Why huge numbers of people have joined the Green Party recently

https://witness.theguardian.com/assignment/542404c7e4b006af6007793d?page=3

Jim Scott from Pembrokeshire not only joined, but hit the ground running. He has submitted this to the Guardian:

I didn’t just join the Green Party, I joined and set up my local Party.

I have wanted to vote Green all my life, but since Thatcher I felt it was important to try and keep the Tories out by tactically voting if possible, and never felt that voting Green would have that tactical effect. I’m 37 now and over the years I seen all the main 3 parties pull heavily to the right to the point that I consider all of them to be more right wing than the conservatives were under Thatcher! Blair invading Iraq against our wishes was a big sticking point for me also, so in the last UK parliamentary elections I voted LibDem in the misguided belief that they were a ‘Left of Center’ and libertarian party.
I was shocked when they formed a coalition with the Tories, and then in disbelief as the raft of savage and socially abhorent policies like the student fee increases began to flood out of Westminster. I began to sit up and take notice of everything that was going on in terms of policy, like welfare cuts, cuts to public services, NHS privatization, ATOS assessments for the disabled, cutting legal aid for the poorest, Zero hour contracts. workfare, deregulation in employment law, The list goes on, and so did the UK media’s wholesale attacks on the poor and disabled as well as the immigrant population. The more I dug, the more I realized that whilst I had kept my eye off the ball and not been following UK politics too closely. New Labour had begun the process (which the Tories have now catapulted forward) of privatization of the NHS by introducing PFI’s and other legislation, Blair had actually brought in many laws which infringe on our civil rights and liberties under the guise of ‘Terror threats’ and Ed ball’s was schmoozing with his friend George Osborne at the Bilderberg meetings and announcing that Austerity would continue under Labour and Social security cuts would be increased! All this whistle Cameron announced from a millionaires banquet and from a golden chair and golden lectern that there would be permanent austerity for ‘the rest of us’.
It was plain to me that all three parties were now very right wing, and serving the same agenda, Billions for their banker friends but austerity for us, I also read a very good article by John Ress (Counterfire and Stop the War) called “The crisis in Europe and the response of the Left”http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/theory/55-the-crisis/16388-the-crisis-in-europe-and-the-response-of-the-left which highlighted this neo-liberal hegemony among the main three parties very well.
I was so angry and motivated by this point, I made up my mind that I would only vote for a party I believed in from that moment on and that a vote for what I believed in was not a wasted vote in these times of crisis in democracy and democratic deficit. So after a lifetime of tactical voting I returned to where I always belonged at the Green party. I read their manifesto and was instantly heartened and at home with their progressive approach to issues like immigration and job creation in the green sector, social justice and very forward thinking and economically productive environmental policies, this as well and the citizens income, living wage, re-nationalizing the NHS and other public services, and importantly their belief that the way the UK is governed should be changed to that politicians become accountable to the people who elect them. I was happy with it all so joined up and decided to get active. I also joined the ‘People’s Assembly Against Austerity” movement which is supported by many organizations including the Greens.
I rang my regional office (Wales) in 2013 and found that there was no active Pembrokeshie Green Party, but they did help me contact all the other members in my area, this was 14 months ago and most of the other local members where long standing members and only 2 other people where interested in setting up the group (which wasn’t viably enough) so I shelved the idea for a year and got on with campaigning against the governments vicious welfare cuts and other campaigns with the People’s Assembly. then Earlier this year I received and updated list of Pembrokeshire Members and was excited to see that the membership had doubled! I emailed all the new members and organized a first meeting, I informed the local press and invited Wales Green party delegates to come and speak, The Green party in Wales being a very inclusive party meant that offers to help came in and eventually Pippa Bartolotti was booked to speak at our first meeting. The rest is history, but at our third meeting members had doubled again! and the new party is vibrant, radical and full of potential, we are already on track to field three candidates in the General Election next May (we have taken on Carmarthenshire’s candidates for this as well!) and I was even privileged to be invited to speak as a Pembrokeshire Green party representative at a CND Cymru supported event called ‘Drape the Drones’ at Aberporth military drone testing base last weekend on the international day of peace, Link to my speech is here>>http://wales.greenparty.org.uk/news.html/2014/09/22/jim-scott-wales-green-party-speaks-at-cnd-drape-the-drones-international-day-of-peace/ << It is all very exciting and motivating and new members are joining our Pembrokeshire Green Party weekly, often daily! I am aware that we won’t topple the likes of Tory Stephen Crabb MP this time round, who sits in my own constituency, but I do strongly believe that the establishment is in for a big shock next May as people arrive in their droves to the stark realization that it is a vote for any of the main three parties that is meaningless and wasted whereas a vote for what you believe in however is a vote for change, a change I believe is in the air and coming at an unstoppable rate!

The other responses make equally intersting reading – most are not as in depth as Jim’s.

Other Contributions

First page of responses below – click on the links to read the full post full post
(There are currently 11 pages of these, and counting!):

Joining the Green party from Labour.

We had the EU elections and two local by-elections in very close succession where I live. I was a Labour party member at the time, and I di

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