‘We have to book bigger rooms’: Green membership surge causes novel problems

Party rides high with new leader Zack Polanski winning media plaudits and supporter numbers doubling to 140,000

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surge in membership levels is causing the Green party some novel problems. “Our local association went from 400 to over 1,000,” one activist said. “We had meetings booked in rooms with a capacity of 50, and loads of people were being turned away. We’ve had to start booking bigger rooms.”

The Greens have long been a party on the rise. But it is fair to say that in the near-seven weeks since Zack Polanski took over the leadership in England and Wales, things have gone to another level.

The most obvious metric is membership. Since Polanski won the leadership race, routing the more established MP duo of Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, numbers have doubled from 70,000 to more than 140,000, overtaking first the Liberal Democrats and then the Conservatives.