*Green Party ahead of Lib Dems in recent YouGov AND Ashcroft National Polls
*Green vote up 3% with YouGov in last six months
*Polling surge mirrored by rapid membership growth
The Green Party has moved ahead of the Liberal Democrats in the latest YouGov polling for the Sun (1). In the latest poll, released late last night, the Greens are in fourth and up two percentage points to 7%.
The poll comes hot on the heels of an Ashcroft National Poll (ANP) last week (2), which also put the Greens in fourth and ahead of the junior Coalition partners. The ANP poll marked the first time in a decade that the Greens have out-performed the Lib Dems in a poll ahead of a General Election.
The Green Party’s average polling score with pollsters YouGov has risen by three percentage points in the last six months (3). On May 22 2014, the Greens comfortably outperformed the Lib Dems in the European parliament elections both in terms of total vote and MEPs returned (4).
The Green Party, the only party offering a genuine alternative to business-as-usual Westminster politics, has challenged (5) the broadcasters’ proposals to exclude the Greens from the planned televised Leaders’ Debates ahead of the 2015 General Election. Almost 200,000 people have signed a Change.org petition (6) calling for the Greens to be invited.
Leading political commentators have suggested (7) that polling which puts the Greens ahead of the Lib Dems puts pressure on the broadcasters to invite the Greens in the interest of both democracy and fairness.
The polling surge is mirrored by the Green Party of England and Wales’ rapid membership growth in 2014.
1 http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/xzvh9rrpyj/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-291014.pdf
2 http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2014/10/20/ashcroft-national-poll-green-party-polling-ahead-of-liberal-democrats/
3 http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2014/10/27/yougov-‘green-surge’-in-polling/
5 http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/29/bbc-refuses-include-green-party-televised-leader-debates-general-election
7 http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2014/10/30/greens-in-fourth-in-latest-yougov-polling;-twitter-reacts/