PEOPLE Party

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PEOPLE Party
Chairperson Tony Whittaker
National Secretary Lesley Whittaker
Founder Tony Whittaker
Lesley Whittaker
Freda Sanders
Michael Benfield
FoundedNovember 1972 [1]
Merger ofMovement for Survival 1974
Succeeded by Ecology Party by name change
Headquarters Coventry
Ideology Green politics

PEOPLE was a political party in the United Kingdom, founded in February 1972. It was the first Green political party in the United Kingdom and Europe as a whole, [2] and the political predecessor of the Green Party of England and Wales, the Scottish Greens and the Green Party Northern Ireland. [2]

Contents

Origins

In 1971 Playboy magazine published an interview with Paul R. Ehrlich about overpopulation, pledging two years' work to the environmental cause. This article inspired solicitors Lesley Whittaker and her husband Tony, a former Kenilworth councillor for the Conservative Party, to do the same. They were part of an informal group of professional and business people, 'The 13 Club', so named because it first met on 13 September 1972 in Daventry. This 'Club' included surveyors and property agents Freda Sanders and Michael Benfield, who had similar ideas to the Whittakers, and also had a business in Coventry.

Formation

Many in this 'Club' were wary of forming a political party and left in November 1972 when the Whittakers, Sanders and Benfield formed 'PEOPLE' as a new political party to challenge the attitude of the UK political establishment to the environment. [3] PEOPLE's policy concerns published in 1973 included economics, employment, defence, energy (fuel) supplies, land tenure, pollution and social security, as then seen within an ecological perspective. Subsequently recognised as perhaps the world's earliest Green party, PEOPLE published 'A Manifesto for Survival' in 1974 between the two general elections of that year. Many policies were inspired by A Blueprint for Survival (published by The Ecologist magazine in 1972). This was followed in 1975 by A 'Manifesto for a Sustainable Society' under the newly changed name of The Ecology Party. The editor of The Ecologist , Edward 'Teddy' Goldsmith (elder brother of the financier James Goldsmith), merged his 'Movement for Survival' with PEOPLE in 1974. Goldsmith became one of the leading members of the new party during the 1970s.

General elections

February 1974

The party stood six candidates in the February 1974 General Election. They received a total of 4,576. The party lost all of its deposits by failing to win 12.5% of the votes cast, namely a total of £900 (equivalent to £10,000in 2021). [4] Lesley Whittaker and Edward Goldsmith were two of the six who stood in the election.

ConstituencyCandidateVotesPercentagePosition [5]
Coventry North East Alan H Pickard1,3322.83
Coventry North West Lesley Whittaker1,5423.93
Eye Edward Goldsmith 3950.74
Hornchurch Benjamin Percy-Davies6191.34
Leeds North East Clive Lord 3000.74
Liverpool West Derby D B Pascoe3880.94

October 1974

Membership rose and the party stood five candidates in the October General Election which cost the party £750. This affected preparations for that election,[ citation needed ] when PEOPLE's average vote fell to just 0.7%.

ConstituencyCandidateVotesPercentagePosition [5]
Birmingham Northfield Elizabeth A Davenport3590.74
Coventry North West Lesley Whittaker3130.84
Hornchurch Benjamin Percy-Davies7971.84
Leeds East Norma Russell3270.74
Romford L H C Sampson2000.54

1975 conference

After much debate, the party's 1975 conference adopted a proposal to change its name to the Ecology Party to gain more recognition as the party of environmental concern. [6]

Party co-founder Tony Whittaker noted in an interview with Derek Wall '… voters did not connect PEOPLE with ecology. What I wanted was something that the media could look up in their files so that, when they wanted a spokesman of the issue of ecology, they could find the Ecology Party and pick up the phone. It was as brutal and basic as that. PEOPLE didn't communicate what we had hoped it would communicate'. [3]

Derek Wall, in his history of the Green Party, contends that the new political movement focused initially on the theme of survival, which shaped the "bleak evolution" of the nascent ecological party during the 1970s. Furthermore, the effect of the "revolution of values" during the 1960s would come later. In Wall's eyes, the party suffered from a lack of media attention and "opposition from many environmentalists", which contrasted the experience of other emerging Green parties, such as Germany's Die Grünen. Nonetheless, PEOPLE invested much of its resources in engaging with the indifferent environmental movement, which Wall calls a "tactical mistake". [6]

See also

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References

  1. "The Green Party: a short history" . The Independent. November 23, 2014. Archived from the original on 2022-05-24.
  2. 1 2 Encyclopedia of Ecology and Environmental Management. John Wiley & Sons. 15 July 2009. p. 220. ISBN   978-1-4443-1324-6.
  3. 1 2 Derek Wall (2006-10-17). "Another Green World: green party hist ch1, pt 2". Another-green-world.blogspot.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  4. As winning at least 12.5% of votes was required between 1918 and 1985 to obtain a refund of a candidate's deposit.
  5. 1 2 F. W. S. Craig, Minor Parties at British Parliamentary Elections, p.77
  6. 1 2 Wall, Derek, Weaving a Bower Against Endless Night: An Illustrated History of the Green Party, 1994