‘Green Spike’: European Elections to Independence Referendum

Abstract

In this chapter, I show how the 2014 European elections and local elections created an opportunity for voters to switch their General Election vote intention to the Greens, resulting in a sudden upturn in the party’s poll ratings. This upturn in the Greens’ poll ratings was entirely consistent, albeit from a slightly higher baseline, with trends from previous European elections, demonstrating a clear spillover effect. However, along with an improved return of seats in both European and local elections, the Greens’ higher poll ratings set the scene for enthusiastic party coverage throughout the summer by media keen for a second UKIP-esque insurgency narrative. During this period, key organisational and personnel changes in the party, typical of ‘professionalising’ Green parties across Europe, improved the Green Party’s ability to exploit the greater membership and media coverage that would soon follow, as well as re-exposing rifts within the party. North of the border, the Scottish Greens quintupled their membership in the week following the Scottish independence referendum as environmentalist, left-libertarian and less sentimentally nationalistic pro-independence Scots were attracted to the Greens as an alternative to the SNP.