I joined the Green Party of England and Wales prior to the 2015 election. Over the ensuing months I have learned more about its functioning. Most of what I have learned points toward the conclusion that in its present form, the UK Green Party is not capable of seriously functioning at the national political level, although it is indeed quite effective at the local (council) and European levels.

I ended up writing an brief analysis of the aspects of its policy and process that I think are barriers to success at the national level, available here: GP_UK-policy_process_analysis (PDF). Some of the issues I looked at include:

• the view of the Greens by the media
• can all possible Party member interests be accommodated?
• is the Green party ant-science?
• balancing internal democracy with transparency and accountability
• the many problems in published policy
• creating an effective virtual community for the Greens.

There is a lot of energy in the Green Party, mostly generated in the first few months of each new member’s joining. And at the time of the 2015 general election, over 60,000 members were subscribed. However, my inescapable conclusion is that major reform is needed to make proper use of this human resource, and, more importantly to provide a real voice to those concerned with a sustainable planet, economy and society.