What should the Greens do in order to grow?

[Continential]

Go. By grow, I mean replacing the LibDems as the third-largest party in the PV.

[Agonized-Statism]

They could always grow the red side of the red-green coalition. Maybe Corbynites if Labour rejects them.

[Flyersfan232]

stop being the party that want to break up the uk

[Benjamin Frank]

From my knowledge of gardening, the way most greens grow is to give them plenty of water, feed them sometimes with plant food and hope that they get plenty of sunlight.

[EastAnglianLefty]

In a lot of opinion polling, they already are. I don't expect that to last up to the end of a short campaign, but in terms of actual preferences they're probably already there.

[CumbrianLefty]

stop being the party that want to break up the uk

Very few people are going to decide to vote for them (or not) on that basis.

[Flyersfan232]

stop being the party that want to break up the uk

Very few people are going to decide to vote for them (or not) on that basis.

No but it could help them with unionist voters who outside of the union issue would agree with then

[YL]

Their real problem, given FPTP, is how to win more constituencies, or at least become relevant in more constituencies.  The most plausible targets are probably Bristol WestCentral and Sheffield Central, and in both cases the proposed boundary changes are somewhat helpful, but they're still a long way behind.  If they were to get lucky and a by-election come up in a reasonably friendly sort of place (not necessarily one of those two, but somewhere with some similarities) that might be helpful.

[FrancoAgo]

dissolve

[YL]

stop being the party that want to break up the uk

The Green Party of England and Wales is a separate party from the Scottish Greens, and at this point there's not much that can be done about that, nor is there much the former can do about the latter's independence stance.

Anyway I don't think it's a major issue for people in England and Wales considering voting Green.  No doubt it is an issue for environmentally minded Scottish unionists, but that's hardly a massive proportion of the UK electorate.

[CumbrianLefty]

There has always been, and still is, a minority in the Scottish Greens who are - at the very least - not keen on the idea of Scottish independence. Equally though, much of the target electorate for the E&W party is not that likely to be adamantly opposed to it.

[jaymichaud]

stop being the party that want to break up the uk

The Green Party of England and Wales is a separate party from the Scottish Greens, and at this point there's not much that can be done about that, nor is there much the former can do about the latter's independence stance.

Anyway I don't think it's a major issue for people in England and Wales considering voting Green.  No doubt it is an issue for environmentally minded Scottish unionists, but that's hardly a massive proportion of the UK electorate.

Their Welsh branch also voted to advocate for Welsh independence not too long ago

[YL]

stop being the party that want to break up the uk

The Green Party of England and Wales is a separate party from the Scottish Greens, and at this point there's not much that can be done about that, nor is there much the former can do about the latter's independence stance.

Anyway I don't think it's a major issue for people in England and Wales considering voting Green.  No doubt it is an issue for environmentally minded Scottish unionists, but that's hardly a massive proportion of the UK electorate.

Their Welsh branch also voted to advocate for Welsh independence not too long ago

I'd forgotten that.

[EastAnglianLefty]

stop being the party that want to break up the uk

The Green Party of England and Wales is a separate party from the Scottish Greens, and at this point there's not much that can be done about that, nor is there much the former can do about the latter's independence stance.

Anyway I don't think it's a major issue for people in England and Wales considering voting Green.  No doubt it is an issue for environmentally minded Scottish unionists, but that's hardly a massive proportion of the UK electorate.

Their Welsh branch also voted to advocate for Welsh independence not too long ago

The Welsh branch is effectively an adjunct of Plaid Cymru, so this isn't very surprising. It's also incredibly ineffective - I might be wrong, but I can't recall them ever getting even a single councillor elected.

[Coldstream]

They need to get more members outside of major cities. What keeps the Lib Dems going are all the 5-20 person branches they have in small towns across England & Wales, it means they can always find candidates for council & parish council by elections. The Greens would probably do better than the Lib Dems in a lot of countryside places (running on eg a protect the green belt platform) but they don’t have the people.

Having said that, I wouldn’t be shocked if in the next GE they get more votes in England than the Lib Dems do, though the fact that they don’t run in Scotland will likely mean the Lib Dems get more votes overall.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

In all honesty I think the Greens haven't done too bad in certain non inner city areas. Sure, a lot of it is basically standard hotspots for alternative and hippy types seeking either retirement or cool vibes (Wight, Stroud, Frome) but they are in some places making inroads into "bourgeois party of opposition for people who can't stomach Labour" territory - most notably they are opposition in Solihull, a completely untrendy area of Birmingham.

[Hnv1]

I think spins like all female cabinet during Brexit don’t help here, unless the end game is just taking over the old liberal sandals voters around red brick universities

[CumbrianLefty]

stop being the party that want to break up the uk

The Green Party of England and Wales is a separate party from the Scottish Greens, and at this point there's not much that can be done about that, nor is there much the former can do about the latter's independence stance.

Anyway I don't think it's a major issue for people in England and Wales considering voting Green.  No doubt it is an issue for environmentally minded Scottish unionists, but that's hardly a massive proportion of the UK electorate.

Their Welsh branch also voted to advocate for Welsh independence not too long ago

The Welsh branch is effectively an adjunct of Plaid Cymru, so this isn't very surprising. It's also incredibly ineffective - I might be wrong, but I can't recall them ever getting even a single councillor elected.

There was indeed a semi-formal Plaid/Greens alliance in the early-mid 1990s.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Indeed, that was why Plaid's stance on nuclear power was for ages  "nuclear is always bad unless it is based on the Isle of Anglesey".

[CumbrianLefty]

stop being the party that want to break up the uk

The Green Party of England and Wales is a separate party from the Scottish Greens, and at this point there's not much that can be done about that, nor is there much the former can do about the latter's independence stance.

Anyway I don't think it's a major issue for people in England and Wales considering voting Green.  No doubt it is an issue for environmentally minded Scottish unionists, but that's hardly a massive proportion of the UK electorate.

Their Welsh branch also voted to advocate for Welsh independence not too long ago

The Welsh branch is effectively an adjunct of Plaid Cymru, so this isn't very surprising. It's also incredibly ineffective - I might be wrong, but I can't recall them ever getting even a single councillor elected.

This is actually not quite correct, as it turns out.

There was a Green councillor elected in Powys at the most recent (2017) election.

They have just defected to Plaid.