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Environment

Can the Green Party Turn Young People's Support into Electoral Success?

According to the VICELAND Census, loads of you bloody love 'em!

Natalie Bennett, former Green Party leader (All photos by Jake Lewis)

We spoke to over 2,500 18- to 34-year-olds living in the UK to explore and document what life is like for young people in Britain in 2016. From Blackpool to Belfast, country fairs to council estates, the nation's youth told us exactly how they felt about money, politics, drugs, sex, music, clothes and everything else that matters. This is the VICELAND Census, all this week on VICELAND and VICE.COM.

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Oh, the Green Party. Just a bunch of people with very strong opinions on hemp, who fight for badgers as we all fight to end a fiscal crisis. What a bunch of hippies, right? Well, if that 's so, then a large number of you, the VICE readership, are beetroot cake-loving hippies too.

According to the VICELAND census, 28 percent of you voted for the Green Party at the last election. And maybe that's no surprise. The party has been becoming increasingly legit over the last few years: they've now got policies on everything from banning Trident to implementing a living wage of £10 by 2020, to increasing NHS funding to mental health services, to inclusive LGBTQ sex education in schools. Maybe it won't be long before those lazy stereotypes I made about the Greens just now are a thing of the past.

When I met recently stepped-down Green Party leader Natalie Bennett at a glass front bistro in St Pancras station – not some vegan caf é in Brighton – she was pretty chipper. "We got 1.1 million votes in the 2015 general election, which is more votes than at all of our previous elections put together. It 's a nice figure," she said.

Asked about her proudest leadership moments over the past four years, Bennett pointed to being included in the 2014 national leader s debate and challenging Cameron on his less than warm welcome to Syrian refugees: "When you're looking someone in the eye, you can really tell what they 're thinking. And I think I made him uncomfortable in that moment. "

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But it's hard not to be cynical about all these shows of progressive politics, and about Bennett 's claim that the Green Party always seems to be "about ten years ahead in the conversation ". Tom Bolitho, co-chair of the Young Greens, told me that they have "a coherent ideology, whereas the others are all quite pick and mix to try and win votes. We stay so true to our ethics, and we are consistent, even in tough situations. " I couldn't help but wonder what tough situations he was talking about – the Greens haven't had that many options to sell out for a sniff of power just yet.

Then there are the times their good intentions simply fell short. Their big idea for the 2015 election, for example, the £71 Citizen's Income, was heavily criticised because it could make people poorer. And who could forget Bennett's famously cringe-inducing "brain-fade" on an LBC radio interview last year, which she claimed was a result of illness and over-work.

Speaking to Jack, a 22-year-old Green supporter, there is a sense that an increased media presence might have harmed rather than helped the party: "In Bennett's appearances she came across as an incompetent leader and made the party appear naive or unprepared, " he said. Which sucks, because "when you look at their policies you realise they're well thought through … many of their concepts have been trialled successfully by progressive countries and are worth debating here in the UK. "

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During our chat, Bennett tried to spin that LBC moment into a positive: "A lot of voters felt for me at that moment, that I had shown I was human and hadn 't been trained to fall back on mantras like lots of politicians do."

Our VICELAND census data seems to chine with other evidence. In one 2014 election poll, over 25 percent of 18 to 25-year-olds said they would vote for the Greens. But the party hasn't just been gathering support from young people – that support has translated into paid-up memberships. A " Green surge" in 2014 saw the membership double in just a year, to 30,000. "I joined in 2006 and we did a survey, and the average age has come down by about ten years," said Bennett. "Thirty percent of our members now are young, under 30s, so we are definitely the youngest major party. "

So are they worried about the competition from the galvanising power of Corbyn on their young progressive voters? Caroline, a Brighton-based 23-year-old, told me that she used to vote Green because "there was such a love for Caroline Lucas around, and the hint at a future that was more sustainable and eco-friendly was so cool. The idea of a party who cares so much was really nice. " But her flirtation with Green was brief because "JC won my heart. It's like there was no one before him. This idea of a new kind of politics is fucking exciting. Especially in a world that's kind of going to shit a bit with potentially T rump as president and fucking Brexit, a politician who genuinely stands for kindness, equality and wants to make positive change is bloody rad. He gives a real shit and hasn't fucked a pig. "

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These Greens just can 't win – their animal rights record seems to count for naught when #Piggate is where the bar has been set.

The party's only MP, Caroline Lucas, thinks the solution lies in progressive alliances and cross-party anti-Tory voting pacts. For Bennett, Corbyn and Bernie Sanders in the US, that has helped normalise radical left-wing policies. "It shows we're winning the argument," said Bennett.

So what can we expect from the Green Party in the next election? "We saved 126 deposits [in 2015], and we only saved six in 2010. If you look at the momentum, if you draw the graph, we 're very much going in the right direction, " said Bennett. But will the party still be counting deposits saved – rather than seats won – in 2020? "We can beat it," said Bennett, referring to the First Past the Post voting system that makes things so hard for smaller parties. "Not just Caroline Lucas in Brighton – we finished second in four seats in 2014. " Look forward to that landslide, or at least a few pebbles rolling down a hill.

Political turmoil and uncertainty about the future just feels like the norm now. But for young people it seems that instability is the opening up of a once unshakeable, boring and hopeless two-party system.

I asked Bennett for her vision of the future of UK politics. "May's got a fractious cabinet and a tiny majority. So if there is one word to sum up the next couple of years of British politics, it 's going to be instability. " And is the instability of Brexit an opportunity for the Green Party? "Well, the public have definitely shown us that they are in the mood for doing things differently. "

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More on the VICELAND UK Census:

Why Young People Are Wrong To Abandon Patriotism

The VICELAND UK Census: Britain, Politics and Discrimination

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