The Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW; Welsh: Plaid Werdd Cymru a Lloegr) is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including the semi-autonomous Wales Green Party. The party currently has one Member of Parliament in the House of Commons, Caroline Lucas, who represents the constituency of Brighton Pavilion, and was the party's first leader, serving from 2008 until 2012, when she was succeeded by Natalie Bennett. They also have two MEPs in the European Parliament and two members of the London Assembly, as well as 141 councillors in various local councils across England and Wales.
The Green Party of England and Wales was created in 1990 when the former UK Green Party, which itself had grown out of the 1970s’ PEOPLE party, devolved into separate parties for Scotland, Northern Ireland, and England and Wales. It currently has friendly relations with its Scottish and Northern Irish counterparts, and is affiliated with the Global Greens and the European Green Party. While primarily known as an environmentalist party, it has a history of support for communitarian economic policies, including well-funded, although locally controlled, public services within the confines of a steady-state economy. The party is strongly supportive of proportional representation and follows a line of euroscepticism based on its suspicion of the domination of European policy-making by corporate interests. It takes a liberal approach to social policies such as animal rights, LGBT rights and drug policy reform.
The Green Party of England and Wales won its first seat in the House of Commons in the 2010 general election, following the election of its first two MEPs in 1999.
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Famous quotes containing the words green, party, england and/or wales:
“The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“No political party can ever make prohibition effective. A political party implies an adverse, an opposing, political party. To enforce criminal statutes implies substantial unanimity in the community. This is the result of the jury system. Hence the futility of party prohibition.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“While the very inhabitants of New England were thus fabling about the country a hundred miles inland, which was a terra incognita to them,... Champlain, the first Governor of Canada,... had already gone to war against the Iroquois in their forest forts, and penetrated to the Great Lakes and wintered there, before a Pilgrim had heard of New England.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I just come and talk to the plants, really—very important to talk to them, they respond I find.”
—Charles, Prince Of Wales (b. 1948)