Call for Wales’ Greens to hold second vote on independence from English party
The Welsh Green party should take another vote on independence from the English Green Party now that they support independence for Wales, a member has said.
Writing on the party media platform Bright Green, Welshman in London Matt Townsend calls for Wales’ Greens to follow the Scottish Greens and go it alone.
The Scottish Greens have been independent since 1990 and have just gone into government for the first time alongside the SNP at Holyrood.
The Welsh Green Party voted against seceding from the England and Wales party in 2018. However, in October 2020 the party then decided to back Welsh independence.
Matt Townsend said that the vote in 2018 had “left an inconsistency” that while Scotland and Northern Ireland have independent Green parties “with their own identities and policies, England and Wales remain joined as one party, headquartered in London”.
“This has left Wales as one of very few nations around the world to not have its own Green Party,” he added.
“Every nation should have its own Green Party. It feels extremely uncomfortable, and contrary to the spirit of our values about devolution, that Welsh members do not have complete control over the destiny of their own party.
“There will always be opposition from within the party. Some will claim that the English party is subsiding Wales. But, if this is true and is being used as a way to retain control over Wales. That is highly inappropriate.”
‘Distinctive identity’
Matt Townsend said that since the 2018 vote against becoming independent of the English Green Party, “much has changed”.
“Firstly, there has been a growing movement towards Welsh national independence, which the Greens have declared their support for,” he said.
“Secondly, Wales had a national election in 2021, and once again Greens failed to gain any seats.
“Recently we have watched the formation of a co-operation deal which has seen the Greens enter parliament in Scotland. This momentous event puts Greens into a national government for the first time anywhere in the UK.
“This provides the inspiration needed for a bold leap to create the right conditions for a breakthrough in Wales.”
Matt Townsend said that while becoming independent wasn’t the sole reason for the Greens’ success in Scotland, it had played a big part.
“Without it, the party would not have gone through the period of party building, and necessary bumps along the road,” he said.
“This has resulted in the Scottish Greens having their own distinctive party identity and respect from a growing number of voters within Scotland – even those loyal to other parties who will continue to receive their constituency vote.
“The identity and political priorities formed by the Scottish Greens has been crucial to their success – and this is what the Wales Greens need to start to build. This is unlikely to happen without independence.”
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I’m fully in favour of this, but the Welsh Greens can’t expect things to work the same way in Wales as they have in Scotland. In Scotland, we have a dominant SNP who have taken over Labour’s voter base. Scottish voters have largely (and rightly, in my opinion) written Labour off. So what I think you’ll find is that the Scottish Greens benefit massively by receiving regional votes from people who give their constituency vote to the SNP. In Wales, we have a dominant Welsh Labour party, who have not failed Wales in the same way that Scottish Labour failed… Read more »
Some excellent points here but being independent would be a good start. But why don’t the greens stand in one constituency per region to get a couple of seats a coalition with labour?
This should be the case for every anglo party pretending to be Welsh while in Wales.I would like to know where Welsh Labour and Welsh Tories get their funding from. Is it from just their Welsh members (like all real Welsh parties are) or do they get the unfair advantage of being funded by English members, the country which has 20 times our population? This should have been brought up by Plaid decades ago.
Go for it Greens, you are more likely to get my vote if you are not called englandandwales.
I suspect the reason why the Green Party in Wales is still the Green Party of England and Wales has more to do with the internal make-up of the Green Party in Wales. There is a more ‘progressive’ faction that wants to embrace Cymreictod and become a fully-fledged Plaid Werdd Cymru, and a more reactionary, colonialist element who seek to exploit what Cymru has to offer to them, essentially English settlers wanting to build their little utopias devoid of any reference to, or respect of the genus loci except where it fits in with their cargo cult interpretations of Celticism.… Read more »
Good post. Would be better if Plaid Werdd ditched the social stuff and educated us (well, me) on our ecology, Cymru specific? Would be more use?
Yes the Welsh Green Party should join the welsh Independence Party in Wales 🏴 it’s time for a new wales 🏴 A Free Wales 🏴 the people of wales 🏴 have got to stop being little Englanders and be proud to be welsh
The Greens being basically an English party, uses copy & paste policies, then apply it to Wales, will never have a real foothold in Welsh politics unless they show some backbone by becoming an independent party with actual roots in Wales not England-based tendrils. Also, Green voters in Wales forget this fact. Wales with Machynlleth have been ecology trailblazers since the early 70s having the Home of Alternative Technologies in Aberystwyth. The Greens have an interesting history too. It was formed out of the People’s Party by former Conservative councillor Tony Whittaker, whose party initially was an anti-establishment campaign group… Read more »
Yes the Welsh Greens need to be autonomous and so does Welsh Labour.
If one assumes the future Welsh economy will be based around green energy like Hydroelectric power, wind, tidal and even solar energy, then it would make sense for the Wales Green party to ally itself with Independence.
I think it’s time every party with English connections became solely Welsh, especially the Greens. The UK is coming to an end and parties need to show the Welsh public they are now working for them and for them alone.