‘Zack is a phenomenal leader’: Siân Berry on the Green party’s next steps as membership doubles | Green party

“SSomeone has to be there to develop the discourse on social security. Someone needs to tackle corrosive attitudes towards welfare recipients,” says Siân Berry, who has just completed her first year as a Green MP in the House of Commons.

She speaks to the Guardian in her constituency office in Brighton, once occupied by the legendary Caroline Lucas who flew a flag alone as the Green party’s only MP for 14 years.

Today, however, four MPs, including Berry, are fighting together, she says, to hold space for the left at a time when she feels the far right has hypnotized the entire body politic. “Often Adrien [Ramsay, MP for Waveney Valley] is the only one to mention animal welfare in Defra questions, or Carla [Denyer, MP for Bristol Central] will be the only one to defend the right of refugees to work in the Ministry of the Interior.” They have all, at different times, been the only party to insist on the need to impose taxes on extreme wealth.

“Caroline was the only voice in Parliament,” she says. “But there are four of us, so we can share the responsibilities. We each follow six government ministries. Berry’s portfolio covers crime and policing, justice, transport, work and pensions, culture, media, sport and democratic standards. “We absolutely have to be ready if a problem arises. In some cases, if a Green is not in the room to ask a question, that question will not be asked.

“Between the four of us, everyone who voted Green across the country needs to be represented,” she said. “And now that the polls are up to 17%, we really feel like we represent a lot of people.”

This is a critical moment for the Green Party. Last year’s elections had unprecedented results, with 6.7% of the vote translating, thanks to several years of hard work and strategic focus, into the four aforementioned seats.

“We had a big increase in new members in 2014 and 2015 and we invested that money in staffing and training people to win elections. And that increase was due to Natalie Bennett who became leader in 2012 and immediately said we needed to talk about more than the environment. We started talking about austerity and contacting unions about workers’ rights,” says Berry.

In 2019, after Berry took over as leader of the party with Jonathan Bartley, the party more than doubled its number of councilors in local elections.

Growth continued after the election. In September, Zack Polanski was elected leader and sparked a huge wave of interest in the party, with membership doubling from 70,000 to more than 140,000, overtaking first the Liberal Democrats and then the Conservatives.

“Zack is a phenomenal leader. I was at school in 1989 when we were at 15% in the polls, but that didn’t translate into seats in Europe at the time. Caroline Lucas was press secretary at the time and mainstream media was all we had at the time. Now we have social media; the vlogosphere, YouTube channels, TikTok and some absolutely understand us.”

Berry has a long history in politics, having spent several years as a member of the London Assembly. But she ran for London mayor three times and twice as a London MP, without success. It was therefore particularly successful when she took the seat of Brighton.

“The incredible team we put together in Brighton made Election Day one of the best for me. From the moment I knocked on the first doors that morning, it was clear that so many people wanted another Green MP and that feeling only grew throughout the day. Ultimately crossing that line with over half the votes in the constituency was proof that a positive campaign can win big.” Lucas, of course, left his mark. “When I’m out and about with Caroline in Brighton, it’s clear how much she is still loved and appreciated by so many people who stop and thank her.

“This is the work I want to do,” Berry says. “There are a lot of rules in Parliament about how things should be done. And the rules are there to leave you a little in awe. But I walked in with over 300 other new MPs; they can’t make us feel small.”

Do Labor MPs envy his ability to speak freely? “Oh, 100%. There are Labor MPs who share our values but they have to be careful. They can speak but not too often, they have to weigh up how often they should oppose the whips; they can sign or move amendments with people like me, but they can’t vote for them. We saw it in the votes on disability benefits and in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in which we put forward amendments on climate and nature.

“There are also the Liberal Democrats, but I would say they don’t have the impact that the four of us have; and that’s because we defend things so easily.”

She is deeply concerned about the right turn. “I’m worried. I always believed that here in this country we had a progressive majority. But now, if you add up all the support for the Greens, the Lib Dems, the Labor, it’s very tight.”

“I think the political space the Reform Party has today to promote its simplistic ideas is reinforced by the fact that everyone feels tired, broken and exhausted – and often angry too.

“Our challenge, which Zack is making great progress with, is to ensure that our values ​​of hope and community building are shared as often as those of the Reform Party. The Reform Party is not asking people to join its party so that they can work together to build community spirit and support each other in response to the issues they face. But that is almost 100% of the Green message. It is so positive to be part of a growing group of active citizens like ours.”

Berry believes that influence on the Labor Party comes not only from the Reform Party but also from big business, such as the big housebuilders. “What Labor is doing is totally wrong – I mean, they’re going after individual species like newts, swifts and snails.

“Admittedly Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has stood up and criticized the Reform Party’s attacks on climate action and I have a feeling it’s the big property developers, who want greenfield land added to their inventories, who are putting the most pressure on this.”

Berry aspires above all to strong action in favor of the climate. “The climate situation is terrible. A two degree rise is in sight. We are on the verge of finding out if we can protect this ecosystem. It is our only home.”