Having got their first MP elected to Westminster last year – party leader Caroline Lucas – the Greens are hoping for a second historic breakthrough, this time with Jake Griffiths, leader of Wales Green Party/Plaid Werdd Cymru, leading the charge.
Recent opinion polls have indicated significantly different levels of support for the Greens in Wales – ranging from 4% to 10%, with a 7% vote needed to secure the election of the first ever Green Party member to the National Assembly for Wales.
The Wales-wide Green vote in proportional elections in recent years gives the Greens further grounds for optimism, with the vote increasing from 2.5% in the 1999 Assembly elections to 5.6% in the2009 European elections.
The conference will take place at the Angel Hotel from Friday to Monday, with leaders’ opening speeches from Caroline Lucas and Jake Griffiths on Friday at 13:40 and a speech from deputy leader from Adrian Ramsay at 10:00 on Saturday.
The conference will include panel sessions with guest speakers on:
• Saying YES to a Fairer Wales: How Devolution can Deliver Green Policies (speakers: Jake Griffiths; Patrick Harvie, MSP; Steven Agnew, Northern Irish GP Leader).
• Financial Sector Reform (speakers: Josh Ryan-Collins, NEF; Francisco Padilla, Green Group adviser for the EP Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee; Jesse Griffiths, Bretton Woods Project).
• The Economic Situation in the UK (with Jim Jepps, Green Party).
• The Green Party and the ‘New Politics': The Challenge of Political Pluralism (speakers: Neal Lawson, Compass; John Harris, The Guardian; Prof Richard Grayson, Goldsmiths, University of London).
• Debunking the Bio-fuel Myth (speakers: Keith Taylor MEP; Kenneth Richter, FoE; Robert Palgrave, Biofuel Watch; tbc Pippa Bartolotti, local campaigner).
For more information on spring conference and a full timetable, click here.