The Green Party – which has now overtaken the Tories in membership – has seen a rise in members, its supporter base in the North West rocketing from 15,000 in October to 19,435 this month.
“We know you are seeing this surge reflected in the membership numbers in your local party,” Paul Davies and Evelyn Leslie, chair and secretary of the North West Green Party, wrote in their latest newsletter.
They said: “(New leader) Zack Polanski’s media profile is ensuring that Green Party policies are communicated to a wider audience, and we are delighted that, as a result of this, we have so many new members who are keen to get involved.
“Last time we wrote to you, the Green Party of England and Wales had 150,000 members. At the time of writing, we have 180,000 members.
“Our local and regional parties are run by volunteers who are doing their best to contact new members and welcome them to the Green Party. If you have not been contacted by your local party, it could be that they are struggling to cope with the demand — a nice problem to have.”
The newsletter also congratulated Coun John Knight (pictured), elected as the first Green councillor in Cheshire East at the by-election in Macclesfield Central on 20th November, as well as his team, led by Amanda Iremonger, “who worked tirelessly to take the seat from Labour and gain this resounding victory.”
Nationally, party membership has more than doubled since Mr Polanski was elected leader in September 2025, when the count was around 68,500.
The Green Party is now the third largest party in the UK by membership, behind Reform UK (268,000) and the Labour Party (250,000), but ahead of the Conservatives (123,000).
The party saw 1,000 new members join one Sunday morning in October after Mr Polanski announced overtaking the Tories on BBC One’s “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg”.
Mr Polanski said: “The old two-party system is broken. The Green Party is growing because we speak to the real challenges of this moment, and it’s clear that with our message, people can see that politics can be a force for good”.
The surge has been attributed to public frustration with the political status quo, the cost-of-living crisis, and the party’s increased national visibility and clear messaging under its new leader.
The party leadership has stated its ambition to replace the Labour Party as the main progressive alternative in British politics, a claim bolstered by recent opinion polls where the Greens have achieved record-high support, at one point level pegging with Labour.
In July, “The Telegraph” reported that membership of the Conservative Party had “plummeted” under new leader Kemi Badenoch. The Tories had 8,000 fewer members than they did when Ms Badenoch won the party leadership.
At the time of the leadership election, the Tories had 131,000 members but by July this had fallen to 123,000.
The statistics, first reported by “The Spectator” and not denied by the party, were “a further blow to Mrs Badenoch and come amid mounting questions about her future as party leader” said “The Telegraph”.
