling is that there has to be deep change and I don’t see the party as being similar to any of the three main parties.
Tom Harris Whatever the ins and outs, it very much sounds like Labour did extremely well out of the deal, but I’ve yet to hear of any benefit to the Green Party. Is anyone aware of any?
Jimmy Sayle Yes. The Tory party, which is pretty much the antithesis of Green politics, no longer has a parliamentary majority. I’m not saying that we (the Greens) can claim much credit for that outcome. I’m only saying that fact is more important than our tribal concerns.
Keith Kennaugh How many deposits did they save that they might’ve lost by standing?
Ian Woodall Mike. I’m on the other side now comrade. Keep it up. We need you!
Chris Jones I think the headline avoids an unpalatable truth. That is, in a FPTP system to evict a bloody awful, but still relatively popular, tory government we need a lot more standing down in a lot more constituencies. Never mind greens standing down, we need labour to stand down for greens, labour to stand down for lib dems, etc etc. So, who can actually get the other main parties to wake up, adopt a policy of enacting PR at next election.
Chris Jones there is an and: and take this country away from the less than 50% who actually keep the tories propped up in power.
Ian Flindall Not sure you are asking the right question in the right place. “Standing aside” in St Ives seemed like a useful tactic when the Labour Party was a basket case at the beginning of the election and when it was apparently unnecessary to overtly endorse or support another candidate. After all that would have been one step too far for many members. The Lib Dem candidate would benefit enough to win it, was thought, leaving members free to campaign or vote as their conscience preciously dictated. The ludicrous outcome was that some members campaigned for LD, most did not campaign at all and yet others were determined to vote labour!
The stand aside tactic was then confounded by the significant, but unsuccessful, swing to Labour with their increase in their vote share outweighing the LDs shortfall of 300 or so.
So the question is; how many seats where the Greens stood aside were lost to the Tories because the Labour Party intervened unsuccessfully?
The lesson for me is – don’t stand aside unless you are going to do so wholeheartedly as a local party and work overtly to bring about the desired result – and that, in my book, requires reciprocity.
The stand aside tactic was then confounded by the significant, but unsuccessful, swing to Labour with their increase in their vote share outweighing the LDs shortfall of 300 or so.
So the question is; how many seats where the Greens stood aside were lost to the Tories because the Labour Party intervened unsuccessfully?
The lesson for me is – don’t stand aside unless you are going to do so wholeheartedly as a local party and work overtly to bring about the desired result – and that, in my book, requires reciprocity.
Mike Shone Thanks Ian . This is a very useful account and I agree with your points though I think there a number of “right” questions which include both yours and mine. As you probably know Labour is predominantly tribal and wont do pre-election deals and does not care about what you refer to as “intervening unsuccessfully”. “Reciprocity” is essential but it is not what Labour does.
Ruthi Brandt Interesting point about the enthusiasm and involvement of the local members. The successful case of Oxford West and Abingdon also supports this, where the members were mainly enthusiastic about it, both because the Tory MP who restood was not liked, to put it mildly, and because they had the opportunity to question the LibDem candidate and approve her. There was a genuine sense of a shared campaign, rather than just the Greens quietly disappearing from the scene. There were also a couple of gestures from the LibDems for the recent local elections and talks about agreements in future local elections, so Green members saw that we were getting something tangible out of it.
More info here – http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/…/green-party-election…?
HUFFINGTONPOST.CO.UK
Jonathan Elmer I think you missed Bishop Auckland where green standing down most deffinately averted a tory victory and enable Labour to win by a small margin.
Mike Shone Thanks for that correction Jonathan. Bishop Auckland needs to be added to vulnerable Labour seats saved by standing down since the Green vote there in 2015 was 1,545 and the Labour majority in 2017 was 502 . A Green standing would have been virtually certain to have wiped out any Labour majority and enabled a Tory win. I will make the appropriate amendment to my postings.
Constantine Buhayer Bishop Auckland has been Labour since… 1918. But suddenly Greens standing down ensured L’s victory? Shout it loud and wait for the response, mate.
Mike Shone In addition ,the absence of a Green in Tim Farron’s seat saved him from being defeated by a Tory so I have amended my original post accordingly.
Constantine Buhayer What’s the evidence? The Green vote collapsed, it would have collapsed in Westmorland and Lonsdale. Also, there is no a shred of evidence that the Green voters would have gone for Farron, or even voted. We are clueless about it. So your initial posting is a closer reflection of the real situation.
Rusty Kevin Victor Sorry but let me correct that comment. Blue voters do not vote Green. Red and Libdems might but for a Tory to vote Green would be like a cat asking for a bath.
Rachel Hardy They do in some places. We got Tories saying they would vote Green. Out of hate for other parties but they will!
Richard Jenking People who vote Green locally do vote Blue nationally or to put it another way people who vote Blue nationally do vote Green locally. Our task is to get them to also vote Green nationally.
Catherine von Ruhland When I stood in the Richmond upon Thames council elections as a Green, I had 3rd votes from voters of *all* parties, including UKIP! This is why the Greens should be very careful when positioning themselves as solely leftwing. Green thinking is so much broader than that.
Roger Lewis https://www.reverbnation.com/artist/video/15195387
Videos by Malone4Leader, Punk music from Scarborough, ERY, UK on ReverbNation
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Constantine Buhayer Greens standing down was a worthy initiative but handled in the shittiest possible manner and damaged personally some Green members and the party. It was handled by the ‘magic circle’ of Greens who hold the power and it benefited them. Now they are spinning the results to keep for themselves the benefits a party brings and to keep them in their position.
Roger Lewis We noticed that there is a long tradition of runners up never standing again and David always saw the Leadership road as a several stage process as he was unknown in the party as of last year’s election and did not expect to win first time as of course Johnathan And Caroline had started the Process before the election was announced and that Natalie was standing down.
With Incumbents advantage being what it is David will be using this next year to reach as many Local PArtiues as he can with Film Screenings and live online interviews, We piloted the first one Last night.
With Incumbents advantage being what it is David will be using this next year to reach as many Local PArtiues as he can with Film Screenings and live online interviews, We piloted the first one Last night.
http://davidmalonegreenpartycandidate.weebly.com/
David always has a lot of speaking engagements up and down the country and also has a busy Schedule chairing discussions at various science festivals and Book fayres, I will be endeavouring to double task David on these trips with doing some Speaking engagements at local parties and will endeavour to get an online Google appointments diary online so those local parties interested in areas in which David is an Acknowledged Expert speaker and give his presentations which we will also stream live. Davids TTIP Talk has over 60,000 YouTube views on this one channel alone.
https://www.reverbnation.com/artist/video/14636856
David has reached out to GPEX but for whatever reason, it has not been seen fit to harness Davids considerable skills and qualities on Finance and Economics and also science education. I think that has been something of a waste and As Davids Political Agent ( That’s a self-described title) which is purely Voluntary. Anyway, I hope people and party members and local party Chairs will welcome Davids Initiative to get to know the 30% who did vote and to Engage with the 70% who did not in the 2016 Leadership election.
Constantine, I feel your Frustration Those of us that can find our way North of Watford share the feeling.
Constantine Buhayer Over the last year, well before the elections, the GP saw its vote drop in 95% of the by-elections – by my calculations from looking at the result in Britain Elects.
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