Green vote in 1989

[edinburghtory]

Apologises if I have posted in wrong place or if its been discussed before but I was wondering if anyone had any explanation or had seen a good explanation for the Green vote in the 1989 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom?

My assumption is that it was due to 3rd party voters/protest voters looking for somewhere to vote, and in 1989, it being with the Greens rather than the Social and Liberal Democrats as they were still trying to sort themselves out following the merger of the Liberals and SDP.

Be interested to know if anyone else knows of any other reason why this blip seems to have happened.

For ease of reference - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_European_Parliament_election_in_the_United_Kingdom#:~:text=The%20Green%20Party's%20vote%20total,election%2C%20winning%2013%20more%20seats.

[LDCaerdydd]

The environment shot up the political agenda in the late 80s and the fall out from Chernobyl certainly helped.

Interesting side fact - Nigel Farage voted Green in 1989!

[owainsutton]

At the time, the party was very eurosceptic, see the central portion of the PEB for that election:



As such, it was the only party at the time taking that position so (whatever has changed with the world, with Europe and with the UK since then) it was able to take a big chunk of support for that alone.

This was on top of any "none of the above" sentiment for which it was mostly the only outlet, as well as the reasons LDCaerdydd identifies - as well as Chernobyl, this was the time in which ozone depletion was a huge concern, 1989 being when the CFC ban from the Montreal Protocol came into effect.

[froome]

This election was, I'm fairly sure, the first at which I voted Green, and I still remember it fairly well. The principle reason for the high Green vote was a massively increased environmental awareness in the few months leading up to it, rather than the party's Euroscepticism, though that will have attracted some votes. Environmentalism had, for the first time, hit public consciousness, and was being discussed on the national media far more than it had ever been discussed before, and the public were willing to listed to what was then a relatively new political party, though established enough to be considered to be serious.

I wasn't a member at the time, and it was obvious to an outsider that the party were not prepared for the result which happened, and they quickly fell apart from internal disputes, which certainly put off many potential members, including myself, from joining at the time.

[minionofmidas]

Does antbody have figures or a map of the Green support distribution?

[Harry Hayfield]

Feb 10, 2022 16:51:39 GMT minionofmidas said:

Does antbody have figures or a map of the Green support distribution?

I think I have, mind you where that somewhere might be is another question altogether

[manchesterman]

As mentioned earlier this wasnt long after Chernobyl, and also Three Mile Island.The environment had had its profile raised by Greenpeace activities / publicity stunts (rainbow Warrior etc) and this was the first time I really felt a sense of "we're killing our planet very slowly if we dont change tack in some ways" and I think that resonated with a lot of people at the time.

Also Thatcherism was entering its death throws, Labour under Kinnock wasnt really cutting through as much as it could have, and the Liberals/SDP were into internecine squabling around this time too, so there was an element of them being a useful tactical/protest vote repository too. I voted Green in the 89 Euros.

Also, without banging one of my favourite drums again, they emphasised how - unlike under FPTP in UK elections - a vote for the Greens could have tangible results and not just be a "wasted vote", so that probably improved their actual vote numbers much more than a FPTP Euro election would have done.

[No Offence Alan]

Feb 10, 2022 18:24:01 GMT manchesterman said:

As mentioned earlier this wasnt long after Chernobyl, and also Three Mile Island.The environment had had its profile raised by Greenpeace activities / publicity stunts (rainbow Warrior etc) and this was the first time I really felt a sense of "we're killing our planet very slowly if we dont change tack in some ways" and I think that resonated with a lot of people at the time.

Also Thatcherism was entering its death throws, Labour under Kinnock wasnt really cutting through as much as it could have, and the Liberals/SDP were into internecine squabling around this time too, so there was an element of them being a useful tactical/protest vote repository too. I voted Green in the 89 Euros.

Also, without banging one of my favourite drums again, they emphasised how - unlike under FPTP in UK elections - a vote for the Greens could have tangible results and not just be a "wasted vote", so that probably improved their actual vote numbers much more than a FPTP Euro election would have done.

The 1989 Euro election was under FPTP.
Greens 14.5% - no seats. SNP 3% - 1 seat.

[manchesterman]

Bloody hell. That just goes to show how the mind plays tricks then!  (it was over 30 years ago tbf) I stand corrected.

