These articles provide some historical notes on the local party in Stockport. Please get in touch if you’d like to share your memories.
“The Early Days” by Mike Shipley
A group of Ecology Party members began to meet at the home of Frank Mason in Mellor in the autumn and winter of 1979-80 to discuss the political responses needed to the environmental crisis. Bill Hall first raised the question of forming a local Ecology Party in the area, which was discussed among the group in the late winter of 1980. A public meeting was oganised by Bill Hall at Stockport College, and this was followed by a meeting at his house to form the original committee. I was selected as chair of this group, and Graham Leatherbarrow was secretary.
The original aim was to raise awareness of the growing environmental crisis and recruit new members. Graham had contacts with the Manchester Ecology Party, which urged the Stockport Party to field candidates in the 1981 Greater Manchester Council elections through him. At this time, an active member of both Manchester and the national Ecology Party, Freda Chapman, moved to Stockport and offered to stand as a candidate.
The experience of the 1981 contest encouraged the Stockport Party to field candidates in the 1982 Borough Council Elections to raise the party’s profile and recruit new members.
To help this aim, the Party began to meet regularly in the Manchester Arms on Wellington Road as open meetings to discuss political issues. The Peace movement was powerful in the North West at this time, and the Party benefited from members drawn to it by the Ecology Party’s stance against nuclear weapons and nuclear power, spurred on by the Thatcher Government’s invitation to host American nuclear-armed cruise weapons in the UK.
With growing electoral experience, the Party decided to field a candidate in the next General Election. The National Ecology Party was keen to see a candidate in the North West, as most of its 50 or so candidates were in the south of England. That election was called in 1983, and I stood as the candidate with Sue Ledger as the agent. We attracted serious media attention, including a short interview on the national Today programme. We were modestly pleased with our 369 votes, demonstrating support in the Borough far above our membership. The Party also gained considerable respect for campaigning in the election, drawing attention to the environmental crisis and supporting peaceful coexistence rather than perpetual warfare.
The following year, Stockport Ecology Party fielded a candidate in the European Election, robustly challenging Labour’s claim that they were the ‘green’ Party. Due to an admin error, the Party did not field any candidates in the local elections.
By the 1987 General Election, Stockport was one of the largest and most active Parties in the North West. In this election, Stockport fielded two candidates, I again in Stockport with Sue as my agent, and Freda Chapman in Hazel Grove with Simon Filmore as agent.
The 1989 European Election saw a high point in the Green Party’s electoral fortunes. Stockport local party members worked hard preparing for the campaign with the North West Area, where Sue Ledger was the coordinator. I was the candidate for Greater Manchester East, which included Stockport. We came in third, ahead of the newly formed Liberal Democrats, with the Green Party polling over one million votes, which created an outcry against the UK’s undemocratic electoral system that fell on deaf ears.
After this election, Sue and I left the Stockport Green Party to help form a High Peak Green Party, where we lived then.
“1989 onwards” by David Carter
By 1989, Stockport Green Party (SGP) was contesting most wards in Stockport, but with modest single-figure percentages. With no prospect of electing Councillors media interest was courted by actions drawing attention to issues that the branch was campaigning on, such as air pollution (mask wearing activists), rainforests (the link between their destruction and the prevalence of materials made unsustainably from tropical hardwoods in Stockport stores) and the Poll Tax (a 1990 resolution of non-payment by some prominent members of SGP gained front page coverage in one paper).
In 1989, the Green Party polled 10.2% in the local European Election constituency of Greater Manchester East (covering Stockport, Tameside and Oldham), helped by David Bailey’s much talked about election broadcast. There was no proportional representation then for the European elections, so this vote share (15% nationally) did not translate into any seats, and Party membership declined over the next decade.
The introduction of Proportional Representation for European Elections in 1999 led to Green MEPs being elected elsewhere in England, and their public profile aided a gradual rise in local election percentages (though it was only in 2019 when a regional percentage of 12.5% led to the first Green to represent Stockport, for a year – Gina Dowding MEP for North West England).
After a long period without any General Election candidates in Stockport, Peter Barber became the first this century in 2010, polling 677 votes. A BBC decision in 2014 to include UKIP but not the Green Party in televised debates for the 2015 General Election led to a 200,000-strong petition supporting the inclusion of the Greens and a membership surge. Locally, the impact of that was to enable the Party to contest 3 constituencies for the first time, along with the ability to find candidates for all 21 wards in the Council elections. That was also unprecedented, though we were only one candidate short in 1988.
The number of Green Councillors nationally grew dramatically in the 2010s, with the adoption of a refined version of the targeting method used by the Liberal Democrats to win seats under the First Past the Post system without the national support of the Conservative or Labour parties. 2019 was a key year locally, as some Stockport Green Party candidates polled near 20% in the local elections for the first time, particularly in Reddish North and Reddish South wards. This paved the way for a breakthrough in the next elections (delayed until 2021 by Covid) with Gary Lawson elected as our first Green Councillor (Reddish South ward), followed in 2022 and 2023 by Liz Crix and James Frizzell.
Between January 2023 and January 2025, our Councillors proposed and/or seconded three successful motions, as follows:
Developing the Stockport approach to improving biodiversity and tackling local nature depletion
Israel, Gaza, and the rest of Palestine
Flooding in Stockport – recent events and resilience against future incidents
In addition, a motion to restore acceptable living conditions in properties managed by Stockport Homes in Lancashire Hill was proposed and withdrawn, because the substance of the motion was agreed to earlier in the Council Meeting.
2024 was the first year the Green Party stood in nearly all constituencies in the General Election, thus giving all the voters in Stockport an opportunity to vote Green in a national poll. One of the barriers to standing previously was the £500 deposit, which is only returned if a Party obtains 5% of the vote. This was achieved in one constituency (Stockport) where Helena Mellish polled 4,865 votes (11.1%).