Green vote share triples in London

 Fom the London Green Party

* Under a proportional system, London could have woken up this morning to 3 or 4 Green Members of Parliament

* Greens achieve record result in capital, tripling their 2010 vote share

Greens are today celebrating a "bitter-sweet" result in the capital, after the first-past-the-post system failed to deliver voters a Green MP for London despite a tripling of the Green vote share [1}.



Green Party Leader, Natalie Bennett, polled third in Holborn and St. Pancras, representing a vote share increase of 10%

The Greens saw large gains in their vote share in Holborn and St. Pancras, where Green Party leader Natalie Bennett polled in third place with a 10% swing to her party. Large vote share increases were also seen in Hackney North and Stoke Newington, where candidate Heather Finlay also saw a 10% swing take the Greens to third place.

Deputy Leader Amelia Womack's Camberwell and Peckham constituency also voted the Greens into third place, as did voters in a further 12 constituencies. {2] Greens also saved a record 22 deposits across the capital, with their vote share increasing in all of London's 73 constituencies.

Despite strong showings bringing cause for celebration in the Green camp, under a proportional system the party could have expected to secure 3 or 4 seats in London. The party has joined with other campaigns including the Electoral Reform Society and 38 Degrees in demanding that reforming the electoral system and introducing a more proportional system [3] be an immediate priority for the next government.

Tom Chance, Co-Chair of the London Green Party and their candidate in the election for Lewisham West and Penge said:

In an election votes should mean seats. But, because of the way our outdated electoral system works, millions of people across the country are disenfranchised - they’ve voted Green in their droves and yet have only one MP representing their views in parliament. Not only is this grossly unfair. It also serves to entrench the business-as-usual politics of the "traditional" parties.

That’s why the Greens, along with other parties and campaigns, are calling for a complete overhaul of our unjust electoral system. We want to see a more proportional system introduced, as is used across Europe and in our own London Assembly elections, to ensure that the next time voters go to the polls, parliament reflects the will of the people instead of robbing them of their democratic rights. 

Across the country the Green Party polled its highest ever result in a general election securing 3.8% of the public's vote. Due to our current current electoral system Greens were still only able to elect one MP – the historic reelection of Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion - rather than the 24 it would have secured under a more proportional system.

Notes
1. 4.8%, up from 1.6% in 2010. Results can be found here: http://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/general-election-results-2015
2. Hackney South and Shoreditch, Bethnal Green and Bow, Islington North, Tottenham, Lewisham West and Penge, Vauxhall,   Leyton and Wanstead, Lewisham Deptford, Walthamstow, Ealing Southall and Tooting.
3. The Green Party supports the introduction of the Additional Member System, a version of proportional representation currently used for elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, and the London Assembly, or the Single Transferable Vote System favoured by the Electoral Reform Society: http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/pa.html http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/single-transferable-voteV

We must release passion and creativity to produce an alternative vision for society after the Tory victory

As I left the Civic Centre in the early hours this morning, sickened by the thought of five years of Tory government that will dismember the welfare state, continue the ideological war on the poor, disabled and migrant, and overcome by the sheer ugliness of the Tory's vision for the country, I was arrested by the pure beauty of the song of a blackbird as it opened the dawn chorus in the shadow of Wembley Stadium.

Yes, life goes on and so must the struggle.

There is a beauty in struggle, solidarity and resistance that can send the heart soaring just as much as that blackbird's song.  I felt it when demonstrating with residents from the West Hendon estate, when we prevented fascist groups from marching in Cricklewood, when working with others to try and save the Stonebridge Adventure Playground and at national level when working with Green Party colleagues on a different vision for education.

Faced with the Conservative threat we must find new ways of working together across party lines and involving those who, as evidenced from many of the spoilt ballot papers I saw last night, reject all political parties as 'only in it for themselves'.

We have to show that we are 'in it for each other' and that means putting the movement before party.

The task for the anti-austerity movement is to to develop an alternative model of society and economy that will capture people's imagination and free their passion and creativity to build a different sort of society.

Life goes on. and so does the struggle.

Detailed General Election results for Brent

Jubilee, Metropolitan and Overground closures this weekend

The Metropolitan and Jubilee lines in Brent will be closed in this weekend due to points work at Neasden.  Additionally no Overground service on Sunday north of Queens Park and  west of Willesden Junction..