[owainsutton]

Feb 10, 2022 18:52:13 GMT manchesterman said:

Bloody hell. That just goes to show how the mind plays tricks then!  (it was over 30 years ago tbf) I stand corrected.

The GB result was one of the big motivators for the requirement that all member states implement some form of proportional system.

I have vague memories (I was only 9 at the time!) of the Green group in the first sitting of the new parliament having a sit-in protest, occupying the 14% of the British seats?

[greatkingrat]

Although it wasn't anything new - the SDP/Liberal Alliance got 18.5% in 1984 and also got 0 seats.

[swanarcadian]

Mid 1989:
Conservatives in 3rd successive mid term government
Labour still early in process of policy reform and media savviness
Both the Liberals and continuing SDP receiving single digit poll ratings

[minionofmidas]

here's an abstract of a scholarly article from 1989. One of the issues mentioned hasn't been mentioned in the thread yet... but then it faded rather starkly from public view after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[owainsutton]

Feb 10, 2022 19:19:53 GMT minionofmidas said:

here's an abstract of a scholarly article from 1989. One of the issues mentioned hasn't been mentioned in the thread yet... but then it faded rather starkly from public view after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

For some reason, the abstract isn't showing up for me on that page.

But it's probably what I was alluding to earlier, about things that have changed for the world!

[johnloony]

Feb 10, 2022 16:51:39 GMT minionofmidas said:

Does antbody have figures or a map of the Green support distribution?

I’ve got the detailed figures somewhere, so I will dig them out when I have time. But the short answer is that the main reason for the surge in support for the Green party was the short-term difficulties of the liberal democrats (then usually known as the Social and Liberal Democrats, or SLD). The increase in share of the vote for the Green Party in 1989 (compared with 1984) was almost a direct swing from the Liberal/SDP alliance. The percentage vote for the Green party ranged from about 5% to about 25%. The Green Party was in 3rd place in most constituencies, but there were about six constituencies in which the Green party was in second place: Rural southern England, places like Wiltshire, Devon, Hampshire I think. The lowest share of the vote was in Glasgow, and Scotland, and the big cities. If I remember correctly, Cornwall & Plymouth was the only constituency in which the Liberal Democrats got more votes than the Green Party. As a rough guide, think what % the Lib Dems would normally get in an area, and use that to guesstimate the Green Party % for 1989 (in a range from 5% to 25%). The only outlier constituency was Cornwall & Plymouth, in which the SLD came 2nd instead of 4th.

One amusing (annoying) thing about the election results was that the BBC computer assumed that only the 3 main parties would get significant numbers of votes, so all of the other parties were labelled as “others” and were shown on the bar charts in grey. This was in spite of the fact that in the vast majority of constituencies in England, the Green party was the only “other” party standing anyway.

[johnloony]

Found it! These are the raw figures, not the percentages. N.B. I have spotted a couple of misprints: In Cleveland & Yorkshire North, the figure for the Green Party is given as 7,225 (5th place) but it is clearly a misprint because I had already corrected it to 17,225 (3rd place). In Derbyshire the figures printed ar SLD 46k and Green 20k, but this must obviously be an error because it is out of line with all the other results. There is no way the SLD would have got that many votes in a place like Derbyshire. Without checking with other sources, I don't know what the correct figures are or whether the Green & SLD labels have simply been put in the wrong way round.

The page doesn't give the percentages, but what I do remember directly is that the Green Party did hold every single deposit; I think that the lowest % was something like 5.04% in Glasgow, and the highest % was about 25%.

Hopefully the large image won't cause stretch marks on the screen

[Pete Whitehead]

web.archive.org/web/20160304113847/http://www.election.demon.co.uk/election.html

[johnloony]

P.S. I have just remembered that I also own a copy of the Whitaker's Almanac from 1993, which has the full results as well. It gives the figure for Derbyshire as SLD 4,613 rather than 46,132 but the Green 20,781 is correct.

[timrollpickering]

Feb 10, 2022 19:17:37 GMT swanarcadian said:

Both the Liberals and continuing SDP receiving single digit poll ratings

Don't forget the Social and Liberal Democrats SLDP SaLaDs "Democrats" or [Whatever They Were Called That Week].

Perhaps they should have stuck with LSD.

[timrollpickering]

Feb 10, 2022 16:10:28 GMT owainsutton said:

At the time, the party was very eurosceptic, see the central portion of the PEB for that election:

Its solution was a bit Junkerish though. Or was that just how it came across here?